Happy Gobble, Gobble!

Before I get to the explanation for the awesome new blog design. I want to say a belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all! Hope you had a relaxing, filling, and delicious time with your family and friends this holiday weekend. This is definitely the time of the year when Ben and I miss being home the most. Especially, when there is no Thanksgiving to be had. Although Malaysians eat like its Thanksgiving everyday, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, string beans, cranberry sauce and of course, pumpkin pie are never really in the mix. I actually batted around the idea of having a few Malay friends over for a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner but with the new roommates, research, and other more important plans (see below) there was no time to plan a feast. Particularly, when that feast includes a turkey. I have no idea where I would find a turkey. I was assured I could but never really figured out just how I could make it happen. So I gave up the idea and followed Ben to KFC instead. KFC was of course, Ben’s idea. He said it was the closest thing to Thanksgiving dinner he could think of, despite the fact that in just about every neighborhood there is actually a roasted chicken shop. These shops don’t serve mashed potatoes though and I guess for Ben it’s the mashed potatoes that make the meal. As for me, I went with laksa, a spicy, fishy traditional Malay noodle soup. Pretty sad, huh? Didn’t matter though because we had bigger and better plans for the evening.
This week Malaysia hosted its first Masters Series tennis tournament and to stir up excitement for the event they also played host to two super awesome exhibition matches. The first was on Tuesday between Rafael Nadal and Richard Gasquet. We were there and it was AWESOME! We bought the cheap seats but the stadium was empty and since Malaysians are disinclined to confront anyone in public, we managed to migrate all the way down to courtside seats. It was so fun to be so close to the action. They hit the ball so fast!! Even though it was just an exhibition, both players were there to win and the level of play was great. Admittedly, Nadal was a little sluggish compared to his usual superhustle style but he managed to win 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.

It was also fun to discover that I was not the only female in the audience to love Rafa. There were many people screaming vamos Rafa and the like but it was the young Malay girls in there tudungs screaming I Love you Rafa that killed me. When he took his shirt off at the end of the match I thought they might actually pass out.

Although the Rafa match was a real treat for me, the more exciting exhibition match was held on Thursday between Pete Sampras and Roger Federer!

There is always talk about who would win if ever Federer and Sampras got the chance to play against each other. In his heyday, of course Sampras was incredible and today there is no question that Federer is also incredible but it is tough to say, who would have come out on top if they played in the same era. Well, we still can’t answer that question but we can definitively tell you that today, Federer is no doubt the champion.

Sampras did come out swinging and impressively. He reminded the crowd what a big serve and volley game looked like and matched up against Federer better than any of the currently ranked players. His serve could not be broken, his forehand was fierce, and he even moved well for an old-timer. The first set was an even match and the level of play surpassed anything we saw on Tuesday but in the end Federer won in a tie break. Sampras lost his steam pretty quickly after that. Federer even purposely threw away three break points trying to take us to a third set but despite his best efforts could not manage to lose the second set during the final tie break. Federer kept giving Sampras chances and the unforced errors kept growing, so the match ended at 7-5 in the second set as well.

Even though it did not end with a miracle Federer defeat, the match was definitely worth seeing. I mean it was one of those fantasy match-ups. Unfortunately, it was about 6 years too late for Sampras. He represented well though.

That’s all I got today. Hope you like the new blog design because I think it’s a keeper!!