Did you know that rubber comes from trees?  I must have been daydreaming about Kelly Kapowski back in middle school science class when they covered this topic, because I thought rubber came from factories.  I guess that’s synthetic rubber.  Blew my mind.

Our Remote Year Welcome Party was last Saturday and we traveled by bus to a ‘remote’ (#pun) homestay in the country outside of Kuala Lumpur.  We learned about Malaysian culture and did a series of fun activities.

We played with slingshots (Here is Ruslan showing us how it is done):

We played Sepak Takraw (volleyball meets soccer) with the local kids.  This was really hard for me.  You can't use your hands, just your feet and head. When the ball came to me, I instinctively bumped it like a volleyball.  

If you want to see what hard core, competitive Sepak Takraw looks like:

But one of the more interesting events was a demonstration on extracting rubber from rubber trees.  You just carve a couple diagonal lines in the tree, and the rubber seeps out.  

If you touch the rubber with your hand and roll it around in your fingers it gums up and becomes---well, rubber.  Reminded me of Elmer’s glue.

After a traditional Malay lunch, we were given as many duku fruits as we wanted to eat.  Someone said these are langsat.  But we were told duku.  Wiki redirects them both to the same page, but there are slight differences between duku and langsat.  Who knows.  Either way---delicious.  

Kinda tastes like lychee, even kinda looks like it.  But, it's more flavorful and has more of an orange-y taste?  Here's a demonstration for how to peel and eat duku fruit.

It was a fascinating Malay day and I learned lots.  Like the fact that rubber grows on trees.  And people in Malaysia harvest it. 

Mind BLOWN!

Next thing I know, you’re going to tell me that a former reality TV star who publicly mocked a handicapped person got elected President of the United States. 

Oh wait.  That happened.  

MIND COMPLETELY BLOWN INTO SMITHEREENS.