We had a pretty lazy morning. After breakfast we let Millie continue her elaborate scene that she has made up with her playmobil characters. She made them all beds out of tissues, name tags, and set them up around the room. The hotel room looks like someone very crazy is staying here.

Like yesterday, we had a hard time pulling her away. Lots of waiting out in the hallway and loud complaints, especially when she heard we were going to a museum. “Not a museum!!” We walked about 15 minutes and arrived at the Borneo Cultures Museum.

Beautiful exterior and really well done interior. We ended up spending about 3 hours here and it was interesting enough that the complaints ended.

We started in the children’s area, where everything could be touched. This exhibit was about keeping rivers clean. Not the most interesting but it got Millie into museum mode.

The next few floors were about Borneo Culture (duh). The main exhibit separated the cultures by their environments: coastal, rainforest, & rivers. It explains their traditions and ways of life. It was a great mix of videos, art, artifacts, and interactive elements. Other floors explained caves and early Borneo leaders and governments.

I thought about how a fun alternative career path for me would have been museum design. I love thinking about the narrative and pacing of an exhibit. I thought about how important lighting and sound design are. It’s a mix of everything I love in work and life: telling stories, distilling information, interaction/experience/interior design.

We loved it and were so glad to have visited before we move on to different parts of Borneo tomorrow.

After we were done, we walked back to the hotel. On our way Millie was hungry so we stopped for a snack at a cafe. The menu was very traditional and not at all kid friendly, but it had a couple of traditional dishes that we had just learned about in the museum, so we had to stop to try them.

One was a thick paste made out of sago flour. Sago flour is made from the trunk of a sago palm. The texture was like something you’d accidentally sneeze onto your hand at the tail end of a bad cold. It tasted slightly sour. It was served with fermented durian soup on the side. Perhaps the least appetizing description ever? And the serving size was so big.

It gets worse. We also ordered sago grubs. I didn’t try these but Nick described them as “yep that tastes like a bug”.

Millie ate “lamb bites” which were exactly what they sound like. Little chunks of lamb meat.

We walked back to the hotel and she watched her Sunday movie (The Boy and The Heron) while we did some planning.

Just before 6 we began walking over to Topspot to meet our new friends for dinner. Last night Millie’s little friend yelled “see you tomorrow at Topspot!” And we actually made it happen.

This was a large food court with many large tables. We sat down and ordered our drinks. The food menu was extensive. We chose what fish we wanted, and how we wanted it cooked. We over-ordered as usual, because we wanted to try lots of things. We got a large oyster cracker, Jellyfish, midin (a green fern that grows in the rainforest), rice, and a fried fish, Thai-style. It was all delicious.

Millie and Aoife sat together, drawing and passing each other notes.

After dinner, the girls held hands and we walked to the waterfront playground.

They played like crazy until it started getting late and it was time to say goodbye. They both got quite upset, Millie especially. I really feel for her, finally making friends and then having to say goodbye to them forever. We can stay in touch, we can say we may see each other again, but deep down we know that it’s unlikely. She had a good rage-filled crash out and then showered and got to bed.