Home Sweet Home

Alright, week 2 is complete and it’s been quite a busy week.  Saturday we did get the keys to our condo so that Eric could be there for the walk through and handing over of the unit and signing the paperwork.  Woohoo!! Here are some pics…

Our private lobby

View from the main entrance

The dry kitchen…yes, there is a wet kitchen as well off to the left of the dry kitchen (back there is also the laundry area and the maids quarters) we will not be having a live in maid because I like my privacy and I may want to walk around in my panties J

Master bedroom

Living Room

That’s good for now on the pictures of our bare condo.

We were taken out to a Korean BBQ place this week.  It was like an hour away, but it was pretty good food.  The way the Asians do dinner here is a little different from back home.  They spend 3 hours or so doing dinner. So many courses and food coming out all the time and then they spend an hour or more just sitting there chatting and hanging out.  There is never any rush by the servers to bring the bill, in fact they wont bring it until you ask for you it and they never try to rush you out to get someone else in.

Here’s a picture of all the food. They also cooked the meat right in front of us on the little grill in the middle of our table.

Sunday night we took a little nap and woke up about 1:30am to watch the Texans game.  Didn’t happen exactly like we wanted, but the Texans had a good and difficult year and I’m still proud of them!  Better luck next year boys!!

We moved into our new home on Monday and our air freight shipment was delivered.  I’ve spent some time this week unpacking and doing laundry and dishes…housely things that need to be done.  I’ve also done a bit of cleaning in the kitchen before unloading the dishes.  I’ve confirmed my reasoning of hating cleaning.  Which is why I am certain we will be having a maid come once or twice a week to clean!  The sooner the better on that front.

I joined the American Association of Malaysia and attended my first and second event this week. Tuesday went to a bread/pizza/cinnamon rolls cooking class.  I made my first pizza Wednesday night for me and Eric. Let me tell you, I made everything. I made the dough, the sauce, cut the toppings, EVERYTHING.  It was good too.  Might become a weekly thing trying out new toppings and adding different spices to the sauce and so on.  I was very proud of myself J

Today, I went on a walking tour of Chinatown and the Central Market with a group of ladies. I was the youngest person there, as always seems to be the case with me, so I am used to it. I had a good time, it’s nice having things to do outside the home.  Heard some Chinese traditions (they are very superstitious), I saw the oldest Chinese temple in KL among other things.  Pics are below.

Central Market (obviously)

Sea Cucumber is a must for the Chinese to have on Chinese New Year and it's very expensive. The one on the right is about $1000 US per kg

Chinese Temple

On Chinese New Year there will be a line out the door for people to crawl under this table, you must only look forward when crawling under to bring good luck to you in the new year, if you look back you have to stand in line again and do it over

Chinatown

Old Men playing Mahjong

Some of the ladies at lunch from the tour

 Eric has been hard at work all week making the dollars so I can have all the fun ;)

The girls are currently in Amsterdam.  They have a 12 hour layover at the Pet Hotel there (hopefully there are no ‘bakeries’ there, hehe.  From there they fly directly to KL where they spend 7 days in quarantine and then they are delivered to us next Saturday. I am so freaking excited to see those little faces!!

We head off to Pangkor this weekend for the long Chinese New Year Holiday.  Eric has Monday and Tuesday off work, so we are taking advantage of that and of the many sights to see here.  Pangkor Island Beach Resort is where we will be staying if you would like to look it up.  Pictures will be posted next week.

Until then, you stay classy Houston J

Here are some pics from our balcony at night...

The KL skyline with the Petronas Towers

The Kings Billion dollar Palace

Malaysian Invasion

Ok, so my first attempt at blogging...here goes.

We have been here 9 days and it's been a little crazy as well as a little quiet, for me, not Eric.  After spending 10-1/2 hours on a plane to Moscow to disembark and stand in a customs check line for 30 minutes (still don't understand this one Moscow, but whatev), walk through security all to just get back on the plane and then fly 9-1/2 hours to Singapore.  Arrive in Singapore and spend 3 hours in the lounge to take our last 40 minute flight arriving at our final destination and new home, Kuala Lumpur. (Where there happen to be no koala's ;)  )  It takes an hour to get from the airport to the hotel.  Let me tell you, it's quite an exhausting journey. And a smelly one, whew...time for a shower!! :D  No nap though, gotta try and reset your clock as KL is 14 hours ahead of Houston currently.

We walked over to the mall to grab some food and do something to try and keep us going. It's the Year of the Dragon and it is evident everywhere! They have two really big malls in the city center and they are all decked out to celebrate the Dragon. Below are two pictures, one from each mall.

We went out to eat and then I completely crashed in the hotel at 9pm after almost catching some zzzz's at the table, whoops. 

I don't think it's quite the culture shock I thought it would be living over here, yet.  I don't really feel out of place with looks or clothes.  There is a large Chinese population over here and they dress normal (shorts, sleeveless tops, etc).  There also seem to be a few white people here as well.  Whether they live here or are tourist, I can't say just by walking around and seeing them.  I know of the white population that lives here they mainly consist of Europeans and Australians with a small percentage being American.  Interestingly, yesterday I heard from a friend's high school daughter that just moved here that of the American kids in her school, they all seem to be from Texas.  It made sense after she said it as there are a lot of oil companies here and the oil companies in the states come from Texas, Yee-haw! :)

The driving though is another story. It's INSANE!! Eric got our rental car delivered last Friday and we went out driving around the city for a bit.  First off, they drive on the wrong side of the road and on the wrong side of the car, so you have to get used to that. Also, in the states we have these little things called laws for driving.  They don't quite have that here...they are more of guidelines that are not adhered to...Eric seemed to fit right in, hehe. No, but seriously, he's doing well driving over here.  I told him it's because he didn't know how to drive back home anyways. See exhibit A...

and exhibit B of the motorbike skills here...

There are thousands of these motorbikes on the roads, and they have no regard for their own life.  They weave in between cars and traffic and ride the shoulders and it scares the crap out of me.  I have actually seen a family of 4 on one of these, mom, dad and each parent holding a kid...ridic! People die on the road all the time here, usually bikers, too scary. I don't plan on driving while I'm here. Taxis are too cheap to risk it I think.

Saturday, we went and did a little more shopping and ventured out in the car a little more and headed over to Eric's bosses house for an afternoon snack.  Some of you may know his boss, it's Jim Keogh.  He has been Eric's boss previously and brought him over to Cameron and has been a mentor to Eric throughout his career.  And oddly enough, Eric has followed in Jim's career footsteps almost exactly so far.  Jim was also at our wedding, I believe he won the prize for traveling the farthest as he came in from London.  To celebrate us arriving and Eric starting work over here he laid a pretty nice spread for us...

oh, and did I mention the bottle of Dom... :)

MMMMMM, MMMMM TASTY!  That's all I have to say about that.

We had a very nice time over there and Eric and Jim also celebrated with a cigar on the patio that Eric picked up. Note the sign above them. TEXAS BABY!

I know I posted a picture on Facebook about the Fish Spa, but thought it deserved another mention and another picture. Those little fishies are crazy.  The spa has smal fish, medium fish, and big fish (no this isn't a Dr. Suess story). The big fish are ridiculous and I don't think I could handle them.  We had the little fish. They were crazy enough. It feels like your foot is asleep, like all tingly and weird. I have a feeling that I will not be returning. I didn't think it did too much anyway, they are supposed to eat the dead skin off your feet and I still had some on my feet and it's just too weird.  I was just chilling there with little fishies when all of a sudden I felt something different on my foot and it scared the $hit out of me! I looked down and it's one of the medium size fish on my foot...I couldn't handle that. I pulled my feet out and they all swam over to Eric, haha, sucker.  And the big guy came over to Eric and he freaked out a bit too, but he took it like a man. Good on him. I couldn't handle it.

Here's a pic of the big boys...they are like a 100x bigger than the little guys. eeewww.

This week has been a little slower. Eric has worked all week and I haven't done a whole lot. I've gone to the mall, laid a bit when the sun decides to come out and not just the clouds, went over and signed up at the American Association hoping to join in some activities there and make new friends, we'll see how it goes. I signed up for a cooking class next week.  I've worked out a little, just getting back into that, let's just say it's been a while... Dinners with Eric and last night was dinner with a new friend that actually came over on the same flight we did and her daughter.  They were nice enough to invite me out with them to Ikea and dinner after as our husbands were both in Singapore for work that day and night. 

We get the keys to our condo tomorrow, that's exciting. Our air freight has arrived and passed customs, woohoo!  We will have it delivered on Monday. Not too much in there but linens, towels and kitchen ware.  All the big stuff and decorations are in the sea freight which doesn't get here for probably another 6-7 weeks.  And let me tell you, when it comes in and gets delivered I am spending ALL FREAKIN DAY IN BED!!! I miss my bed so much, oh God do I miss my bed.  I'm pretty sure I won't even get up to go to the bathroom or eat.

That's about it for now. You stay classy Houston! ;)

p.s. GO TEXANS!!!

hotel with broadband: 800 ringit a night
nfl.com post season subscription: $70
watching the Texans put a stomp on the Bengals at 6am: PRICELESS

Can't wait to watch them beat the Ravens Sunday night/Monday morning at 2am!!!!!!


LATER... (forgive the no make-up and tired look, this was the first night we got here and I was about to pass out)