July 18-21st Lights, Birds and Caves

We have had a great weekend. The first where we have had a Friday night and both Saturday and Sunday free for sight seeing.

Friday night we went to I-city with some some folk from work. I-city is an interesting concept, an amusement park of sorts with some of the usual rides and entertainment but it's main claim to fame is obvious only after dark when the place lights up with millions of LED lights. We arrived before dark and were slightly underwhelmed but as it grew darker we were as captivated as anyone. The horses, flowers and trees were all about 2-3m tall.

Saturday we took the train into the city and went to the bird park. We have seen almost no wild life around our apartment block so it was nice to get into a greener area and see some critters.  Most of the birds were unafraid and allowed you to get quite close.

The horned eagle owl was quite happy to sit on this chaps shoulder.

We took the train again on Sunday but this time went to the end of the line Batu Caves. The caves are one of the most important Hindu sites outside of India. We puffed our way up the 272 steps and arrived in the central cave when a colourful, noisy, interesting Hindu ceremony was taking place.


Hanuman the Monkey God guards one of the caves.
He is not as tall as Murugan who guards the main stairway but we didn't get a pic of him.











Light streams into the  main cave from the sink hole above.

We caught this Indian beauty posing on the
bottom of the steps.

July

July is Ramadan. It has been interesting for us looking at how the festival is celebrated. Traffic seems to get crazier around 4-6pm as every one leaves work and prepares to break their daily fast at one of the many restaurants that have put up special tents and offering yummy meals. That means Andrew has stayed at work latter than he would have like just to avoid the traffic jams.
Shops are full of decorations and large hampers, that seem to be the thing that is given away at, Hari Raya,  the end of Ramadan.

 The decorations are not showing up  very well but you get the idea!

One of the many stalls selling hampers and food 

for the  occasion.

We decided on Sunday that we should visit the Blue Mosque again but go in this time. We dressed suitably modestly and off we went. I had on jeans, short sleeved tee shirt and a wrap over my head and arms - not good enough! I was given a blue robe to wear over top. Andrew had jeans and rolled up shirt sleeves and he was ok! Our guide was very informative and I think he was happy when we went away with lots of literature!! The mosque is a very beautiful building, mind you it cost 70 million US dollars.

The owner of our apartment and her family have been wonderfully good to us. Cecilia has made sure we have everything in the apartment that we need, has bought us fruit from her home village because she says the shop fruit is not fresh enough, taken me shopping and out to lunch at her favourite stalls.  When I had an infected foot she took me daily to hospital to get it redressed. On Sunday night Andrew and I took them out to dinner. What a lovely night it was.

From left to right Kelvin, the oldest son, is doing a post grad on Theatre Direction in the US and  home on holiday,  Eric , Andrew, Cecilia, me. Ben the youngest son, who took the photo is doing a post grad in special education. 

Malls and Towers, June 2014

Malls and Towers

June 2014

Last weekend we visited the huge Sunway Pryamid Mall. Built in an old tin mine the complex encompasses not only the huge shopping mall but several hotels and an amusement park.

This is the view from the Sunway Pyramid shopping centre out across the Sunway Lagoon and amusement Park.

                               

One corner of the Sunway Pyramid shopping mall is this ice rink. The atrium is five or six floors high and people gather all round to watch what's happening on the rink below. Today that was some sort of iceskating competition which was pretty good to watch. Doesn't the competitor look tiny!

On Saturday night we went out with folk from work. First we went to the Heli Lounge. It is bar 37 stories up but the catch is it is on a heli port and there are NO rails or restraints of any sort just a rather skinny safety net at the side. If you took a short running jump you'd be over the edge and freefalling for 37 floors. But the view was amazing.

We went to Jalan Alor for dinner. The whole street is devoted to eating and at night the tables are set out on the road. The food was superb and very reasonably priced. I won’t say “cheap” because although only $35 for the 2 of us, it’s still twice what you can get dinner for at other places!

Kuala Lumpur, a new adventure, June 2014

Kuala Lumpur

June 2014

Andrew got wind of a job in Kuala Lumpur at the end of April and could have possibly gone that week but because of family circumstances that was not possible. Over the month of May he had various emails from Nestle but nothing definite. On Monday 2nd of June, just as we were beginning to think the job would not come off he received a contract by email. On Tuesday he got plane tickets and on Thursday 5th of June, we were off. All a bit of a rush, thanks to friends and family we made it.

Our first week was spent at the Concorde Hotel in Shar Alam. It is a very Moslem area. We are close to the beautiful Blue Mosque. 

Must admit I find it very hot and  trying to keep well covered up when out walking or shopping is difficult. I don't know how the Moslem women here cope with the clothing they wear.

We spent some time in that week looking at various apartment. The agent had assured us short term lease was very hard to get and we should take first the apartment we found. We followed her words... but thankfully someones else snapped it up before us. Very quickly, Eve, the agent, managed to find another eight units!!!!!!!

We have chosen  one in a new development. The apartment is lovely, bigger than what we were looking for but that means plenty of room for visitors. It is not very close to shopping malls or train station but the taxis are cheap and convenient.

The pool is beautiful and I can see we will spend a lot of time here.

The Job

Andrew’s job is with Beca, working for Nestle, who are building a factory to put milo into tetra pak boxes. The job seems to have all the usual stresses, over budget, under resourced and short of time. But Andrew says the folk he is working with are nice and the Indian restaurant close by is good and cheap. What more could you want? Hopefully it continues to progress relatively smoothly.

Differences

As you would expect we are finding a lot of differences between life here and at home. The first and most noticeable for us at this stage is the weather. It is HOT. Even the locals are moaning and saying it is hotter than usual so maybe we have reason to feel rather warm.

We are loving the food and enjoying trying different things. Breakfast in the hotel on our first morning...

I went looking for a new swim suit the other day and was rather taken with this style but in the end decided it probably wouldn't look as good back on Mount beach. Yes it is a swim suit!

We need instructions to go to the toilet!

It will take me a while to be sure of what I am buying when shopping.

We will probably be here for four to six months. It will be fun getting to know this new country!