Leaving the hotel - real life in Malaysia begins
These first two weeks have been crazy with trying to settle in and get everything ready. It has seemed quite strange to know that today I will leave the hotel, move to Putrajaya, and begin my real life in Malaysia.
I successfully drove my car today for the first time, and found that it is not that hard to switch sides, so long as you have cars driving towards you or next to you. The funny thing is that I keep turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal, and reversing, I look over my right shoulder instead of the left. I am normally very good at reversing and find this particularly frustrating. But I will adjust to this too. Luckily I have a Sat-Nav that tells me where to go. If I had to deal with navigating on top of everything else, I wouldn't know what to do!
Today I will drive out to Putrajaya with all of my luggage and purchases, and begin the settling in process. We will see which items have arrived and which haven't, but in general the important thing will be to begin washing my new sheets, drying them, and then setting up the beds and the boys' rooms. They will arrive back from their visit with their Dad next Wednesday. The hard part will be that I will not have an internet connection for several days, and this means that I will not also be able to post here regularly. I will try and type up things at home and upload them at school, but that will all depend upon time constraints. Luckily I have a car, so I can balance my time without having to wait on others, etc.
It is still possible that my shipment will arrive on Monday, but due to the holidays I am not really expecting it. Will my luck hold?? Of course I will also be working on my curriculum. Once I have my room settled in I will take pictures and show the nice space as well. On Monday and Tuesday I will go in periodically to do some work.
Yesterday I did a quick shop for sheets, pillows and blankets to ensure that I have what I need in case the shipment doesn't come for another week. I will also have to go to Ikea and buy some basics there, and begin pricing items to save for over the next months.
The largest shock of the day was going into the grocery stores that I will likely shop in for the extended future. For those of you who have not really lived in Latvia or had the experience of living in Uzbekistan, you can't fully appreciate how this is a culture shock for me. For the last ten years I have been living in countries where it is rarely possible to get many products that you are used to having access to. For instance, in Latvia I could not buy celery, brown sugar, artichoke hearts, and upon originally moving there I would have had more items on the list. This list grew enormously once I moved to Uzbekistan. Here I can get items that I have not seen in years, including many foods that I used to eat in Australia, from Twisties to Vegemite. But that is not the only part of the shock. The larger part of the shock connects to the amount of items available. There is a whole huge aisle of just washing detergents, a huge aisle of toilet paper products in bulk, and once again a huge aisle of cereal choices. I felt like I was back in the US in either Thrifty Acres or Sams Club. The shock was not having seen this in so long, you forget about the abundance in stores.
More unique to Malaysia I also found a fantastic seafood section. There were bins full of squid, fish, shrimp, and crabs. I can't wait to find recipes for and learn how to prepare these items in different ways. Additionally there was a whole aisle of just dried mushrooms! And the variety of ethnic food choices for meal preparation is abundant. Cooking here will become fun again, and I will be able to experiment and enjoy the process. Now to just find access to wet markets where I will also find some cheaper prices on the local foods.
I successfully drove my car today for the first time, and found that it is not that hard to switch sides, so long as you have cars driving towards you or next to you. The funny thing is that I keep turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal, and reversing, I look over my right shoulder instead of the left. I am normally very good at reversing and find this particularly frustrating. But I will adjust to this too. Luckily I have a Sat-Nav that tells me where to go. If I had to deal with navigating on top of everything else, I wouldn't know what to do!
Today I will drive out to Putrajaya with all of my luggage and purchases, and begin the settling in process. We will see which items have arrived and which haven't, but in general the important thing will be to begin washing my new sheets, drying them, and then setting up the beds and the boys' rooms. They will arrive back from their visit with their Dad next Wednesday. The hard part will be that I will not have an internet connection for several days, and this means that I will not also be able to post here regularly. I will try and type up things at home and upload them at school, but that will all depend upon time constraints. Luckily I have a car, so I can balance my time without having to wait on others, etc.
It is still possible that my shipment will arrive on Monday, but due to the holidays I am not really expecting it. Will my luck hold?? Of course I will also be working on my curriculum. Once I have my room settled in I will take pictures and show the nice space as well. On Monday and Tuesday I will go in periodically to do some work.
Yesterday I did a quick shop for sheets, pillows and blankets to ensure that I have what I need in case the shipment doesn't come for another week. I will also have to go to Ikea and buy some basics there, and begin pricing items to save for over the next months.
The largest shock of the day was going into the grocery stores that I will likely shop in for the extended future. For those of you who have not really lived in Latvia or had the experience of living in Uzbekistan, you can't fully appreciate how this is a culture shock for me. For the last ten years I have been living in countries where it is rarely possible to get many products that you are used to having access to. For instance, in Latvia I could not buy celery, brown sugar, artichoke hearts, and upon originally moving there I would have had more items on the list. This list grew enormously once I moved to Uzbekistan. Here I can get items that I have not seen in years, including many foods that I used to eat in Australia, from Twisties to Vegemite. But that is not the only part of the shock. The larger part of the shock connects to the amount of items available. There is a whole huge aisle of just washing detergents, a huge aisle of toilet paper products in bulk, and once again a huge aisle of cereal choices. I felt like I was back in the US in either Thrifty Acres or Sams Club. The shock was not having seen this in so long, you forget about the abundance in stores.
More unique to Malaysia I also found a fantastic seafood section. There were bins full of squid, fish, shrimp, and crabs. I can't wait to find recipes for and learn how to prepare these items in different ways. Additionally there was a whole aisle of just dried mushrooms! And the variety of ethnic food choices for meal preparation is abundant. Cooking here will become fun again, and I will be able to experiment and enjoy the process. Now to just find access to wet markets where I will also find some cheaper prices on the local foods.
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