Nancy's KL Journal July 30, 2007

The last week has been a whirlwind. My shipment was delivered on Wed. July 25th. Everything arrived in great condition. I unpacked on the 25th and the 26th and started a list of items that I needed to get at stores. It was a boring list – like a mop, toilet paper, dish soap, the bare essentials for setting up a house.

On Tuesday, July 24th I got my car from an employee at the American Embassy. Doug went with me to pick it up and drive it to my place as I didn’t have the nerve to drive yet. (I did drive it to church on Sunday the 29 and also to work today.)

Last week was lots of getting settled. The school took us on a tour of KL one day and took us out to dinner twice.
Yes, I’ve found a very good dentist in KL. My wisdom tooth broke off and I walked into a dentist office (the woman I got my car from recommended this dentist) and it was walking distance from my house. He fixed the tooth right then and the charge was less than $30.

All is going well. Last week was settling in and trying to get all arranged. I have a cell phone, today I got a land line (I hope to get Internet soon), gas for my cooker, my car (great car), of course my house, furniture from IKEA set up and delivered. Sunday Doug and his family plus Anita Stansell (a new teacher who we know from Newberg, OR)went an international church. I feel so blessed by how everything has worked out.

The pool here is wonderful and the kiddie pool is very nice. Reeve, Gabi and Rania love swimming here and I'm giving lessons to Reeve and Gabi. They will be swimming well soon.

Work has been lots of meetings and getting lots of orientation. Everything is done first class and very professionally. The administration on all levels are very impressive. I've had very little time to be in the library and need to spend some time there - hopefully soon.

It's been cooler here than I thought it would be. I haven't been using AC in my condo and with my bedroom windows open my wake-up is the 5 AM Muslim call to prayer.

I had orientation today and got tons of information. I have both HS and MS schedules to figure out plus just getting to my own computer and figuring out the library and how we'll schedule it. It's been crazy busy - getting settled. Everything takes time.

This AM we had professional development training and after lunch we had meetings with principals. So I met the 1st half with the HS and the 2nd half with MS. We had a very quick tour of the school and it's sprawling. I have notebooks and packets of information to read and digest. After work I came home and my phone was installed.

I found a fruit vendor at the corner by our place about a block and a half away and got fruit there. It was much better than I got at the supermarket and much cheaper - got a fresh mango for about 25 US cents.

Impressions of Malaysia – very diverse and fascinating cultures. I have a TV in my condo and it only gets local channels so my choices are stations in Tamil language with Malay subtitles, Mandarin Chinese with Malay subtitles, Malay that sometimes has English subtitles and some stations have commercials in English and also cartoons. I can get cable here and get CNN, BBC, Discovery Channel, etc. but that’s very low on my priority list.

KL is a city that never sleeps. At the hotel you could look out the window at all hours and there was traffic. From the balcony at my condo I can see a major highway that has 6 lanes and traffic seems to be heavy all day and night and all days of the week. I have a great view of the Petronas towers from my shower and bedroom.

Shopping seems to be a huge leisure activity here. There are lots of huge shopping malls and they are very crowded and we’ve learned don’t go shopping on Sat. or Sunday – so crowded and no parking. Shopping hours seem to be 10 AM to 11 or midnight for most places. I think people like to shop because it’s air conditioned and cool. I tried to go to a grocery store at 9 AM one day and it didn’t open until 10 AM.

Traffic is crazy. It’s the motorcycles that you have to see. They weave in and out of traffic and suddenly appear. I haven’t ventured out to drive outside of my very local area but will need to this week as we have meetings at the elementary campus on Thur. Aug 2nd. Taxis are easy to get and very cheap.

The people of Malaysia seem to be extremely helpful and friendly. Most speak English. Doug and his family and I went to a restaurant and the server didn’t speak English and the menu was in Malay but he got someone else to help us who spoke English.

My neighborhood has many places to eat and most are very reasonably priced. You can get a full meal for $3 or less and you can also pay up to $12 for a dinner.

The Renaissance Hotel was very classy. Doug and Tracy said they didn’t have time to enjoy it but I felt to same way. We had so much on and the first days here and I was just trying to get over jet lag. Getting settled takes time and lots of emotional energy.

For those of you who know Anita Stansell, Reeve and Gabi have adopted her as their new favorite person. I had Anita and Doug’s family over for dinner on Sunday after we went to an international church here. It was fun to have guests.

-Nancy