The Feel of the Place

We have now been here nine days & wow …. Things have happened sooo fast. It seems like we’ve been here for ages. But we don’t really know where anything is & we are trying to figure out the food. Our time has been spent:
· Finding a place to live. As Bill said – we have a lovely condo, brand new, simply furnished, fabulous pool. We have gone to the pool each evening about 8:00 and it is sooo warm, relaxing, beautiful….. Our condo is out of town so we have to take taxis everywhere – very cheap - $1.50-$2.00 Canadian.
· Shopping - Buying stuff for the apartment. We needed everything – iron & board, cutlery, towels etc etc. We have bought IKEA stuff to get us started. Bill hates to shop at the best of times & it is wearing him down a bit because it takes so long to buy anything because we do not know brands or we can’t read what the product is. Most local food is very inexpensive but we don’t know if it is what we want – North American stuff is about our prices. But I bought a box of cereal – Kellogg’s – that cost me $10 Canadian …. I didn’t realize that it was imported from Australia !!!!
· School – a number of staff meetings & division meetings. Classes started on Tues so we’ve taught 2 full days. The students are sooo polite, so courteous & very very motivated to do well. Many are on state scholarships and they must do well to maintain the $$ for tuition & housing. Most kids are from other Malaysian provinces but a few from places like China , Iran , Iraq …. Bill & I are having a blast in the classroom. It really is fun. We each have 3 classes a day – no problem. Bill actually has been doing 5 a day this week until a teacher returns next week. He is very tired. He hasn’t done the whole day teaching thing for a long time.
· I have about 6 fully robed Muslims girls in each of my classes. No not the black burka (sp??) but a long dress over long pants & head scarf. They do not look hot & I don’t know why!!!! Students really are quiet and very respectful.
· Night Market – We went to a night market in China town in KL on Sunday night – fabulous, scary, crowded, tiny stalls filled with a zillion watches, purses shoes etc etc I bought a purse for about $25 Canadian but I realized I could have gotten it for about 10-12 bucks!! Next time I’ll bargain more. I got the guy down form RM250 to RM 80 …. I though I couldn’t go any further – I definitely could have.

Subang Jaya is the city we live in. It is about 30 minutes from Kuala Lumpur . Sort of like Mississauga from Toronto . Subaga Jaya is a mix of very modern 1st world shopping & commerce with some 3rd world life styles still lingering. Pollution is pretty bad. Vehicle exhaust is the worst pollutant. People put out their garbage every day & it often rips & scatters & people don’t really clean it up well. Some areas are spotless & clean & other areas are quite littered.

It is hot but nothing we haven’t experienced in Bolton . But it is always very humid. It is about 31 degrees during the day & about 29 at night. Every place, store, classroom, taxi is air conditioned to the max & we are often freezing, but we don’t complain because it feels sooo good.

The food is interesting. We’ve had lots of rice with a variety of veggies & chicken – actually really tasty. I haven’t venture too far from my taste bud safety zone yet!!

The people we have met are wonderful – the school staff members are terrific. The new Canadian group - 10 of us - have gotten together 3 times for short parties – lots of fun. 4 are brand new graduates, 2 are 5 year teachers & 4 of us are retired – a great group. Almost all of us know people in common. It is such a small world.

Internet – we don’t have internet at our condo yet which is why our Blog & e-mails have not started. I’m at school right now & thought I’d put this e-mail together to let you know how we’re doing.

So far it has been fun, tiring, exhilarating & very very interesting.

Kim