Get a Date, & Burp

Did I get your attention?? Well these ads caught my attention. I think they took the saying "all press is good press" too literally, ha. But you be the judge!


Get a date when you buy a pair of shoes?
It's a bit disappointing when you realize it's a Ken doll, ha.

"Burp" is the name of a new fast food restaurant here. And the target market would be.... ??

Masseuse chat (this one is for the ladies)

I'm happy to report I found us a really good masseuse that comes to our house once a week, conducting 90 minute massages for Ryan & I, for about the price of a three Sprinkles cupcakes. Yes, I'm rubbing it in for all you Americans : )   

I had a very interesting conversation with my masseuse last night, regarding Malay traditions in childbirth.   

(full disclosure: if you're struggling shedding your post-preggo baby weight, I would advise not reading any further or you may end up in tears.. ya know, hormones & all..)

As most of you know, I've had severe back problems for years, and have had a few scary episodes of my herniated discs flaring up and not being able to walk for a few days. When I told this to my masseuse I unintentionally opened up her Pandora's box of eastern remedies for every physical ailment you can think of. This lady is intense. It took her 15 minutes just to explain how she makes her "home-made herbal massage oils", and the proper way to apply them for the utmost benefit. Sold - it works! 

Then somehow we stumbled onto the topic of childbirth, and how the Malay women do things... 

The Malay women are very disciplined (not as much as the Chinese though, she said). They go into "confinement" for 44 days after giving birth. They don't leave the house, entertain guests, etc.. Their sole 'jobs' are to heal and feed the baby. Their mother typically lives with them during that time to ensure they are following the strict Malay diet and treatment plan after giving birth.. and she said these mommas are NOT to be messed with. The goal of the 44 days of confinement is to look and feel 100% back to you pre-baby self by the time you reach the forty-forth day. How have I never heard of this before???

The day the new mom comes home from the hospital after having a baby, the masseuse comes to the house to give the first post-baby massage. It's typically 2 hours, and involves a full body massage with special emphasis on the abdomen. The mother continues this every 3 days during the period of confinement. The process of massaging the abdomen releases all the extra blood, water, and toxins, that are left in the mother's body after giving birth. This expedites the healing process so the uterus & belly fat shrink faster, the hormone levels go back to normal quicker, and the body starts to heal faster due to the increased circulation. 

They have a VERY strict diet, which consists of soups / seafood / veggies; and they can only drink warm water and teas. I'm still unsure about why only warm fluids.. she said it had something to do with cold drinks will slow down the metabolism process or something... I couldn't get a perfect translation on this. 

And get this - the Chinese women only get a confinement period of 30 days!!!! It's incredible to think these women are so pressured to be back to "normal" within a month of giving birth. But, when I look around at all the new moms here, I am a believer in their process. They don't look like they just gave birth - it's amazing, and a little sickening all at the same time. I love them for their discipline, and hate them because they can accomplish the seemingly impossible. 

All I know is, if we end up having a baby while in Malaysia I WILL be adopting the Malay method of confinement. A white girl needs to put this theory to the test... 

Happy First Easter in Malaysia!

Easter was very low-key as Madison & I were coming off two weeks of being really sick.. so we just went to church, stayed for the lunch afterwards for a bit, then relaxed the rest of the day.

Madison awoke to her Easter trail, which is a trail of jelly beans the Easter bunny left her that lead to her Easter basket. She actually had 3 trails because we had a couple of baskets (thanks for all the presents Nana & Papa!), but she only made it down one of them then sat down and started eating the candy. Much like last year.. but we got a bit further down the trail this year : )



Easter box from Nana & Papa...

Window jellies - she loved these!

Part of her Easter dinnerware.. cup, plate, snack bowl.. so cute!

Excited to find a surprise inside..

Ignoring her breakfast and going after the candy..

My beautiful little girl in her Easter dress..

It was a gorgeous Easter morning. View from our lanai of the mosque and downtown..

A job for Tiffany, & a school for Madison

I joined an organization called "ibu," which was established by a group of women seventeen years ago, and is essentially a family resource group (they have a long mission statement - I won't bore you). It's membership base is nearly 90% expats, however in the past few years they've been more heavily involved in local charities / organizations / events, which has boosted it's local membership. It's a wonderful support group for a "first-timer" expat living in Malaysia, like myself. I joined at the urging of one of the moms I met at church, and I'm really glad I did. There are over 1,000 members, so it's a huge network of really talented women from all over the world. Some of my closest friends so far are from Pakistan, England, Australia, Japan, and Canada. Talk about a melting pot! 

I've been a member for just a a few short weeks now, but felt I could make an impact working with them... and it would be a nice break from the hospitality world for a year or so (wink.. for those of you who know what a hot mess that is!). So I applied, and found out today that I'm going to be heading up their online marketing, starting next week. Woohoo, I can't wait to get started! 

Some more good news is we were able to secure Madison's placement in a really nice Montessori school, located in our building - doesn't get much better than that! It's a brand new school (2011), and since our condos are new as well they've been receiving overwhelming interest in the school with new people moving in every week, but we were able to still get in. A few of the other kids we've had playdates with in our condos go there, so it's nice she'll already know a few kids before she starts. She's SO ready to get back into school; it's actually kind of heart-breaking to see her chase down every child she sees to make friends with them. I kind of know the feeling, so I don't blame her, ha! 

The upside is she has NO problems with social skills. Actually, I'm not sure if that will be a good or bad thing in school... I seem to remember getting in trouble for talking too much - yeah, I know, imagine that.

 

We hired a maid, ya! ..then she quit

I've joined a handful of social networking sites, mostly on facebook, to "meet" other expats, and moms with toddlers. It's incredible how nice and outgoing people are here. The minute I joined they started sending me suggestions for things, and links to helpful sites. It has really made the transition seamless.

Most people have a live-in maid here. Mostly because the cost is next to none.. but I'm sure also for the convenience of having a live-in maid / cook / babysitter / etc. When I looked for housing online before we got here I noticed all the postings had a +1 next to the number of bedrooms. Strange. Now I know why - this is the maid's "room." I'm not exaggerating when I say this room is the size of a walk-in pantry. The maid's "bathroom" is a toilette with a shower head over it and one can barely turn around in it. Picture airplane lavatory...

Apparently the battle for a good maid here is pretty fierce, and if one of the "good" maids becomes available, all the moms are in a frenzy over who gets her. One of the mom's FB groups call the rest the "Maid Mafia" and it lists pictures and stories of bad maids so other people won't hire them. Some of the posts are scary, but some are pretty funny too.

I put an ad out for a part-time maid, and my criteria was a bit stiff... especially after reading all of those stories. One of the mom's I met on FB recommended her maid (Lisa), who also watches her son, and has been employed by their family for almost two years. Sounds like a winner!

We invited Lisa over Saturday for an interview and liked her. We offered her the job, after a bit of haggling over the pay, she left happy (so we thought) and would arrive to work Monday morning as promised. However, Sunday night I get a text saying she quits. Huh?? I asked her why and to give us an opportunity to understand what she needed and maybe we could work something out. She wanted a raise (of course) and for us to pay her transportation everyday. Welcome to Malaysia! As an employer I guess it's our job to not only pay them for working, but also pay them to COME TO WORK. Good grief. We settled on an arrangement.. again.. and (we think) all parties are happy.

I guess we'll see when the sun rises on her first day - stay tuned!

Visit to the ER (yep, already)

Madison started running a fever the first night we got into our condo. She crawled up in our bed in the middle of the night and I could tell she had a fever.. she was just on fire. She wasn't throwing up, and was eating fine, so I didn't take her to the doctor right away. I have enough meds to beat a fever.. or so I thought. Day 2 was the same, no break in fever. I took her to the local clinic in Mont Kiara (where we live), based on the recommendation from other expats I've met here, called Global Doctors. They were good, but they gave her the WORST tasting antibiotic I've ever tried, and the flavor on the cough medicine actually said "tastes like sour plum" .. ya, ok, that's not going down.
So by 11pm that night we were getting really concerned, and at that moment she started to puke. It was bad.. she was burning up, not responsive, and Ryan and I tried not to panic as we rushed out of the house to get a taxi. Ryan had made friends with this taxi driver, V.J., so he called him and he came quickly, and broke almost every traffic light getting us to the Prince Court hospital downtown, which is new and they're used to treating expats. The experience was great. They rushed Ryan & Madison right in, as I filled out the weakest questionnaire I've ever seen (took 30 seconds!).
Long story short she has a terrible bacterial infection, and her chest/lungs are full of fluid. They took a throat swab then gave her a quick shower (that was torture for me to watch both) to lower her temp, a suppository of IB profin, and after about an hour her temp started to drop. The docs were great.. stayed with us until all of our questions were answered and we felt comfortable leaving - no rushing us out b/c they needed the bed like in the States. They said it's pretty standard for expats to experience this when they first arrive, as there are so many new bacterias here. We just need to be more careful with hand-washing and making sure she doesn't pick up her paci and put it in her mouth if it's on the floor. That's a whole another story as we're trying to ween her off of it anyway. Wish us luck.
As we left they handed me the medicine for Mads and said goodbye. I looked at Ryan and asked if he already paid, he said no. No one took our information so we were a bit confused how this process worked. I asked the reception desk if I needed to pay or if they'll send me a bill, and they acted like it was an afterthought. Amazing! It's nice to be somewhere where quality healthcare comes FIRST, then you settle payment... especially when it's a sick child. The bill was hilarious, they itemize EVERYTHING.. 2 pair of latex gloves (.$30), 1 popsicle stick for throat swab ($.10), doctor's consult $30, one IB Profin, etc... the total bill was around $60 (USD). Insanely cheap for an ER visit! Here are some pics of that terrible night - my poor baby...

Shopping Experiences, Condo, and Jon's Visit

I know it's been a while, sorry. We've finally moved into the condo and just got internet service. Although it was ordered 2 weeks ago, it was just installed. Welcome to "slow-laysia". That's what I'm now calling it.

We've spent the fast few weeks furniture shopping, and it's quite an experience.. without a car, with a jet-lagged toddler, and no quick places to grab lunch (drive-thru's are non-existent). So it's taken a little time, but we were successfully able to get two beds (one for the master, one for the guestroom), a really cool couch I'm in love with so it may have to go home with us, a few flatscreens, really cool red barstools, ...and after a couple of trips to Ikea we have some plates, silverware, etc.. to make due until our ship arrives with the rest of the stuff from the US.
Here's one funny furniture shopping story I'll share ("funny" as in frustrating then, and funny now). While shopping for mattresses we finally found one brand that wasn't too hard (they're ALL hard here), it's organic and non-allergenic which I have to have b/c of my allergies. We told the sales lady we'll buy two, but she said "no no no, for your guestroom you want this one" and took us to a lesser priced option, which was still pretty soft and had a nice topper. So we agreed. When the delivery man showed up there was only ONE mattress (the guest mattress), as the master bedroom one was not available until the next day. Not shocking, just annoying. So we spent our first night in the condo on the hardest, most uncomfortable mattress we've ever slept on. The next morning we decided this wasn't the one we decided on from the sales floor, b/c there was NO WAY we'd buy something so terrible for our guests to sleep on, so Ryan called to inform the lady we wanted to return it and just get another of the same mattress we ordered for the master. Um, no-can-do. She would not accept the return, and we've learned (the hard way) the customer is always WRONG here and there was probably nothing we could do about it. Crap. Now we're stuck with this terrible mattress. I convinced Ryan to go back to the store and talk to her in person. After sending numerous texts back & forth to each other, with pictures of the fabric, labels, etc.. he convinced her the distributor sent us the wrong one and the version they had on the sales floor was out of date (it had been there 2 years.. no wonder it was soft!). Ryan probably heard "no" for an answer 50 times that day, but he wasn't leaving without a better product. She agreed to a refund and an exchange for the nicer one.

Another thing you probably won't believe is... we bought our SUV 4 weeks ago, but still don't have it! The process it takes here for the inspection, bank to approve a loan, etc.. is just outrageous. NO ONE is in a hurry, except us. I've been here for 5 weeks now (Ryan's been here 8), and I can't stand being without a car for one more minute. If it were just me that would be fine. But trying to get around town, go furniture/grocery shopping, with a toddler, is ridiculous. We were supposed to get it by Easter, but they still have to tint the windows and install the GPS (which are very important), so hopefully we'll have it by this weekend.

The good news is.. where we live is pretty amazing. I can walk down the street in the morning to the Solaris shopping centre and get a coffee, drop off dry cleaning, get some groceries, and take Mads to gymnastics... all without having to taxi. So that is truly the nice part of where we live. We've been walking over almost every night for dinner and just trying something new each day. According to locals, it's not the cheapest place to eat, but it's only $15-20 for all of us to have dinner. I'm talking fresh seafood, rice, hummus, fresh squeezed juices, etc..  it's really great. Ryan usually eats lunch downtown for $2.. and that's more typical of the prices here. Where we live is "expensive" - ha.

Jon Widdifield came in from Hong Kong for a visit this weekend. It was so nice to have him here, and to have our FIRST guest! We took him downtown to the KL Tower, Petronas Towers, Petaling Street (chinatown), Central Market (like an artisans market), and a few of our fave places to eat. He was a wealth of info... having lived in Asia for a while and knowing the ropes. It was fun to go to dinner with him b/c nothing was bizarre to him - he knew what everything was and what we'd like. Jon's last day we went to this Malay-Indo restaurant called Dancing Fish. It was SO good. A famous fruit, usually used in desserts here, is called Durian. It smells like rotting flesh, not kidding. But none of us had seen it anywhere yet, and it just so happened this restaurant used it in their dessert, so we decided to try it. HOLY MOLY it was disgusting! They made it into an ice cream on top of this already-bizarre sundae-type dessert with shaved ice and who knows what else... so it wasn't even at it's full potential. We had to stop at a cookie stand after dinner just to get the taste out of our mouths. Other than that... dinner was great! haha

The pics below are of our first weekend here. We don't have much yet but you get the idea. The outside pics of the city (day & night) are from our lanai.. beautiful views of downtown & the palace. The kitchens here are divided into two sections, they call "wet kitchen" and "dry kitchen", because everyone cooks with a wok. So there are sliding glass doors between the two kitchens so the rest of the house doesn't get smokey while you're cooking with the wok. It's actually nice b/c it makes the kitchen so much bigger, and I can cook in the dry kitchen (the first pic below) while guests sit at the bar. There's an afternoon shower almost everyday, so it's nice that the playground is covered (& protection from the sun too). The pool view (ariel) is from our balcony. Mads and I watch Ryan going for a swim every night after he runs. There's a pic of the wet kitchen below with the stroller in it. I'll post more pics when we have more furniture..