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 he convinced her the distributor sent us the wrong one and the version they had on the sales floor was out of date (it had been there 2 years..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..
So glad to know that "my" mattress is going to be of a fine quality!! You forgot to tell the story of the cashier that refused to check Ryan out, even after the manager said "check them out" TWICE.
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