We have made significant progress with our lives here over the past couple of weeks, and a degree of normality has kicked in as we have started to get acclimatised to the weather and culture, as well as the familiarity of being back in 'work mode'.
On a social level, we spent consecutive Thursdays hanging out with Couple 1 and their children, at our respective houses. The kids have enjoyed playing with each other, and the adults have enjoyed some nice food, chat and most importantly, cold alcoholic drinks together. We feel quite fortunate to have met some kindred spirits so soon into our journey. Being back at work has also led me to meet more of the expat teachers, and we now have Couple 3 in our lives, who are from South Africa originally. They are a good laugh, and like to sit around and talk too. My partner and I hosted a drinks night for all the couples we have met so far, including Couple 4, who also have a child and work in a senior role at the school. It was a nice opportunity for us to all socialise and get to know each other. Where we live and work is far away from the main expat hub in KL, so we are sort of the only White foreigners in the village - I kinda like that though. Therefore, it's quite important for us all to make strong social bonds so quickly.
As far as adventures go, we have maintained our commitment to getting out and about and seeing the new society we live in. With our new Malaysian Couple 1 friends, we had a day out together, eating lots of nice food and visiting a waterfall in the jungle (unfortunately the main hub was closed due to some recent deaths, yet there was still a nice part of the stream where we could swim and take in the natural flow of the water). It was great to escape the city and feel at one with nature again - and the kids did really well consider we drove for 4/5 hours of that whole day.
On another trip I took the kids out for a 'day of culture' to Putrajaya, a beautiful city on the outskirts of KL, which is designated as the administrative and civil service hub for the region. It's full of magnificent buildings and a vast array of Green Spaces. I took them to the 'Iron' mosque, which is a well known for its modern and contemporary architecture - people there were super friendly, yet unfortunately Child 1 was whining, and Child 2 was asleep, so we didn't stick around long. They were too hungry, and even though it would have been an ideal place for our picnic - I realised we had ham sandwiches, so we had to eat our dinner in the car park. I then took them to the Millennium Monument, and I was able to read some of the history of Malaysia, as it is all represented in words and pictures on gold coloured plates along the path to the top - being with kids though meant I only got snippets though. The other plans I had had to be curtailed due to closures, but we have left plenty to see on future return visits.
My partner took the opportunity to spend some time with some of the other women from the couples, and they had an afternoon/night out in KL, for food, drinks, and a bit of late night karaoke. I also managed to get out to my second Malaysian punk-rock concert, this time at a different venue, with different styles of bands. As per usual, I will post a separate report about this in my next blog post.
We also made a family trip to central KL to do some tourist stuff: use a rooftop infinity pool with a view (which KL is famous for), eat at a Mamak (Malaysian cafe - although we do that regularly where we are anyway - the title of this piece 'Kuah Banjir', means 'flood my plate with all the different curry sauces'), get some photos outside the famous Petronas Towers (oooh an oil company), let the kids play in the huge central park kids playground, and visit / eat at Jalan Alor night food market (lovely Thai food, and cold beer). We did manage to fit a lot into 8 hours, and the hotel we were supposed to stay at wasn't as advertised, so we kicked off, got a refund after going back and forth for an hour, and then made it home by midnight, fresh for another day.
Speaking of complaining, you have to do it a lot to get things done here - the Malaysian attitude to some things is a lot different than we are used to. I am doing my upmost to not be 'that complaining westerner' but we have had a few minor disputes already with our landlord, housing agent, and internet providers, which wouldn't have got us moving forward into the position we are in now if we hadn't followed the BR philosophy of 'Raise Your Voice'. We still don't have Wifi installed in our house yet though, I love my computer god damn it!
On a work related level I have been back at school for two weeks now. It's been great to meet all the students and staff, and start to get my bearings. I have also had confirmation that the management have seen the value in my experience and labour, promoting me to Head of Humanities. This is a huge career step for me, and an opportunity that I am excited about taking on. In addition to this, I am the only History teacher too, so I am defacto Head of History too, which is another new area of responsibility to get my head around; alongside getting used to new cohorts of learners, working with English as an Additional Language students, and living in a new country - it's going to be quite the challenge in this first term, yet after that, things will start to settle down. Thankfully I have an ambitious, yet down to earth and supportive bunch of people around me, as we work to drive the school forward on its path to success.
The next few weeks we have family visiting, so I am sure we will be still getting Ont Road during the weekends. Till next time, be nice and look after each other.
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