Hello all! This is the new plan to replace random, mass emails: the random, mass blog. Although it appears we've fallen off the face of the Earth, we've actually been here in Kuala Lumpur for about 3 months now and if I must say, settling in extremely well. I'm going to drop in random pics of the kids. Sydney is now almost 5 months, Harrison is 2 years 10 months.Let me just say this. Kuala Lumpur is awesome. I can't imagine an easier expat experience. It almost feels unfair. Everyone speaks English, there's tons to do with small children, tons of other expats and expat clubs with activities and services and everyone is unbelievably friendly. That being said, anyone doing an expat assignment looking for exotic culture immersion, might be disappointed and find KL a bit bland. But when you're a family with small children, convenience trumps cultural experience to some degree so it's perfectly fine with me.
The climate... is tropical. KL used to be one big jungle which much of Malaysia still is. What's great about that is the landscape is extremely lush, the first thing I noticed when we drove from the airport, aside from massive construction projects everywhere. Harrison is in heaven with all the cranes and construction equipment and I get a full report of every one he sees whenever we're in the car. The heat isn't too bothersome. We're typically not out in the hottest times of the day and since this is city-living, you usually are parked in a parking garage, so out of the sun, although if the garage is underground it can easily hit 100 degrees inside.
What I think is coolest here is the multiculturalism. I love it. Everywhere you look, people look different. Although the area we live has a lot of expats so you spot each other everywhere, there's Malays, Chinese and Indian Malaysian. In my first month here, I frequented a multi-national club for young families and met mainly Australians and Europeans. I went awhile without meeting one American. Then I signed up at the American Association, attended a neighborhood playgroup and met some women at the pool, so the number of Americans we've met has jumped considerably. It's great to have someone to talk to from "home" and Andy loves to be able to talk football (not soccer or cricket) with someone, but we do want to venture out and not just hang with Americans here. No offense to all you Americans reading this blog, but if you're going to live in Malaysia, you might as well diversify.
So what I feel about this place is that it is very modern, very urban...but the new cultural experiences are still there all around you. We have a view of two beautiful mosques from the entrance of our neighborhood and can hear the call to prayer when we take a walk in the evening. We were here for the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast to show sacrifice. The last day of Ramadan is the Hari Raya celebration, the largest Muslim holiday of the year. An example of this mix of modern and cultural is I was going grocery shopping one evening and heard a DJ on one station giving times that all the provinces will stop and start fasting for the day, and the next station was playing Ryan Seacrest's American Top 40.
Another cool thing about being so multicultural is there are 15 public holidays in a year. The main holidays are Hari Raya for the Malays, Chinese New Year for the Chinese and Thaipusm for the Indians. But there's tons of other holidays sprinkled throughout like the Buddha's birthday, etc. So Andy gets a ton of days off which we plan to exploit considerably.
When we first arrived here we were in a temporary apartment but have now been in our house, with our stuff for two months now. The most common way to live here is in
a condo, but we found a duplex type house in a gated neighborhood (We live in the right side of the house to the right). We still need things up on the walls but have most things in place. All the electrical and TV systems are different. We have our bigger appliances stored in a room in the house, luckily the house came with major appliances and we have US TV coming to us through the internet (don't ask me, I don't fully understand it). We have to Tivo everything since US primetime runs in the morning here but it's cut down on the TV we watch considerably.
a condo, but we found a duplex type house in a gated neighborhood (We live in the right side of the house to the right). We still need things up on the walls but have most things in place. All the electrical and TV systems are different. We have our bigger appliances stored in a room in the house, luckily the house came with major appliances and we have US TV coming to us through the internet (don't ask me, I don't fully understand it). We have to Tivo everything since US primetime runs in the morning here but it's cut down on the TV we watch considerably.Another observation here is that everything is tiny compared to how we live in the U.S. Appliances are tiny, cars are tiny, parking spots are tiny, the people are tiny. It's actually hard for some Westerners to shop for clothes here because sizes are so small.
We have two cars here, one company car and one we bought. The company car is very big (because we're Americans so of course we picked the biggest one) compared to other stuff here. Driving here has been quite an adjustment. A fair amount of expats have drivers here and they make me feel like a badass for feeling OK to drive myself. But we've had to adjust to driving on the opposite side (British influence in their history), the crazy motorbikes that whiz in and out of traffic and just the confusion from driving in a big city with highway systems that all interlock and criss-cross. I know my specific routes and always have fun consulting my maps and finding something new, but I still don't know how certain areas connect to others and only know one route I'm comfortable with into downtown, but that will come with time. We never get anywhere without getting lost a couple of times. I've only had two minor car incidents. The first I pulled out in front of a motorbike illegally driving down the center line and he rammed my drivers side door. The other was scraping a door in my mammoth vehicle on a pole in a parking garage. Both of which we chose to ignore and despite those slips, I think I'm doing fairly well.
We have two cars here, one company car and one we bought. The company car is very big (because we're Americans so of course we picked the biggest one) compared to other stuff here. Driving here has been quite an adjustment. A fair amount of expats have drivers here and they make me feel like a badass for feeling OK to drive myself. But we've had to adjust to driving on the opposite side (British influence in their history), the crazy motorbikes that whiz in and out of traffic and just the confusion from driving in a big city with highway systems that all interlock and criss-cross. I know my specific routes and always have fun consulting my maps and finding something new, but I still don't know how certain areas connect to others and only know one route I'm comfortable with into downtown, but that will come with time. We never get anywhere without getting lost a couple of times. I've only had two minor car incidents. The first I pulled out in front of a motorbike illegally driving down the center line and he rammed my drivers side door. The other was scraping a door in my mammoth vehicle on a pole in a parking garage. Both of which we chose to ignore and despite those slips, I think I'm doing fairly well.
As for our daily routine, Harrison started a preschool this past week and I think 
that will go really well. We also had our live-in Filipino maid start as well. I know, I know. We suck. It's such a common thing here. There's about 350,000 maids in Malaysia. Non live-in tend to be Malaysian and live-ins tend to be from the Phillipines and Indonesia. Our maid, Reza, worked for a family that recently moved so we scooped her up. She has loads of experience with kids, speaks and reads English and had a great reference from her boss that just left. But I must admit, after one week of it I am kind of weirded out. It's strange to have someone here all the time (except weekend days) but I've already seen the benefits. Twice she's sat for the kids after we put them to bed when we went out, and she could watch Sydney for me while I hung around Harrison's school to make sure he was adjusting OK. So the benefits should outweigh the weirdness here soon.
that will go really well. We also had our live-in Filipino maid start as well. I know, I know. We suck. It's such a common thing here. There's about 350,000 maids in Malaysia. Non live-in tend to be Malaysian and live-ins tend to be from the Phillipines and Indonesia. Our maid, Reza, worked for a family that recently moved so we scooped her up. She has loads of experience with kids, speaks and reads English and had a great reference from her boss that just left. But I must admit, after one week of it I am kind of weirded out. It's strange to have someone here all the time (except weekend days) but I've already seen the benefits. Twice she's sat for the kids after we put them to bed when we went out, and she could watch Sydney for me while I hung around Harrison's school to make sure he was adjusting OK. So the benefits should outweigh the weirdness here soon. So we hope this gives you all a sense of our life over here. I already have more blogs to do but thought I'd get this one out ASAP. We miss everyone and hope you all are well.
-Rusie Family 4
