Penang -- Week 1, Part 2

DAY THREE -- Monday
George goes to work for a half day and Regin and I relax at the hotel apartment. It's nice to have my own food, but I have limited ability to do anything with it since we're still missing many of our kitchen necessities. It's a good day. Regin and I have some tickle time in the morning and then he lays down easily for a nap. I can take some time for myself before George comes home. The ease makes me think we can make it through the next year.

We're watching a lot of TV. There is a lot in Malay and Chinese, just a little in English. Mostly we have two movie channels that play mostly second-rate American movies around the clock. Still, I watch them. It's funny to see the movies that people are getting here on TV. The subtitles are helpful for picking up Malay words. And it's a cultural lesson to see all the obvious censorship. Even fairly tame language is cut out, and love scenes are so jumpy they're almost jarring at times.

So, as far as the language goes, there are signs in Malay absolutely everywhere. Some of them are translated, but many are not. George has figured out that "keluar" means "exit" and I figured out that "jalan" means "street" but we see "awas" absolutely everywhere and have no clue for that one. We were told we wouldn't need any Malay courses to get by here, but that's crap. There are a few people here who are truly articulate in English (and then there is an accent issue, but nothing you can do about that) otherwise we are meeting language barriers wherever we go. Some menus have photos to tell you what you are ordering if you don't speak Malay or Chinese. "Ummm... I'll have that dish there that looks like some kind of noodly thing topped with some sort of meat and some sort of sauce." People have no idea how to help us when we ask for it. The front desk people in our hotel struggle to answer our questions. And then all those signs on the street -- we're just lost there.

George's coworkers take us to an apartment in the Gurney area and it's hideous. They'd sent pictures of it before we came to Penang, we gagged and politely asked for other options, but they wanted us to check it out in person. It's far worse in person. Agilent has the lease on it for another 8 months, so they really want us to take it. No way! They're telling me over and over that it's within walking distance to Gurney Plaza, and I'll need that since I'll be stuck at home all day. Carmen had said something like that to us too. Yeah, right, an American-style shopping mall, that's how I'd dreamed of spending my year in Malaysia, day in and day out, shopping at the Gap and eating at Chili's.

We stick around and check out the shops here. We pick up a playpen since we'll need it when we move into the new place, and we had to leave ours behind in the States. Boy! I can see that our baby costs are going to go up. The only semi-affordable options for playpens and car seats and things are not exactly what you'd call quality. This is what happens when nearly all of these things are imported, huh? We ended up buying a new stroller too because it's taller and George is tired of hunching over our last one. We're no more than 100 feet away from the store when one of the wheels come off. We go back and get a new stroller; we're not exactly impressed.

On the way back to the hotel, George takes a wrong way at a fork in the highway and we end up taking the looooooooooooong drive across the bridge to the mainland. We immediately turn around to go back only to be faced with toll booths. There are lots of signs, and presumably some are for cash, and some not, but who knows since we don't recognize any of the words and there are no handy little icons to show us which is which. Um, hello Agilent? We need those language classes!


DAY FOUR -- Tuesday
George is home all day, but there is no time for play. The real estate agent is coming over to take us to look at a bunch of places.
She's really nice and her English is perfection, so we can even laugh and joke around with her which is a relief. She tells us of all her languages she uses English the most in her daily life and work. Really? She also tells us that "awas" means "caution" and "masuk" --something else we're seeing at all the parking garages-- means "come in" or "entrance."

We start at place number 1.
It's near to an "authentic" Penang wet market (a market where you get all your fruits and fish and such) and is also near to Gurney plaza. Supposedly I can walk to both, but can I do that before the heat renders me unconscious? Who knows? It's immediately behind a row of restaurants which mars the view a tad, but it's a decent space with an absolute ton of natural light.
We have windows all the way around three walls of the building! The furniture is a drag as are the blinds (8 sets in the bedroom alone),
and the bathroom is utter misery. (The picture doesn't do it's disgustingness justice).
The rooftop pool is sweet.
Check out this 360 degree view. Click to enlarge. Poorly stitched together, sorry.
We saw the apartment directly above it. It was still lived in, so we had to take our shoes off before entering. It was kind of a mess, and the kitchen is not as nice. The view is better because it's further above the restaurants, but there is less light. Moving on, we see an ok space with yucky decor. The view is nice, but it's farther from the fun stuff. The biggest bonus is that the grounds outside are kid-friendly. It's the only place out of all the apartments we saw that had a playground, a big lawn, etc..

After that it is another apartment with sinfully ugly furniture but with absolute spectacular views and beautiful landscaping. Here Regin is flirting with the owner.
Then we saw our dream space. It has the most amazingly wonderful modern decor, and nice views of the hills. But it's a little smaller and very, very distant from everything. So unless I drive and we either get a second car or figure out how to share George's car, I'm locked in the apartment at all times. Here are some highlights from the apartment.
View from the "hallway" leading to the apartment.
The entryway. All apartments seem to have them. This is where you take your shoes off. This one had a fabulous entryway.

It also had a fabulous main room. The photo doesn't do it justice. But it was basically a page out of an IKEA catalog. (In case you don't know, that's a really good thing for me.)

This room here is my favorite. I think it's a maid's room.
They recommended it for use as a storage room or office. George suggested an art studio. The light in there is amazing.

The view from the main room is cool, it has the ocean, but it's mostly other apartment buildings and lots of construction. On the plus side the breeze that comes in up here is really nice, so you don't necessarily have to run the "air con" all day long.

Regin played with a ball he found there. We loved this little carpet sitting/play area. We're totally going to steal this idea.

This next photo is really not a good one. Sorry. But I was snapping so fast just to document each apartment for review later that sometimes I wasn't really bothering to make sure I had a decent shot. I didn't intend to show anyone, but now I can't resist. Anyway, enough disclaimer. This one shows part of the view from the broom closet!!
One of the bedrooms...

And now another panorama from this one's pool.

Then we saw another modernish one.
Good views, furniture was tolerable, I guess, but not great. And the floorplan was a little weird. Everything was at an angle. I don't think it was all that close to stuff either. But it had these really beautiful plants in the hall, when you're walking to the apartment. A lot of people put plants and decorate the space outside their apartments. I like that.
The last place we saw was in the same building as the nasty place Agilent wanted us to take. It was better, but still not good. We're struggling to make a decision, but at this point we're between the first place and our dream space. The first space is larger, has good light, is in the middle of everything, has windows all the way around three walls of the building, has an oven, and a cool pool view. But it also has yucky-bad bathrooms, not-so-lovely blinds, old-and-worn-out parquet floors. The furniture is ugly, but it doesn't take up much of the space at all, and we're told we can lose it if we want (for reduced rent), which makes this a blank canvas. The modern place is designed perfectly for our tastes, it has great views of the hills, has a room I'm totally in love with, has nicer bathrooms, has a pool that's shallow for kids, has furniture we wouldn't have to replace because it's nice stuff. But it's smaller, too far from anything to do, has no oven, and is totally imprinted with someone else's design (=little or no room for mine).

Which one do you think we should take? I think we've made our decision, but it's hard to let go of the other apartment.

George thought our real estate agent was going to give us a tour of the island, but once again he's mistaken, she only shows us what's immediately around the apartments. I guess we're on our own here. We'll have to find the hospitals and other things ourselves. We need a map. We bought one at a 7-Eleven, but it doesn't show everything.

Now, after a long day of apartment shopping, I'm now crashing because I've missed lunch and 1-2 snacks. Bummer. I'm also tired and all I want is to relax.