George is back at work again for another half day. The maid comes while I'm hanging out with Regin and cleans the place. This, of course, is right in the middle of nap time, so it screws up our schedule for the whole day. Regin is fussy and needy and I can't do anything but give him my attention. I try to set up our new playpen so I can get him out of the maid's way without physically holding him the whole time, and -- the playpen doesn't work. Ugh. I'm frazzled by the time George comes home. Maybe it's not going to be all that smooth being alone with Regin. I have my doubts that I'm cut out for this. But I have a long weekend of help from George again before he goes back to work for reals. Tomorrow (Thursday) is a muslim holiday and all the offices are closed, then Friday is Easter Friday, and many people are taking that day of as well.
We schedule an appointment with the real estate agent for Friday to see our top 2 apartments again. We head down to the hotel lobby to try and find somewhere to do our laundry, the front desk guy almost laughs as he tells us there are no laundromats here. "You mean, like in Europe where you can go and put your clothes and watch your clothes spin in the machine? No, sorry, we have such service here." So we go back up to sort our clothes for hotel laundry. That's pricey, so we decide to take it to a cleaner around the corner. But I wash my undies and Regin's clothes myself by hand at the hotel.
We still have no way of washing diapers so big R is still in disposables. Joo Lee (like Julie), our agent, was surprised to hear we use cloth since "that's what we used here until disposables were available." Most of the washers available at the apartments only do cold wash, I think we'll need a hot washer for diapers, unless we want to boil our diapers every single time we wash them. Drag! No dryers. And few places have ovens. Malaysian, Indian, and Chinese cooking (the three main groups here) is all stove-top for the most part. And it's all gas stoves -- from tanks. I'm also a little lost because I've been making my own household cleaners for some time now (baking soda & vinegar being the main ingredients I use) but I can't find my ingredients at the store yet. I hate to break down and start buying regular cleaners. Also, we're avoiding the local water, so we're buying bottled water everywhere we eat. My eco/green brain is about to explode with the number of plastic bottles I have put in the trash -- I don't see any evidence of recycling yet. I'm starting to carry our SIGG bottles around with us now, but we still end up buying plastic bottles sometimes when we run out of water.
Back to the mall. What's a day without a trip to the mall? I think we've managed one day so far without a trip to at least one mall. This is so not how I wanted to spend my time here! But we're back to try and return the playpen. They don't do returns, only exchanges. But as they are unpacking other playpens, some of the others have problems too. We think maybe we should get something else, but the only other thing we want (a front-facing car seat) is a brand we don't recognize and need to research. So we leave the playpen and they write a note on our receipt (they don't have official store credit). We go down to the grocery store. The place closes and we're making last minute purchases. I don't recommend closing out the mall here. It's difficult to find your way out, especially if you have a stroller or wheelchair. We hike all over the place till we find a functioning "lift." Malay word of the day: "Lif Bomba" -- The elevator the fire department (Bomba) use if they need to.
DAY SIX -- Thursday
We decide to head into George Town and check things out. First we head to Little India for lunch. It's crazy hot and difficult to figure out where things are, but eventually we find the restaurant we're looking for and head in. Basically we can order a chicken meal (spicy) or a vegetarian meal (not spicy). Descriptive, right?
Anyone else remember the scene in My Cousin Vinny when Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei order breakfast at the restaurant in town. They both browse the menu briefly before nodding to each other and ordering "breakfast." We then find out that the only options are breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Anyway our options are chicken or veg. George does the former, and I do the latter. They come and put banana leaves on our table and put the food right on the leaves.
Cool! That's gotta make for a pretty eco-friendly plate!
The food turns out to be DELICIOUS!
But the heat starts to get to Regin, and he's all sweaty by the time we're done. We walk through Little India a little to head back to our car. I wish I could hang out and shop a little, but Little Man needs some AC. Still, I'm kind of interested.
I remember reading once that India is full of smells, and that when Indian people come to the United States, they remark that nothing smells. When I'd read that, I wondered if India had odor issues, but the locals became so accustomed to them that they missed them when coming to the States. It was interesting to think about the difference in perspective, kind of like when my brother-in-law once told my mom that some people did find the brown-desertish landscape of New Mexico to be beautiful. But if Little India in Penang is anything to go by, the smells they are talking about are not malodorous at all. They are sublime! There were delicate wafts of all sorts of different kinds of incense coming from various directions. You catch a hint of it as you walk by different stores. Between this and smelling incense burning at some open-air restaurants (hawker stands) as well as outside temples, I'm convinced that incense is meant for the outdoors, and I'm so going to start using it that way since I've always found burning it indoors to be overpowering.
A little peek of colonial George Town, where we parked our car.
After Little India, and a little cooling off in the car, we head to KOMTAR. I'd read about it in one of our travel books. It's a 67 (?) story building filled with shops and things. I'm expecting a high-rise shopping mall, totally metropolitan and everything. What I get instead is an old, dingy building, with a few floors at the bottom of flea-market stalls.
We don't stay long. Besides, the place is dead and half the "stores" are closed due to the holiday. As we leave George Town, we see tons of traffic as droves of muslims pour out onto the streets (and into mosques?) for the holiday. I wonder if there is some kind of parade or other spectacle we're missing by heading out of town.Our meandering this time takes us into the hills a tad, towards the Botanical Gardens. I shriek and make George pull a U-turn when I see this:
No, those little brown things there (look closely) are not squirrels. They are a bunch of monkeys hanging out in a parking lot. People are stopping there to feed and commune with the monkeys. It reminds me of people feeding the birds in St. Mark's Square in Venice, only the monkeys are keeping their distance here. In fact, they are so small, and quick, it's difficult for me to get a decent shot of them. Here are a couple of my best.
DAY SEVEN -- Friday
Another real estate day. It's supposed to be shorter, but we spend extra time in each space this time. Our decision is not any easier. I'm still thinking the same things, and stuck on the same points for each place.
Believe it or not, we go back to the mall again. First we try and drive to the cell phone place in George Town. What a nightmare, we keep getting lost and it takes us hours. By the time we find it, the place is closed. Then we eat, then we go to the shops at Gurney plaza.
The Gurney area.This time we're on the floor with lots of electronics shops, baby stores, and book stores. We check out a number of the baby stores. We hop into the book store to look for a map, then over to Toys-R-Us to see if we can find some balls for Regin to play with -- he's ball-deprived right now, and after seeing him play ball with our real estate agent (who also may have taught him how to say "Bye-bye!") we need to buy him some pronto! Then, the mall closes, and we don't have time to do what we came for -- go back to the playpen store. Ugh. We'll have to come back again tomorrow.
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