Christmas Vacation to Malaysia (and some other stuff)

We continue to gradually adjust to life in Singapore. On the work front, I had my first couple of late calls with the US. One call went until 1 am, but, fortunately, the expectation was that I would be in late the next morning. Nevertheless, I’m hoping those calls aren’t very common. I’ve also mentioned on the last few blogs about exploring foods. Other than work lunches, I can’t say we made significant progress. I was ecstatic to find out that there is a Pizza Hut here…and they deliver…and it tastes exactly like US Pizza Hut. Glorious. We also went to Chili’s (don’t judge – it was after a long Christmas shopping trip with Avery and we needed some comfort food…with guacamole). Carly did go to Bangkok and I had an interesting Bali Thai lunch (both with plenty of fish heads) so maybe I'm not giving us enough credit.

Avery and Tilly

Our apartment complex is slowly filling up, but we still have it mostly to ourselves. I would say it’s maybe 40% full. Our friends (Lee and Lindsay) rented out the BBQ area and had a catered pool party for their work friends. We, of course, crashed it. Avery’s becoming great friends with their daughter Tilly. She’s almost 4. These same friends also hired a helper who is our helper Jennifer’s aunt. So Avery and Tilly can have even more play dates.

Another adjustment we had to make was the logistics of Christmas shopping. Some learnings. 

• For gift giving, buy far in advance if you want to ship something overseas. We paid for expedited shipping for delivery before Christmas and it didn’t get there on time. Or just do online shopping.
• For gift receiving, get your lists ready far in advance so people can ship to you from the US. Also, do some research on places that deliver locally where family/friends can order online. We were never able to find any places in Singapore that would sell gift cards online.

Wait...this is our plane?!

And last, but definitely not least, we went to Malaysia this past weekend. We spent 3 days on Tioman Island. Singaporeans talk about going to Malaysia like it’s no big deal. Well, it was for us – it was our first time. We had to set realistic expectations before we went, though – it is monsoon season and we heard it rains A LOT. To start off, the flight was an adventure. We flew on a 48-passenger propeller plane that was probably half full. I’m pretty sure this airplane was the 8^th wonder of the world – not sure how it made it this many years. OK, it wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t the smoothest flight and when they turned the AC on it looked like smoke was pouring into the plane. Given the vibrations and humming, that seemed about right. But we made it in safely. The resort was called Berjaya and it was decent (I think we’re definitely spoiled with our Singapore condo). We saw many, many monkeys at the resort – they were there every morning to greet us for breakfast (and snag a dropped banana). While seeing monkeys is cool, there are some aspects of wild monkeys I hadn’t considered – apparently, they are known to break into rooms and steal food. Fortunately, we monkey-proofed our place.

Monkeys at breakfast

Monkeys on the  roof

The infamous giant iguana

View from hotel

Water slides at the pool!

On our first day, we did a half-day snorkeling trip to Corral Island. I highly recommend this. The weather was a bit rough at times (1 of the 6 people on our trip spent the majority of the trip sick, hanging over the side of the boat), but it stopped raining during the actual snorkeling. And the fish came right up to you. Avery loved it. They swam all around us nibbling the bread that was being thrown in. They even nibbled us a few times!!

 

Ummm...these are a bit big

Snorkel site

Petting the blind turtle

On the 2^nd day, we took a tour of the island. The weather did not work out well for us, but we were able to salvage the day. The roads were horrendous. At times, it felt like we were driving vertically up this mountain and then we came to areas where the road was literally just gone. We made it to Juara Village and visited the Juara Turtle Project (http://www.juaraturtleproject.com/test/), which is a non-profit organization focused on saving the local turtle population. We felt a little famous because a Chinese family asked to take a picture with us for no apparent reason other than being American and having a blonde daughter. The monsoon took hold pretty much right after Juara Village, so we didn’t get to see any surfing or the waterfall attraction. We did go to the “marine park”, which turned out to be a pier where you stand and throw bread out in the water. I must say that I was initially disappointed, but it turned out to be amazing. The fish that came were frenzied and huge. Avery had a great time playing the “one for you, two for me” game with bread for the fish.

Juara Village

People - the winds are changing!

Fish feeding frenzy!!

Cheese sandwich lunch
by the airport

Was your card the queen of hearts?

We were scheduled to fly out on Christmas Eve and it almost didn’t happen. When I say almost, I mean we were delayed 4 hours and the crew was to the point where they were huddling and discussing whether to cancel the flight altogether. If that were to happen, the next flight out would be 2 days later and we’d be spending Christmas on Tioman Island or doing a Planes, Trains and Automobiles type trip across the country. We jokingly (somewhat) told Avery that we needed to make a Christmas wish on a Christmas star for a Christmas miracle (this is a quote from one of her favorite movies “Elmo’s Christmas Countdown”) that our flight would leave. The amazing part of the whole thing is that while we waited and waited…and waited, Avery kept everybody in great spirits. There were 14 people on our flight and she entertained them all in the waiting area. She was playing games and bringing her toys over to them (even the adults!). She couldn’t pronounce the names of 2 girls she was playing with so she kept calling them "friends". Every couple of minutes she would run across the room and say “hey, friends! Come over and sit down here!” :) So the moral of the story is that while we were initially focused on the destination, which was via a plane to Singapore, Avery reminded us to appreciate the journey and made everybody forget that we were waiting in this place for 6 hours. In the end, we were happy to make it home, but even happier to have Avery as our Christmas miracle :)

Making friends at dinner

Bye-bye!!