We have survived our first week of quarantine! There are definitely positives and negatives. We are lucky to have three large, connected rooms, and the food we get is abundant and usually good. We have views over the city, and the girls have not driven us completely crazy, but after a week of not leaving these rooms, we're all a bit frayed at the edges. Still, we are keeping busy, and things are going as well as they can. We spend most of our time in the main room.
When we need a little space from one another, we can retreat to one of the two regular rooms.
Each room has a bathroom with two sinks, a shower, and a tub, so there's plenty of space for each of us to do our thing.
Elena has even appropriated part of her closet as her own private "office".
Vivian made the fantastic contribution of creating a family quarantine schedule for us, and it gives us a sense of structure throughout our days here.
I did the first couple lessons, but then everyone else wanted to get involved and teach about their area of interest or expertise. We've done some classes casting to the television, and some at the table with each of us on our own devices.
Elena even got out her chessboard to demonstrate en passant, a chess move none of us had heard of before.
Reading and writing are also important daily activities. I helped both girls find books, and we brainstormed writing ideas. Of course, Jeff has left us all in the dust. He's finished two books already and is working on his third.
For field trips, we put on an episode of Rick Steves and travel to somewhere in Europe with him. We also have fun special activities, like D&D which we've managed to keep up on the other side of the planet, and new episodes of Loki, which we watch and then dissect with our favorite YouTubers. There's more screen time than we would like for everyone, but I have been able to get the girls to take a break and do things like water painting.
Technology is helping us stay connected and entertained, but the main driver of our daily schedule is still the basic need for food. Jeff keeps grumbling about Pavlov and bells, but when the doorbell rings a little after 8, 12, and 6, we know it's time for our food adventure. We go to our main door, and sitting on the chairs outside are two bags of food.
In theory, an alarm is supposed to sound every time we open our door. Sometimes it rings and sometimes it doesn't. This seems to be the theme of our time in Malaysia so far, a bit hit or miss.
Breakfast has been pretty consistent though. There are always eggs, turkey sausage, hash browns, and what we have determined is a beef version of bacon. Malaysia is a diverse country, but it's predominantly Muslim, so no pork at the hotel.
We've gotten this version of scrambled eggs, regular scrambled eggs, plain omelet, mushroom omelet, and one time, sunny side up eggs. We also always get juice with breakfast. The first couple days we got orange juice, but on the third day, we got mango juice. Elena was VERY pleased.
We've also gotten apple juice and a light green juice. We don't know what fruit it came from, but it was yummy. We don't get any kind of explanation with our meals, so part of the fun is guessing what everything is. Jeff signed up for the "local" food, so his is a real adventure.
Our "western" selection tends to be a bit more identifiable, and there are some consistent staples. We get the same vegetables in different configurations.
Yesterday, the veggies showed up tempura style, which was a first.
Sometimes the breaded stuff is chicken, sometimes it's fish. We also get a lot of straight up chicken breast, and often we have potatoes. Obviously this calls for ketchup, but all you get is what's in the tray, and so far no ketchup has been provided. There are, however, lots of delivery services like Rappi in Colombia, so I've been trying one called Happy Fresh that will pick up food from grocery stores. I have to work within some pretty interesting restrictions though. This is the list of restrictions for ordering delivery.
The print came out quite small, so here are the highlights. Things have to be delivered to the hotel before 5 pm, but they don't get delivered to our room until the 6-8 dinner window. This rules out perishables and means that if you order from the approved delivery restaurants (all of which are unhealthy), your food will arrive lukewarm at best. We are also not allowed to have anything delivered in glass or cans. Condiments are also listed under "non-permitted" items, but when I called the front desk to check, I was told that condiments in PLASTIC containers are okay. Hooray for loopholes! I managed to find Heinz ketchup in a plastic bottle (harder than it sounds, most condiments do come in glass bottles here), and ultra pasteurized milk that could hang out in the lobby waiting to be delivered. I also got some sparkling water in small plastic bottles. We did a couple orders, and I got overconfident. I tried to get better instant coffee (all we have is a water boiling kettle and Nescafe), but it came in one of those tins with a plastic lid, and it didn't make it up :-( We did get some better tea though, so that's something.
In our "living area" there is a half bath with a space that I suppose is meant to be a desk/work area. We have transformed this into what I call the pseudo kitchen.
We use the desk area for snacks and a tea station.
Then I wash our dishes in the sink and use the vanity area for drying.
We have mini fridges in both the bedrooms, but no microwave, so we end up throwing away a lot of food because we can't eat it, can't reheat it, and we know that more will be coming soon. It's wasteful, but there doesn't seem to be another solution. We get at least two garbage bags with dinner each night, and we put them outside our door as they become full. There's no housekeeping, so we do our best to keep the place clean.
The toughest part is not being able to go outside. We are all getting bored and a bit stir crazy, but it is nice to have meals together as a family,
and even though we can't go outside, we have fun looking out our windows at the city around us.
We are definitely ready to get out of here and explore our new home.
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