Daily Doings

While we've had about one big outing a week, I wanted to also capture some of the smaller things we've been doing as we get acclimated to our new home, both our new house and our new city.  Some things we've done on our own, and some things are being organized by the embassy as we can slowly start to get back to normal.  A fun activity was an ice cream social, broken out by age, for the embassy kids.  The ice cream was delicious, and it was so much fun to watch Elena run around the grounds with her friends.

Viv got her special event too, with an outing to see the latest Marvel movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

It was really interesting to watch the movie with Malay and Chinese subtitles.  Even though large portions of the movie are in Mandarin, a lot of the Chinese people who live in Malaysia speak Hokkien.  Apparently, the written characters are the same, but the spoken words are not, so when the movie was in Mandarin, we had English, Malay, and Chinese subtitles.  I know that some people find subtitles distracting, but for me, it made the movie experience more interesting.  Overall, it was a fun movie, and the best part was that Viv was so excited to be up to date on the MCU.

Another outing that both girls enjoyed was a welcome barbecue at the ambassador's residence. They got all dressed up and played croquet for the first time.  They were so excited! They didn't really follow the rules, but since their main knowledge of croquet comes from Alice in Wonderland, it seemed appropriate.

We had actually just bought Viv's dress that afternoon at her new favorite store, at her new favorite mall.  The mall is called My Town, and it's connected to the IKEA I took the girls to, but we hadn't had time to look through it last time.  I think the store is called Room 8008, but there was a lot going on in the name.

Viv didn't want to sit on the bench for the picture at first, but I told her to read what the sign actually said.

We are very much living in the land of Instagram, but that also means that there are lots of beautiful and interesting things to take pictures of.  I loved the Deepavali (that is how they spell the holiday here) decorations,

and the huge, industrial modern book store.

Viv earned her shopping trip by being a cooking dynamo the day before.  First, she made cookies all by herself, and they were the most photogenic batch either of us has made since we moved here.

She also helped Noby make guacamole.  She's especially pleased with the gloves Jeff got her to make sure she doesn't cut her fingers off.

We had bought the ingredients for guacamole the day before at Mr. Po's food truck.  He's just started coming again every Wednesday and Saturday, and it's a fun shopping experience.

We get to chat with our neighbors while we're standing in line to pay, and one of them was awesome enough to help sew Elena a bag for her Arrietty costume.

The neighbor and I had bought the material at Spotlight, also at My Town, which is like a small combination of Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Michael's with a dash of Party City thrown in.  They had the cutest butterfly costume on sale, which I couldn't resist buying for Elena who has been sad that all of her dress up clothes are in the slow, sea freight.

I also got a few Halloween decorations, since our sea freight won't be here until November, at the earliest.

Jeff and Viv did a great job with the bat stick ons.

Jeff has also had fun playing with Elena and her new box of Legos.

It didn't take long for Viv to get in on the action too.

They also have some new watercolors to enjoy.

And there's always the ridiculous number of dolls that we seem to have acquired.

I love that they enjoy playing together, even though they don't always appreciate me interrupting them to take a picture.  Although, the dolls picture was taken by Jeff and sent to me to show that everything was going fine at home while I was out at my first KL afternoon tea with a friend.  The picture was followed by a request for tea pictures, so I took several.

I love afternoon tea, and KL has a long list of hotels that offer fancy ones, so I was really excited when my friend asked if I wanted to try one with her.  We tried the one at the Intercontinental Hotel.  The lobby was very sparkly.

The main feature of the lounge where the tea is served is a lovely waterfall garden, so we made sure we had seats with a view, and we got some bubbly to celebrate.

I'm glad we did, because it ended up being the best part of the tea.  With the understanding that we had a wonderful time enjoying each other's company in lovely surroundings, I have to say that the actual tea and food were a huge disappointment.  I'm not sure if it's a case of trying to get back on track after covid closures, or if it was always this bad, but there were some very clear afternoon tea no-nos.

First of all, they told us that we only got one pot, and it was small.  There were also only a few choices of tea, and no menu or display for us to choose from.  We picked Earl Grey, but it was an off brand that neither one of us had ever seen before.

It was the only tea bag we got the whole time.  They just put more hot water in the little pot.  We were hoping the food would be better, and the presentation was definitely interesting.

Some of the sweets were good, but the savories were all pretty tasteless, and the scones were dry.

Still, we had a lot of fun being food critics, while washing it down with hot water.  We also agreed that this meant we simply had to do afternoon tea again somewhere else, so that we could compare and contrast.  Then, we waited in the lovely lobby for our Grab to come and pick us up.

When the family was driving back from the party at the ambassador's Elena commented on how she really felt at home here.  That was such a wonderful thing to hear.  I've been so worried that with school still online, and most of our stuff still in transit, that the girls would feel unsettled, but they both have made friends and really taken to our new life here.  I have to give credit to a wonderfully supportive embassy and expat community and an incredibly diverse and interesting new country that we now get to call home.