Steph is "at home" in Kuantan

Downtown Christchurch, N.Z. and punting on the Avon River

When computer-savvy children come back "home", one of their jobs is to clean up the parents' computer files, "fix" things that we have still not learned how to do and this time...create a "blog"! Imagine me and Pat writing our very own blog here in Malaysia to keep our friends and family updated in the best of 21st century technology! So here we are, our first three issues of "My Malaysia" reprinted for anyone who hasn't yet read them and more insights on our life here as I think about them and find them interesting enough to pass along!

Steph is on her first break from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand and has come home to Kuantan for three weeks of R&R, studying for the MCAT exam and Mum's home-cooking! (Actually we find the local restaurants are pretty good and pretty cheap!) We will drive to Singapore on April 21st, spending the night in Melacca on the west coast of Malaysia. Melacca (or Melaka) was settled by the Portuguese and Dutch along with the British, so it has interesting architecture in its many historic buildings as well as many different types of food. From there we will continue to Singapore on Saturday, spending a couple of nights downtown. Steph writes her exam all day on Sunday then we will go out to celebrate the end of studying! The two of us will drive back to Kuantan on Monday afternoon, after the obligatory shopping in downtown Singapore while Pat remains for some business meetings, flying home on Tuesday.

To celebrate Steph's 21st birthday on April 29th, we will be heading to Pulau Perhentian, an island off the East Coast of Malaysia about a four hour drive from here. We will stay at Tuna Bay Island Resort (www.tunabay.com.my) which is a string of wooden chalets right on the beach with the jungle directly behind! We hear there is excellent scuba-diving and snorkeling in the clear water there as well as good food in the local restaurants. What more can you ask for?!?

Steph flies back to NZ on April 30th, resuming classes the next day when she arrives. We plan to see her again in early November when we head back to NZ to do some hiking on the Milford Track before she heads back to the US for graduation from Auburn on December 15th. One thing about living in S.E. Asia, you are always planning the next trip...

Which leads me to say that Pat has business in London, U.K. in early May so I will join him on a ten-day trip there, spending three days in the capital then renting a car and exploring the Southwest (Cornwall and Devon) for a week. We are very much looking forward to it and if any of you have ideas or recommendations of places to stay or visit, please send them along!

More Malaysia wildlife: a very large gray monkey snuck into the pool area at the local Hyatt Resort Hotel one afternoon as we were leaving and helped himself to handfuls of left-over cold french fries! He sat there stuffing his face and as he was being shooed away by a staff member, reached back for one more handful...for the road! One morning Pat called me to the patio doors to witness our little skinny tabby cat snoozing away on one of the patio chairs...we haven't seen him since!



Our side patio










Is it? The Malays love to add the generic expression, "is it?" at the end of a phrase. What is funny (to us) is that the pronoun rarely agrees with the subject, so that you get something like this: "Oh, so your daughter is coming to visit, is it?" or "Pat is away on business this week, is it?" Canadians who use "eh?" a lot can associate with the word, "lah", which many Malays use at the end of almost anything they say. For some speakers, it is more pronounced and noticeable, for others, it is used only occasionally. So you would hear something like, "Come and sit here, lah, and we'll talk" or "We drove to KL, lah, and spent the weekend", and so on. We even hear the ex-pats using it in their speech, so I guess it is catching! Finally, the use of the word, "can": if asked if someone can do something, the answer might be an emphatic single use "can". For added emphasis, you will hear "can can" or "can lah". If the answer is negative, then you will hear "can not". You have to listen closely to distinguish between the second "can" or the "not" to find out which it is to be! More later...jumpa lagi! K.


















Living room-Kuantan house Dining room and dry kitchen


(Note copy of "Afghan Girl" on D.R. wall, this was done in pastel by the in-residence artist at The Hyatt Kuantan Resort as a "Welcome to Malaysia" gift to me from Pat!)