Update on our adventures in KL

 We are still in temp housing for the next month until our place is ready.

Andrew is now putting on his own new shoes.  All the kids here wear crocs (or fake crocs).  Andrew's have the Japanese cartoon Ben 10 on them.

Mike has been out of town a bit (he is currently in Osaka) so Helen and I have been having a ton of adventures.

 Helen's friend Janah came to visit to meet the boys (she hears all about them from Helen) so she wanted a pic with them to take home to show her family.

I went to lunch with some of my expat friends from church to a fab Chinese restaurant at the Pavilion.

Then Hilary and I went shopping.  I put together the list of places to go and her driver took us.  She has a driver.  How cool is that.

 Here is this warehouse of Chinese antiques called Lasting Impressions.

 Seriously the most beautiful pieces.

Next up, grocery shopping!

We usually do our Grocery Shopping at the nearby Cold Storage but it is really expensive since it is an expat area.  This week Helen and I took the boys to Tesco.  It is a bit farther out but it is huge, and reminded me of a mix of the Tesco we shopped at in London and Walmart from the states.

Later Helen was going out with her daughter and grandsons so they stopped by the house to pick her up.  I was so excited to meet her grandson Eeshawnth.  He is 3.5 just about one year older than Andrew.  He is so beautiful and full of energy. 
He made himself right at home and did not want to leave.

Check out his smile.  So gorgeous.

 Helen and her grandson.  Precious.

Helen is Indian Malaysian, so her daughter brought some Indian food from the local Indian restaurant Leaf.  The restaurants put all the "take away" curries in little bags.  This is Masala dosa.  

TO DIE FOR. 

 Joseph is growing a ton.  He is now pulling himself up on everything and starting to cruise.  He is the happiest little guy and quite the superstar in our building (and pretty much every store we ever go in).

 One day after Andrew's OT appointment we stopped by the buddhist temple on Jalan Ipoh to get some vegetarian Chinese food.  They have the best tofu chicken and pork.  It even looks like meat.  And it is more expensive than a typical dish with meat because their tofu is high quality and they spend time preparing it to make it just as good as meat.

Helen took Andrew up to order while I waited in the car with Joseph.

YUM!

Rough week

It was a rough week.

• Mike was out of town.
• There was a cockroach in Joseph's car seat.
• Andrew got sick.

Did I mention there was a cockroach in Joseph's car seat?

______________

On a separate note I did get to go furniture shopping with a friend.  We heard about a Chinese import place crammed with legit antiques (called Danasty nonetheless).  It was quite an adventure.

A quick vid.

Mike is in Osaka this week, so I went house hunting without him. I found a place (below) and made an offer and he hasn't even seen it. He saw the building last week but not this unit. Hence, this video is for Mike. Mike, I really hope you like it because if not, we're pretty much stuck.



Here's an explanation of some parts of the video (it has been quite a learning process learning about how Malaysians build high-end condos).

The first scene shows the private lift lobby (that is pretty standard here).
There are two kitchens (one "dry," one "wet" for the heavy cooking).
That dark room off the wet kitchen is a maid's room (everyone except us seems to have a live in maid).
For some reason there is a balcony off the master shower (strange I know--for access to air con unit maybe?).
The windowed room off the family room is actually a patio (you can pull back all the window/doors).
Each bedroom has its own bathroom (which we won't even use).
There are hard floors throughout. No carpet anywhere (hot weather thing?).
There are usually several agents at each viewing (at least one for client, one for landlord).

House Hunters International: the Finale

I think we may have hit home this time.  

The landlord just accepted our offer.

 

Finally.

So upsetting.

We had our agent notify the landlord that we wanted option B, but we just found out that someone else took it!  They offered 1,000MYR more than what we offered, and they offered to give the landlord until June to move out of the house, whereas we wanted to move in immediately.

 

I am so upset.  Mike and I decided we didn't like option A enough to put an offer, so now we are back to square one.  Again.  

I AM TIRED OF LIVING OUT OF SUITCASES.

House Hunters International: ROUND #2

Well I would like to say that we have a house by now, but we don't.

We found the perfect place (Option #3 from our first house hunting post here) but it fell through because they couldn't find the landlord to make an offer.  So many of these landlords are the jet-setting type that spend their time between Dubai, London etc.  They often just sit on their property, leaving it empty with no rush to fill it.

So since our ideal place fell through, we are back house hunting.  We have narrowed our search to two final buildings.

O P T I O N   A . . .   t h e    c i t y    h a v e n   w i t h    a    g a r d e n    v i e w 

We already had our favorite building from our first post (the one that fell through), so we asked to see other units in that building.  The only floors left were floors three and five (as opposed to floor 18 before!) so the view is not as cool.  Below are pics of the view.  For pics of what the unit looks like inside, go here.

Upsides:

Location:  It is smack in the middle of the city, close to KLCC park and just a skip away from the Petronas Towers and the glorious mall that accompanies it.
Amenities: We love the building's grounds.  Comparing all the buildings downtown, we feel like this one is the best.

Downsides:

Location: Since it is downtown, there will always be traffic.  I have started thinking more about this since we have started therapy for Andrew.  Almost every morning I leave in the car to take Andrew somewhere or to run some errands, etc.  I feel like it will take me much longer every morning to get places if I have to fight downtown traffic.

View: Now that we are looking at the third floor unit, a lot of the appeal is gone because we don't have the grand city views.  It is still a nice view because it has more greenery, but it is still not the same.  Plus they are asking the same price for the low floor as we were going to pay for the high floor originally.

This is the 18th floor (the one that fell through):

 
Verses the third floor view:

Not bad, but not to die for either.



O P T I O N  B . . .   t h e   e x p a t   h i d e a w a y   w i t h    p o o l   v i e w

So we have been staying in temp housing a bit outside the city in an area called Mont' Kiara.  Mont' Kiara is the closest Malaysia gets to "master planned."  Now keep in mind, it is not master planned at all (sidewalks are still a mess, no crosswalks, etc), but at least all the complexes, shopping centers, and malls are new, beautiful and gleaming, and the infrastructure is a bit better than KL downtown.  There is less traffic, and its building projects are filled with expats.

Since living here I have become a bit more enamored with the idea of living somewhere where I actually enjoy driving Andrew to his therapy appointments.  I also really want to find a place with lots of little kids so Andrew will have lots of friends to run around with.  Hence, I asked our real estate agent to show us some four bedroom units in the complex across the street from us because they have a great community of families with little kids (that's where I take Andrew to nursery school).

Here is our favorite unit from this neighborhood.  The landlord is living in the unit so you will see furniture.  They said we can either take the furniture or ask them to move it out.

Front foyer room



Hallway leading into the main living area (I call this the art gallery)

   

Main living area

The balcony--you can sit and watch your kids playing at the pool

Kitchen

Bedroom #1 with view of pool

Master bedroom

This is what the unit looks like without furniture (we saw another unit with the same layout but it had a different view so we didn't like it as much):

Facilities area

Upsides:
Amenities--(pool and playground area) better than anything we can afford in the city.
Community seems great--little kids everywhere which is what we want.
Gorgeous--we really feel at home here and that is really important

Main pool

Baby pool

Adult pool

Playground

All the little kids ran up to Andrew and followed him around (a good sign)

Downsides:

• Further from the city (maybe 15 minutes?).  It's really not that far, but it is definitely not city center.

• No grand city view.  The view is of the greenery and pool area, so it kind of feels like you live at a resort all the time.  But it isn't a high floor and a view of the city like we thought we wanted.

• Let's be honest, it's a little like a scene from "Rear Window."  See below.

Well, there you have it.  Our final two.  Any and all of your advice on picking out housing is appreciated.  

Regardless of which one we choose, this is exciting because we finally will have a real home (after over five months)!