Final thoughts

It has been just over a week now since we have arrived back from our family trip overseas. We certainly have many fond memories of the places we went to and the people we met. It was good to have the 'three' holidays in one, with the 3 distinctly different phases of our holiday.

Back to Malaysia ..... :)
We took a challenge and went to the China Town markets on Saturday afternoon/evening. It was good to see but I did find the prices a bit expensive compared to the local markets that we had been to. By going earlier in the afternoon it was not so crowded for at about 4:30 - 5pm the open street all of a sudden became a filled in street with narrow walkways. With all the children with us, it was best that I walked in front moving from stall to stall, with Marielle taking up the rear. She said that it was funny to see the locals reaction as they counted the number of children each time. The locals also wanted to have photos taken, or to hold the youngest children and oohed and aahed over them due to the colour of their skin and hair. It was kind of cute and it also made it easier when shopping as the shop assistants had no problems helping our Shana or Joshua in looking are Deanne.

Sunday was Laura's birthday. She turned 10. Was was spoilt with jewelry and hair pieces which she now has to make choices of what to wear all the time. We had purchased a birthday cake from the local bakery down the road the previous day and we all got to have a share of it for morning tea. After lunch, we had the opportunity to spend a long time at the pools at the apartments to remain cool. It was a lovely relaxing day, where we also had the opportunity to listen to 2 sermons from different pastors that we had taken along with us. Laura was certainly blessed to be able to share this day in a different country. According to the card that we received in the mail after we got back, she has to celebrate her next birthday in San Diego again. Wouldn't that be great :)

 Birthday Cake

All smiles for the birthday girl

 Presents

On Monday we went to KL Tower, the 5th tallest single tower in the world. The elevator rises at a top speed of 120km/hr and takes 52 seconds to reach the viewing deck. We decided to go the KL tower rather than the Twin tower for we found out that you have the queue for about 2hrs to get into the twin towers as they only allow 1600 people to go up a day to the sky bridge. There is no queue at the KL tower. The view from the Twin Towers is limited as you see the skyline from the 43rd floor but cannot see past the rest of the towers which go to the 81st floor. In the KL tower you have 360 degree views through all the windows. We managed to find our apartment buildings from the tower amongst all the other tall buildings that are found in Kuala Lumpur.

 Twin Towers

 Times Square - were we went to the theme park

 Our apartment - tower on left with flat angled roof

Even the males want to hold the Deanne

After the KL tower I took all the children back to our apartment and Marielle went shopping by herself in China Town at some of the permanent shops along the street and really enjoyed the opportunity. The massage that she had was great as well. She came back please with what she was able to accomplish and buy - and for so little.

Tuesday was spent leaving early from KL to catch the plane, flying home and arriving on our own doorstep. It was great that a number of small shopping items had been done for us and we even had 2 meals prepared for us so that Marielle did not have to prepare anything. Then it was unpack and sort out and start getting back to a normal life again. It's all over - till next time as we would love to go back - except with out the children this time :)

Signing off
Gordon

All creatures great and small

We had more rain last night - even heavier than during the day. It was accompanied by a thunderstorm that lasted for a few hours as well. A real monsoon. The skyline afterwards was very clear, although while it was raining it was only possible to just see the street lights on the freeway about 200m away. Beyond that was solid rain.

It was Wednesday that we went to the Butterfly Park to see the small creatures. It was a hot and steam day. The butterflies were spectacular. There was a huge variety and all flying about. Due to the heat they were more high up in the enclosure than low - but plenty to see anyway. Some even landed on the hands of the children - which they thought was amazing.

Well - maybe not landed - but still beautiful

This is a snake butterfly - wonderful mimicry that God has created.

The scenery was very nice as well.

On Thursday we booked a driver to take us to the Elephant Reserve. This was a 1.5 to 2 hour drive out of the city into the hilly countryside where everywhere you looked was lush rain Forrest.  It was a beautiful drive, especially as the road wound up through the mountains. We stopped at Deerland first, about 3 km from the elephant park. There where not only deer, while you could go in a and feed but, cats (in cages - strange to us hey), rabbits, guinea pigs, chipmunks, snakes - one you could hold as well, lizards, birds, parrots, ferret and a honey bear. We got to have a photo with the bear while it was being fed.

Deanne did not want to get close to the snake.

Just before arriving at the elephant park, we had a go getting dressed in some traditional bark clothing and blowing a dart through the blow pipe to pop a balloon. It was surprising easy to aim and get the target.

At the elephant park, we viewed a video about the relocation of some wild elephants to a rain forest sanctuary. It was sad to see what the elephants had to go through, but it is also understandable given the size of the animals. The video was also a sales pitch to try and raise money for the continued efforts of the work done at the elephant park. This does seem a little strange as it is a government funded activity and they only ask for donations from visitors rather than paying an entry price. We got to feed the elephants and even have a ride on them.

Normally there is also the opportunity to bath with them in the river but due to to very high water levels this was not possible. In fact, we could see the increase in the water levels from the river from when we arrived and left. It had gone up about 30cm.

On the way home again we were driving through the mountains again and could see the great contrast in the dark monsoon clouds and the steam from the forest below. It was amazing.

Kuala Lumpur (KL)

As I sit here and type this blog, I cannot see that far from our 13th floor balcony window. It is very humid outside and the atmosphere is very hazy. The hills that are in the distance cannot be seen. Marielle has gone out with Joshua to do a little shopping to get us through the weekend and until Tuesday morning when we leave from here. The way to get around anywhere in KL is via taxi. They are everywhere and very cheep. For a 15-20 minute ride it costs between 15-20 Malaysian Ringits (MYR)- or $6-7 Australian dollars. It is not worth hiring a car for that.

It was apparent about 30min later way it was so hazy as it started to rain. at first it was only a little we did not think that it wold affect our swim in one of the the complexes 3 swimming pools. It did not take long for the rain to pour down in bucket fulls - our first experience of a monsoon rain.  It was pretty cool the way the rain drops where hitting the pool surface.

The rain has cleared now and 3 of the children are playing in the pool while I can keep typing outside - still connected to the network that is supplied via the apartment hire.

We have seen a few of the sights here in KL. After settling down and getting ourselves back into the time zones again, we went out as a family to the Bird Park. We caught the train after a walk through the park, and ended up near the national Museum. We had a look - but it was not that interesting for the children with the exception of a few exhibits. The bird park was very nice, although as they say on some of the information websites a little expensive to get in compared to other places in KL. There was an amazing range of birds. Some of the colours where amazing. Here are a few of them.

Whoops!! - forgot to rotate this image

Th highlight of the bird park was the Bird Show - were different birds did different sorts of tricks that they had been taught. Some rode bikes or cars, others arranged shapes, others played ringers. It was great to watch. Here is a short video clip.

Sorry - still have to get it off the camera - it will come.

We caught t a taxi back home again. We organised it via a coupon system that they have over here - were rather than hailing a cab on the side of the road, you go to a counter and they organise it for you. To get back to our apartment they had a fixed price of 20MYR We needed 2 taxis so it cost us 36 MYR. We realised later that this was way to much for what we could have payed - but you live and learn.

The following morning I took the oldest children to the Times Square. We took the taxi and then realised how little it could cost us to get into the city centre. It was only 15 MYR - $5 AUS. On the way out of the square - the taxi coupon place wanted to charge us 30 MYR at first and then 25 MYR - both more than I was prepared to pay. WE caught a taxi from the side of the road and it cost us 18 MYR.

The Theme Park at times square did not open until 12pm, so we had to hours to kill in the shopping centre. It was an easy thing to do as you see in the photo as to the number of floors that it has. Count the escalators.

Whoops - also not rotated

The children and I had a great time at the theme park taking the different rides. The first ride we took was a uncomfortable to say the least for the kids and they did not like it. They where going around in circles at high speed and up and down at the same time. They did not like it and where put off the high intensity activities.The favourite of all of them was the bumper cars. They kept on going on again and again. I took the roller coaster ride - and found it awesome. Going upside down and changing angles while traveling at speed was cool. The full 360 lop-da-loop was just fantastic.

Later in the afternoon we all went down to the Mid Valley Mega Mall - upon recommendation to go there. We planned to do some shopping for items that we needed but found that the prices were not that much cheaper than at home. So we planned to take the markets for out purchases. We had dinner at Popeye's - similar to KFC for those Aussie contacts. The chicken coating certainly tasted better than KFC.

Its to hot to type any more - I'm going for a swim. I just checked the weather conditions for KL at the moment an they are - 31degress with 74% humidity.

Cheers

Farewells and Flying

It was with sadness that we left Gert and Nanda's place. We really had a great time there and developed some good relationships with each other. It was a real blessing that we could spend 3 weeks staying in their house.

We travelled back to LA, dropped of the car that we had hired and spent some time at the airport looking around, having some dinner and getting through the various lines to get to the airplane. The flight was a long one - 21 hours and 5 minutes in total. With a late departure time (11:10 pm) the children were tired, especially Deanne. She did not sleep very well. We eventually put her on the floor where she slept until an hour later when the hostesses asked us to put her back into a seat. Because we had the seats closest to the centre of the plane, the seat arm rests do not go up like in the rest of the plane. As a result she was not able to sleep on the chairs. As the plane was partly empty, we swapped some seats with a person behind us and then she was able to lay down on the seats and sleep - whew.

After the 1.5 hr stop over in Taiwan, she and all the other children slept for a few more hours before we arrived at Kuala Lumpur. Getting trough the airport was a relatively quick and we arrived at our apartment. We have not taken any photos of our apartment and the gardens that surround it. If you wish to here is a web link for some pics - http://www.junesapartment.com/.  We have found that it is a well run and secure place to stay. The children have really enjoyed the 3 pools that are on the premises.

We are hopeful of getting out a few times this week to experience some of the sights and sounds of the Malaysian culture. It certainly is different hearing the distant call to morning prayers.

Time together

Spending time together with Gert, Nanda and their children, there have been lots of laughs and special times. Here are a number of photos.