Week 2: Finding out what's better

First of all - kudos to me. Two weeks in a row keeping up with my journaling. One more data point and we can call this a trend. 

Starting to get a handle on the things that feel new - driving, food, my skin made supple by 90% humidity. There's several things that are rising to the top as improvements to life in the US. Think I'll write about a couple of those today.

Have to start with food. When it comes to groceries and grocery stores, its quite a melting pot. Besides the obvious Asian influence, lots of European brands that are new to me, and an Arabic influence as well. Way more efficient here on the loose produce - you bring your mangos, onions, etc to an employee stationed in the produce area who bags and tags your stuff with a barcode so that the checkout doesn't get hung up by looking up what the code is for okra. Also, the pork section is in its own walled room to keep the place Halal, you select and purchase all in the room.

There's no shortage of new snacks to try. I submit exhibit A - the oat snickers. 

I'm a fan, not because its an excellent candy bar, or even the best kind of snickers (that honor belongs to the peanut butter variety). Its great because of its versatility. Upon first bite, it seems like a regular snickers you've had before...after a couple of chews the normal snickers components melt away...and you're left with...a mouthful of oatmeal. I.E breakfast. Snickers-flavored breakfast. It's genius.

More broadly, delicious food abounds here. When we're feeling lazy we'll have fantastic noodles and rice dishes delivered to our apartment. For around $4 total for the two of us. Including delivery. I ordered extra today because I wanted some leftovers. Food in this pic was $10. And tips aren't a thing here.

Yesterday we were feeling like a little western food, and had heard that KFC was really good here. I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I had KFC back home, but we gave it a shot. It was fine, our assessment was the expat that recommended was really missing home and we just haven't hit that yet. One notable thing tho was the cole slaw. It was ice cold, nearly frozen - which to be fair is way better than suspiciously warm slaw. Consistent with the theme, the ice slaw was served with a gelato-sized mini-spoon. On second thought, not sure how this made it into the section of things that are better. Seems to have drafted off of the food section ramblings.

For one last food ramble I submit the adorable dim sum delivery robot who brought my lunch. No further explanation required, just enjoy his cheerful whistling song and adorable bird face

Erik's dim sum robot link on youtube

Also better - gasoline. Government controls the price here (imagine, a government that isn't at the mercy of the petroleum interests!!) After two weeks, today for the first time I filled the tank in my Toyota Fortuner (not a typo, its most similar to a Highlander back home) - empty to full - $25. Could get used to that.

To keep things honest, I offer the following two items that are not necessarily better.

Laundry. Our temp apartment has an all-in-one washer/dryer. Which sounds super convenient except it holds about 4 socks and a shirt for each cycle. And the drying part of things is really more of a bake. Nothing moving, just the soaking wet clothes turning into hot wet clothes. So we're doing more of this now:

Lastly, hazardous reptiles. Walking to the parking garage at work we encountered this dead guy. A co-worker remarked that it was a cobra. None of us wanted to flip it over to validate the claim. But for scale that's a 2" conduit next to him. Lot of meat on that snake.

Because it doesn't seem right to end on that note, I offer one thing that's better. Or at least better than a dead snake. Lots of places have beautiful sunrises, including Oregon. I just didn't have this view from my living room.

Week 1: Launch

 I'm not a very good at journaling. 

Not going to spend any time here reflecting on why it hasn't worked in the past, just going to give it another shot. Also not going to spend time creating a preamble of who I am and why we're on this adventure...if you're reading this you likely already know Jo and me and how we ended up in Penang for 3 years. And how lucky we feel to have this opportunity for adventure. Which, if you haven't already guessed, is what pengembaraan means.

Enough of what this isn't. What I intend this to be is a place to dump my favorite pictures and maybe a few thoughts. By declaring this publicly I'm hoping to pre-shame myself into not fading out...

It's amazing to think that the last week has only been the last week. Figuratively and literally, lots of water under the bridge already

No joke, this was my fortune at the family going-away party. The vacation part is debatable, but a good omen for sure. 

Which led to this

And eventually this - our temp housing on the 22nd floor overlooking the Andaman Sea. You wouldn't know it by the pic but Jo was fighting off the remainder of a cold and was fresh off 28hrs straight of travel. She's unstoppable!

Since that pic was taken a week ago we've done what you might expect in settling into a new place. A couple of househunting trips. Exploring the local food and shopping. Picking up our car. And then learning right hand drive on the opposite side of the street. Which by itself would be an adjustment. The traffic tho...maybe I get into that in a future post. In summary - in a world where lanes don't really exist, just keep flowing and don't mow down the dozen motorcycles that surround you at any moment. 

During our city tour we happened upon a dress rehearsal for a Chinese opera - if you haven't seen it, it's visually impressive. If you haven't heard it...well that's probably OK. It's hard to listen to, even my Chinese co-workers here are not fans of the singing.

I had a lot of preconceptions about what life might be like here. Had heard the food was incredible, the people = super friendly - both of these things have even exceeded what I had imagined. The surprise cool thing that I didn't expect was how much I'd dig the call to prayer coming from the mosques in the morning. The view of the city + the melodic singing + the idea of a whole group of believers united in prayer in their homes at the same time really resonated with me - I think its beautiful

Yesterday (Saturday) we ventured off the island for the first time to go to a co-workers birthday party in Kulim. It was a cultural and culinary feast. Including a couple of lambs roasted to perfection

Lastly, here's a couple pics from my beach walk outside our apartment this morning before church