Week 7: Setia V

While I'm slightly disappointed, I'm not going to dwell on the situation that I broke my streak with no week 6 posting. There weren't a lot of blog-worthy pics taken while our focus was getting the new place outfitted with the furniture and life-stuff to live. 

Instead I'll share a few particulars of our casa for the next 3 years..

Our condo tower on Gurney Drive is called Setia V. We're on the 39th floor above the luminous lobster.

Not a great shot for showing the building, but there's a lot to love about that sign. Here's another shot in the daytime - ours is the dark rectangular one coming up behind the green house. 

 Here's some interior shots. We've got furniture and housewares, still working on the character / artwork for those big white concrete walls.

Apartments here include a division between the wet and dry kitchen, the wet kitchen being where the main cooking is done (below), walled off from the dry kitchen where there's just basic prep (above). The idea behind this is that the prevailing cooking methods here use a lot of oil, spices, and mess - something to keep segregated from the rest of the house. 

Also beyond the wet kitchen is a maid's quarters - includes the world's tiniest excuse for a bedroom as well as a bathroom where you could literally take a shower while sitting on the toilet. Not a great life for a maid...we'll be using this space as storage

The weather / elevation of this place make for some cool views off the balcony - across the water is the port town of Butterworth - this was sunrise this morning

    Here's the same shot after yesterday's cloudburst

Behind the place is a cool hodgepodge of neighborhoods, temples of various faiths, polo grounds, and shops. We've done a little exploring but haven't even scratched the surface - this is the view out of the back bedrooms

And I'm feeling good about my attempts so far at getting back into lap swim - I've had this fancy-man pool to myself this week - way more posh than I deserve -makes me feel like a younger, better looking Jeff Bezos 

Exploring the neighborhood has revealed some great food - one of our new favorite spots is a collection of vendors on the beach. Although in the shot below a rainstorm blew thru and we had to head under cover. Nothing washes down the squid better than 32oz of fresh squeezed watermelon juice

There's a lot of options to explore - I observed these guys in their tank when we arrived

And here they are again, a little later - to be honest, a little less delicious than I had hoped for

Years ago, before we had kids, Joanna took a 4-month assignment in Nashville for a project. Part of the arrangement with her company was that they would fly her home to OR or fly me out every other week. It was great, I was working a schedule that had a 4-day weekend every other week, so we took advantage of the chance to explore the south on my long weekends. Which was the first time I had frog. 

There's a frog-specific vendor at the same beachside food court where I tried the mantis shrimp. The legs were meaty, about how I remembered in chicken-like flavor and texture

What I did not expect was to be served the rest of the frog too. We all remember from high school biology that besides the legs, there's not much left unless you're eating the innards. Frogs are like 0% body fat.

I decided to forgo the frog body. 

I'm not trying to imply we're on a fear-factor menu binge, we mostly eat normal stuff...but a plate of noodles with chicken doesn't really make for an interesting picture.

Finally - explored a Thai temple in the neighborhood yesterday. Super cool to have stuff like this just down the street - cut glass dragons, morose elephants, and a giant reclining buddha.

I did a little googling to try and understand this last deities significance in this version of Buddhism  - best I could find was it was a part of the zodiac creatures. I leave you with - roosterman!