KP in KL

For those of you hoping for a great culture-filled story of KL, sorry to disapoint you this time. Those of you interested in silly things that happen in my life, keep reading. I got a little behind and was reluctant to post this one when I wrote it Thursday without photos out of fear of boring you to death, but I feel now I need to because the issues that seem to find me are somewhat humorous and seem to go well with today's blog. So, I give you one blog post from two days.

Thursday:

While there's not too much new and exciting news to share, I need to get out my word quota for the day and figured I'd be merciful on Paul tonight. So, here goes:

We are really enjoying the new apartment. It's great to have our own place without having to worry about getting kicked out of our room for an hour by the cleaning crew,-they were VERY thorough, and being able to cook and actually wash our own laundry is fantastic. Who knew? Remind me I said that a few weeks from now. So, we now have a lot more room to relax and even have been enjoying the gym.

It's been interesting trying to adhere to the shopping methods of the KL residents here. Instead of making a weekly trip to HEB and filling an entire basket for the two of us, I'm limited to filling only the two nylon shopping bags I carry everywhere, and further limited by the weight which my weakling like linguine arms, can carry. So, shopping has become very methodical with only those items of top priority being purchased at a few trips throughout the week. We've been especially enjoying the very small "4 wheel drive" shopping carts. While it's a little harder to control, if you have to dodge a kid running through the isles you can quickly do a little sidestep with the cart since the back wheels also turn. It makes for an interesting Lipizzon-like shopping experience. And, we've found all sorts of interesting things at the store like the whole fish, or what looks like a 17 pound pet rabbit I once knew, Ricky Bobby, wrapped in saran wrap in the freezer section.


And, when I am not shopping for groceries and staring at rabbits in the freezer section, I love coming across finds like this hand carved sheild from Borneo. Hopefully Paul can find a way to get the handle off the back so I can hang it on the wall.




I'm really enjoying the produce selection here. They have most of the produce you find at HEB, but you pay more for the imported things. But some of my favorites like Asian mango, pineapple, sprouts, bok choy and others are so extremely inexpensive. For example, today I bought enough fruits and vegis to last at least a week and payed a total of $7 US. Not bad! You never know though if they will have what you're looking for the day you go. They have just a small handful of each kind of fruits and vegetables in small wicker baskets, and if they are out they are out. Same goes for the grocery store, which is separate from the produce store. On my grocery trip Friday they were completely out of sugar and said I could come back Monday and they might have it. So, my shopping mindset is slowly being molded and I'm trying to conform to the idea of replacing a few items in a recipe with the items they are selling for the day.

We got news today that our air shipment is going out on the next flight. Hooray! Now we wait. 10-12 days and I will have a blanket to sleep under (I've comfortably gone without one since it's so warm here) along with measuring cups and spoons, my Pioneer Woman cookbook, tools to hang things on the wall and who knows what else our mothers packed up for us after we left.

If any of you are curious about TV and radio here, let me enlighten you. There are lots of TV and radio station that are Malaysian and Chinese, but then there are probably more that are regular stations like we're used to. Since we now have the cable hooked up, we have E!, CNN, Discovery everything, NatGeo, Travel Channel, HBO, Cinemax, MTV, Fox and all the others that air the popular shows like Glee and Australia's Next Top Model. Lately I've felt the need to work out with the salsa and cumbia station, La Bomba in the background, and I'm thinking maybe it has something to do with my subconscious missing the Mexican influence at home! Possibly a replacement for all the green sauce, guacamole, tortillas and margaritas I dream about so often.

I've begun my latest UNHCR project to be completed in the next week. They've asked that I design the folder that they will use for whatever they need a folder for in the next five years. I've come up with a few designs today, and will hopefully send in a few more in the next couple of days, and keeping my fingers crossed they like my ideas.

Now that I've spent a quarter of my day reading Pioneer Woman recipes online, which happens to be one of my secret favorite pastimes, I've got the baking itch. I feel almost as sinfully indulgent just reading her recipes as I do when I'm stuffing my face so delightfully with the product of the recipes. For those of you totally in the dark about this Pioneer Woman as she's known, check her out immediately. You will not be disappointed. www.thepioneerwoman.com If you're trying to stay away from butter though, you better not even look. It will be too large of a temptation to overcome as it has been for me. This is the very reason I have to call on my wonderful sister to whip my whole entire body into shape.
I'm thinking I might attempt to make her orange marmalade yogurt cake
(De-lish!) without any sort of measuring device, spoon, or spatula since they are in my airfreight with everything else. This should be interesting!

So, off I go to conquer this recipe by eye-balling it. I'll get back to you after I clean up the disaster area with hopefully a more exciting story with pictures.

....And I'm back already with bad news. No disaster area surprisingly, and my eyeballs did a wonderful job measuring. But, sadly the fate of my concoction promising so much mouth watering deliciousness was at the mercy of the oven which I've never used, and it decided to shut off 7 minutes into the baking. So I'm left with a disappointing version of a molten-like something or other and an "easy bake" oven that won't turn on. Easy bake,.. not so easy.

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This was where we spent our time this weekend after Paul put in some time at work on Saturday.


Today:

After my baking disappointment last week, I decided to protest my oven situation by not baking, which was convenient considering I didn't even have an oven to use. My chocolate chips were staring me down today though, so I got a second wind and gave in.
I finally called the maintenance men to fix the oven, and they were here in less than 5 minutes and just as baffled as I was as to why the oven wouldn't work. Speaking in Malay, they questioned each other, pushed some buttons, checked the breaker and nothing seemed to do the trick. Nothing until they pulled the oven from the cabinet and pushed the plug in further. Voila! Apparently the plug became loose somehow. Now I know to man handle the oven myself next time for a quick fix. So I'm back in business!

Back in business so much that I of course made an excellent attempt at a new Pioneer Woman recipe for dinner, which turned out bread soppingly delicious. While I cooked, I had the washer going with all the towels in it, the cable tv shut off because the torrential rains that were pounding the heat away and I was blissfully enjoying the sound of the rain on the roof while I had no idea it was intruding into our apartment like the Blob.

There is a door that opens to the outside patio from the guest room. And on that patio is a drain of course, with a two inch step down for flooding I suppose that really did just the opposite of drain the water today. When I took a short break from cooking, in my oven I might add, I realized the entire hallway was filled with about 1/2 an inch of water. So I took of my shoes and treaded lightly only to realize that both bedrooms had been flooded completely with water that was overflowing from the drain outside the guest room patio. Paul of course was at work during this discovery so I called him expecting a quick fix. Instead, he told me to do what I could to fix it, use some towels, and he would be home in a half hour after walking through the rain to buy some dry towels. There's no way the towels would work with the amount of water I was dealing with, especially since they were soaked in the middle of a wash cycle. So, not really sure what in the world to do to fix a drain that was spewing water instead of taking it in, I waded on the patio with water up to my ankles, gave it a good look, and mater-of-factly decided that everyone was better off without me attempting to fix the drain.

And this is how I discovered exactly the purpose of those silly bathroom drains finally! I mopped all the water into the bathrooms of both guest rooms and that was it! So, here's to you Mr. Installer of Pointless Bathroom Floor Drains! I've now decided they aren't so silly when dealing with a flood. Though I would still appreciate an electrical outlet here and there.

A little too much water for the dish towels to soak up even after all the mopping.


Now, after the disaster dessert Thursday, and the wading and mopping today I can say I think I'm prepared for any other surprises this apartment might bring! And you thought KL was going to be nothing but new excitement!