Penang Malaysia

We left for Penang early in the morning on Saturday the 29th. We needed to get on the road by 7:00 for an hour ride to the airport. We checked into Malaysia Air domestic for the roughly one hour flight to the island of Penang. It took about an hour by car to get to the Shangri-La's Rasa Sayang Resort and Spa. It is a very nice hotel with great accomodations. They have a special promotion to upgrade to the Rasa Wing. There are so many amenities it was not difficult to decide.
The weather in Penang is rainy but still warm. We think we are mostly going to just lounge and use the great facilities including pools, beach, and a great lounge. This vacation is the first in quite sometime that we have vacationed just by ourselves.

We have also met some nice people here from Perth, Tokyo and Netherlands. They have interesting travel stories that are helpful.

Kuala Lampur

BF and TF left for Malaysia on Thursday night. The Malaysia Air flight to Kuala Lampur was 6.5 hours from Beijing. Getting through the Beijing airport was the easiest we have experienced in some time with small lines. We arrived very late in Kuala Lampur to then take an hour taxi ride into the city. We arrived at the Sheraton Imperial which we discovered was under refurbishment. We were greeted to a wonderful suite on the 36th floor. BF made a quick call to MF's doctor and it was off to bed by 1:30am.
The weather in KL on Friday was hot, humid, and sunny (no rain which was surprising). We started the day with a taxi ride to Taman Tasik Perdana (Lake Garden) http://www.geographia.com/malaysia/klparks.html#gardens which is a beautiful 226 acre park in the middle of the city. We visited the Butterfly and Bird Parks. We had a nice Malaysian cuisine lunch in the park (spicy).

We then went to the Petronas Towers to go to the huge mall to get some Americana and mostly to get some cool air and say that we had been to the tallest building in the world (used to be). We actually got a little crazy or lazy or something and watched Rush Hour 3 at a theater which had subtitles in Chinese and Malay. The movie was pretty funny and we do not go to theaters in Beijing. From Petronas we went to the K-L Tower. It has a much better view of the city and the day was fairly good for viewing. We scouted out our hotel which turned out to be a good thing because later in the evening we walked back to the hotel and some building landmarks helped us to find it. We then walked down P. Ramlee Street, where I had previously seen a couple of large, interesting looking tropical bars. Our taxi driver had told us that P. Ramlee was a famous actor in Malaysia and grew up in Penang. The bar was an open air affair that seemed to attract expats. When it turned dark, the vamps came out to pick up some expats. It was an interesting show. We decided to take a stroll back to the hotel and came across a Hard Rock Cafe where we picked up a souvenir. We then went to a night club outside our hotel. That was an interesting scene. There were several to choose from so we walked both sides of the street to select one. We found a place at the bar and the bartender put on a Tom Cruise "Cocktail" show for us. All to make a sangria. Later in the evening he was twirling a galliano bottle that was lit like a molotov cocktail. He twirled it and threw it behind his back, then put lighter fluid in his mouth and did some fire breathing tricks. The whole time I am thinking if this guy drops the bottle it is going to be a nice fire in the place.

The Knee Follow-Up

So MF had an MRI recently performed and as expected it is a torn ACL. No more soccer for MF, sad. He and BF have been working with the doctors to arrange therapy first to improve range of motion then he has surgery likely early November. BF will travel home to be with him through the surgery. Hopefully he will be partly recovered for his trip to S. America in January.

St Andrews

On Friday morning we started the day with a nice Scottish breakfast at the hotel. We then embarked to get AF a bank account, mobile phone and some dorm room necessities. BF had the bright idea to take a quick little stroll over to the Student Administration Building. It was prior to their opening and nothing is really going on at the University until Saturday. We had the good fortune of running into the head of the international students. She saw us in her office and gave us lots of good information. She directed us to Younger Hall to get a document which proved her address here for St Andrews for the bank. We got a big run around but finally someone was able to log onto the system to pull up AF's accommodation contract. We ran into a mother who was having the same difficulty for her international (Italian) student which was reassuring that it was not just us having the same problems.

We then went to the bank (RBS) just in time. As we got there the lines for student accounts really began to fill up. We ran into the same Mother and her son at the bank (they had tried to get a bank account yesterday but did not have the accommodation contract so could not open the account). We had all the necessary information but it turns out that the account is really only a savings account with an ATM card for withdrawals but no debit card. It is going to take a few days before AF will actually have an account to use and even longer for the ATM card.

Next was the mobile phone. We decided the best route was for AF to get a prepaid phone since she really does not know how much she will use the phone in the UK. The Italian family came in right after us again. Seems like every family is trying to get the same think done for their international students.

AF picked out a black phone that has a really nice plan for international calls. It is only 6p a minute to the US and 5p to China. We loaded up her SIM card and she now has a mobile number, yeahhhh. I loaded in some numbers for her and I tried EF's phone. It rang and I handed it over to AF. She talked for what seemed like a long time. I guess they had a lot to say to each other.

We went to "Wooly's" (Woolworths) to get dorm room necessities. We then went to a pub we had eaten at the last year while visiting St Andrews for a bite to eat and some cider and beer. The rest of the time we wandered around including visting St. James Catholic church to get service hours for AF. We took some pictures of AF outside her dorm building and English department building.

Empty Nest Again

AF is off to Scotland and on to the next chapter in her life. This will be a new chapter for us as well (we had a little rehearsal this summer). The three of us left for St. Andrews to get her settled in to school and UK life with dorm, registering for classes, banking, phones, and all that fun stuff. She has "Freshers week" starting on September 22 and the official start of school is October 1.
She has been getting prepared for her move to Scotland by watching the 2007 Rugby World Cup. I have never seen her so interested in watching a sport on TV before. We even went to an Expat Pub in Beijing (the Pavilion) for dinner and drinks a couple of times to watch the games. It has been interesting.

The trip to Scotland was filled with adventure. First we went to check in at KLM with 4 large heavy bags which will be AF's belongings at St. Andrews. We presented our itinerary to the ticketing agent who then asked us for our paper tickets. Ooooops. We were pulled aside for some special processing until BF realized she had the paper tickets. We got back in line to discover a weight restriction on bags of 20Kg per passenger. I won't even tell you how much the overage cost was, ouch.

Next we got on the plane and were seated in a row that backed restricted our seats from reclining normally and it looked like they had crammed this seating in on the 747. We had very little space between the seats in front of us. I should have taken a picture. At least it was only a 9.5 hour ride.

We arrived at Amsterdam on time and lounged around for the next 3 hours while we waited to get on a short 1.5 hour ride to Edinburgh. We presented our boarding passes to get on the shuttle bus out to the plane. A ticketing agent got on the bus asking for passengers with our last name. "we need your paper tickets". BF fished out the paper tickets again for the agent.

We arrived at Edinburgh on time and had difficulty locating our driver to St. Andrews. We hunted and paged the driver but nothing. We had a reservation with contact information. I called on a pay phone but did not have any coins for the phone so I used the debit card (big $10/call mistake). I called the mobile phone number but it rang once and hung up. I tried the office number and it referred me to the mobile number. BF went to the information center and they placed the call for her. Turns out you have to call them as they are sitting in the parking lot. Uggh. We arrived at the hotel around 15 hours after the trip started from our apartment in Beijing.

Sightseeing with Family

We have been showing BF's Father and Brother around Beijing (well really BF has been the primary tour guide, since I still need to go to work except on the weekends). They have visited the usual places like the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Hutongs, great dining, shopping, etc.

On Saturday we visited an 81 year old man who lives in a small hutong home and is know for some of his folk toy (the paper ball). Our good expat friend took us to visit Mr. Shi and was kind to translate the conversation for us. It was an amazing uniquely China experience. Mr. Shi even showed us a TV news segment that he was featured in. We all crowded into his small bedroom where he had a TV and DVD player and sat on the bed to watch. It was very a very interesting video that was a mix between English and Chinese.

Then our friend introduced us to the very first privately owned restaurant in China and we took a picture with the owner (below). Our friend is on the left and our driver is on the right.We then went to a section of town where they sold items for Beijing men's leisure activities such as: cricket paraphernalia, walnuts (2) used for moving in one hand, birds, fans, etc. It was amazing. We walked away with a gord to hold a cricket in and a cricket box.

We have also been watching the Rugby 2007 World Cup. Even AF was very interested and was excited to go to the Pavillion ( local sports bar/restaurant with outdoor big screen TVs) to watch Wales play Australia.

The Phone

I received a call on my work blackberry the other day. It makes me nervous when I get a call on that phone because it is designated as the emergency number if family needs to contact us. The call came at work so at least it was not in the middle of the night for us. It was our son MF calling to say that he injured himself in soccer try-outs for the Loyola Club team. He was on crutches with a swollen knee. The trainer was there when it happened. He wanted MF to put the knee to be iced and come back the next day to see how it was progressing. The trainer had MF go see a doctor because he thought it was more serious than a sprain. He went to the doctor and he said he thought the ACL was torn and needs to get an MRI. MF is waiting to hear from the insurance company to get the MRI scheduled.
I guess it would not have been much different had we been in the States with an "away" college student. The only difference is the phone that the call would come in on.

Beijing Planning Museum

Sunday we decided after going to church to visit our favorite all-you-can eat sushi restaurant. I think this was probably the first time we have gone without having a mandarin speaker in our group. We seemed to do ok with exception of ordering roasted garlic instead of ginkos. We ordered them twice pointing to the wrong line on the menu. BF's Dad and brother had one and they were very strong.

Then we took a taxis to the Beijing Planning Museum. The museum was really interesting. They had a large scale model of the city, a nice 3-D movie about the development of Beijing and the future of Beijing cityscape. Was definitely worth visiting.

A Full-House Again

BF and AF came back home to Beijing on Friday. it was great to see them again (vacation is over, well except for AF). AF finally begins her university experience on September 22nd in Scotland.

They brought family back with them on this trip. BF's Dad and Brother are visiting us in Beijing for a couple of weeks. Should be fun to show other people what Beijing is all about from an expat point of view.

The Bike Saga Continues

My Chinese bike, Feng Huang, "Phoenix" which is made in Shanghai continues to give me trouble. I have what looks like the farmer model. There is a city and postal (mail man delivery) model as well.

It took me some time to get my bike out of the spot in the garage as all the bikes were jammed in together. My bike is a heavy heap of metal much taller than most of the other bikes in the garage.

As expected when returning from the US, my tires needed some air. The guards at our apartment had a pump to inflate the tires. A young guard over-pumped the inner tube so the tire came off the rim. After fixing it I took a ride to Ditan Park. On the way to the Park the tire came off the rim and took out the brakes with it. I asked a Policeman where the nearest neighborhood bike repairman was. He did not know but showed me the most likely direction. (communication was anything but verbal).

I had to drag the bike since the wheel would not rotate. I found a couple of migrant workers on a wagon to ask them. They fixed the inner tube so the wheel would rotate and pointed me across the street to a street repairman. At first it looked like a locksmith shop, but turns out he had other tools to help. It did not take him too long to fix the brakes and the tire. He did not want any money but I gave him 10 yuan ($1.39). If also felt grateful to the migrant workers and I gave them 100 yuan to share. They wanted no part of it but eventually relented with huge smiles.

I did get home after the repair but I am still expecting something to happen again.