The Expat-Socialite Wife Diary: Do I fit in?

Expat-Socialite Wife 1:  So where do you girls go for lunch?
Expat-Socialite Wife 2:  Well, here in Bangsar... I like La Bodega... Chilli's if the kids are with me...
Expat-Socialite Wife 3:  Oh, Alexis!   Plan B or Ben's also not bad.
Expat-Socialite Wife 1:  Where do you go for lunch, Mrs TM?
Me:  Oh, I go to the hawker centre on top of the car park near Bangsar Village 1!  You know, it was called Jolly Green or something before?  Anyway... I can  ta pau the chap fan for less than RM5!  Rice, meat, vege and tempeh!


(Complete silence and blank looks from all other wives)

Epic.

Fail.

Totally.

Eating Out: Wantan Mee stall at Publika Food Court, Solaris Dutamas

I love wantan mee.  So does Connor.  And the wantan mee stall at the Publika Food Court serves up a rather delicious plate of wantan mee.

Unfortunately, I'll never taste it again.

This is because I'll never, ever, ever, EVER hand over my (husband's) hard-earned money to such snobbish, rude people.

The first time we were there, the food court was nearly empty.  I ordered wantan mee to share with Connor.  The service I got was... oh wait, no - what service?  The guy who dished up the wantan mee did not say a single word to me.  He had on a surly expression as if he was serving time behind the stall.  I forgot about him when I had a taste because the wantan mee was really good.

The second, and last, time I was there was on a busy weekend.  There were people standing in front the stall clutching their paper receipts.  They'd paid up and were waiting for their meals to be ready.  I made my way to the front.  There was no one manning the counter, everyone was holed up in the cooking area.  I waited a while, then called out "Hello!" to get their attention.

One woman came out.  I thought she was going to take my order. No.  She just pulled this muka masam and busied herself filling little containers with the green chillies.  Then she went to slice the char siew sloooooowly.  Man, I'd never seen a wantan mee seller slice char siew that slowly in my life.  No wonder they had so many orders backlogged.   I spent my childhood in a kopitiam and our wantan mee man could chop up an entire pig's worth of char siew before you could say "Oink!"

I called out to her, "Hello... take order?"  She completely ignored me and went back to the kitchen area.

That did it.  I turned and walked off.

All she had to do was say "Can you wait a while, we're quite busy now?  I will take your order later." or something to that effect and I would have waited quite happily.  Not a single word.

You can keep your bloody wantan mee.  There are a million other wantan mee stalls in the world.  However, if you like your wantan mee delicious and served with a HUGE dose of bad temper, by all means, patronise their stall.

I won't.

Daddy's Day Off

Well, Daddy's Week Off actually. Dear Hubby has the week off and so far it's consisted of lazy mornings for Mummy (finally! Someone to watch over Connor while I sleep in!) and Christmas tree-hunting at the malls.

We're still hunting. Dear Hubby wants to get one with fibre optics in the tree itself so you don't have to buy additional fairy lights to light up the tree. If anyone knows of where to find one in KL/PJ, please let me know.

Yesterday we went to Ikano to get a t-shirt printed and ate at McD's at The Curve. I actually don't like McD's anymore. I think it's because I've become a more proficient cook now and can actually tell the difference between real food and plastic food. Connor doesn't like McD's at all except for the fries. He refused the chicken nuggets we ordered for him and no wonder! Not a patch on the chicken fingers I make him. *syiok sendiri mode ON*

Daddy got him an ice-cream cone from McD's. It was so funny seeing them together - Dear Hubby carrying Connor who was holding the cone and had the BIGGEST smile on his face. He was calling "Mummy, Mummy!" and when they reached me, Connor said, "Mummy, ice-cream!" If you asked me to describe "happiness" in a picture, it would surely be a 2yo little boy with a cone in his hand and ice-cream smeared all over his face.

It was a lovely lazy day. We don't get to spend enough time with Daddy because he's always working and it's really nice to just chill as a family... and eat an ice-cream together.

Restaurant Review: Laksa Shack, Giant Kota Damansara

When I was working in my old job, there was a Laksa Shack outlet near us. I remember many happy lunch hours there with the gang.

So when I was shopping in Giant Kota Damansara two days ago, I spied one and decided to tah pau some lunch home instead of cooking. It was ten minutes to noon when I finally finished my shopping and went to the outlet. The only person around was this girl who focused intently on chopping something. Hotel California (the original version) was blaring from some radio near her. She didn't even know I was there looking through the menu. Uh-oh. Not good.

At that point, I really should have walked out. But I had this bloody laksa craving. So I hung on stupidly.

I called the girl and she came out. Her expression as she came out was "Oh my god there's someone in the shop... maybe... just maybe if I walk as slowly as possible, this person will go away and leave me in peace." Not good at all. I'm your customer! You should be welcoming me with open arms!

I made my order and she said hesitantly that it wasn't ready. Right. Food outlet has no food ready at ten minutes to noon. She said nothing is ready. Oh goody. So I said "What do you have?" (I really really should have walked away then) She said, "Ermm.. laksa Johor." I said, "Ok... bagi tu boleh." She nodded and walked again to the back of the outlet.

As I waited, she picked up the phone, called someone and had a frantic conversation about how there's a customer in the shop and she doesn't know what to do. See.. NOW was the time to really really really back out but for some stupid reason, I hung on some more.

I told her I'd be back in a bit and went off. When I got back, a guy was there and he was running around getting my order ready. She had returned to the back of the outlet and resumed her chopping.

When I got home, my laksa Johor comprised of yellow noodles, LOTS of shredded cucumber and one half of a hard-boiled egg. All that for RM9.90. Nothing else. Kosong.

I am NEVER going back there again. Lousy service, lousy food. Boy. I hope you bangkrap and put yourself out of misery.

Connor tries his first nasi lemak

And he loves it. Hehehehe.

Mummy was craving nasi lemak. So we made the drive out to Bangsar to eat at the Nasi Lemak Antarabangsa shop. This was purely because Suzy's in Ampang doesn't open until evening. My verdict? I still prefer Suzy's.

Mummy didn't pack Connor's lunch because I made the mistake of assuming there would be something suitable for Connor to eat at the shop. But all the shop served was nasi lemak and other Malaysian desserts. So that's what Connor ate - sambal-less nasi lemak and the hard boiled egg that came with it.

He's already tried roti canai, nasi briyani (he loves this, ate about half of mine) and is mad about papadums. He had a sip of my bah kut teh and wrinkled his little nose up at the herbal smell. Chicken korma is something else he loves and I order that for him when we're out at mamak stalls. He normally drinks his diluted apple juice so imagine his delight when I ordered him that minuman resmi anak-anak Malaysia - Milo ais.

Soon my son, you will be eating mi goreng mamak, satay and all that is delicious in Malaysia.

Maybe even durian! Then you will have to sleep at Grandma's till your breath is okay again because Daddy hates durian.

An Indonesian wedding in Jakarta's Rumah Maroko

On Friday afternoon, Dear Hubby called to say we'd received an invite for a wedding of one of the partners in his company and he wanted very much to attend. OOH. I was pretty pleased because I wanted to experience what an Indonesian wedding was like. (Perhaps the word "Indonesian" here is not the correct one as Indonesia is very diverse. I think the wedding was Javanese in nature... not quite sure. I wanted to ask around but the music was so loud proper conversation wasn't possible.)


Anyway the invite said it was going to be held the next day in Rumah Maroko (Morocco House). By coincidence, the place was featured in that day's Jakarta Globe. Wah. Look very grand hor. Then it hit me - what on earth am I going to wear??? Although I've lost almost all of my pregnancy weight, I'm not back to the shape I was pre-baby and can't quite yet squeeze back into my old dresses. Luckily I'd kept a dress from my fat days (yes I was erm... chubby at one point in my life, so I know how it feels like to be not size 8 and not pregnant) and slipped it on. Loose but wearable. Phew. Moral of the story - forget not thy (fatty bum-bum) roots.


The next day, Madam Not-Quite-Yet-Fit-Back-Into-Old-Clothes Expat went off to get her hair done. I knew everyone would be glammed up for the event and I knew that I hadn't a hope of out-glamming the ladies of Jakarta but I had to look like at least I'd tried. And yes, dear readers, the hairdresser gave me a hairdo that made me look a little like those Jakartan high society Imelda Marcos lookalikes kik-koking in their high heels. I think Jakartan hairdressers only know one style of blow-dry. ;) Connor actually looked doutbfully at me when I arrived home and cuddled him so I knew I must look very different.


It was a 40 minute drive from our house in Kemang to Rumah Maroko in Menteng. The janur told us which street had the wedding party. A janur is an ornament woven out of coconut fronds and is usually placed at the entrance of the street where the wedding ceremony is taking place. I think my syntax is all wrong in that last sentence but I don't know how to fix it. Anyway.... it's just like the bunga manggar we have back home in Malaysia.


Wah. It was impressive - a white dome rising up above the rest of the houses lining the quiet street. We signed the guest book and entered Rumah Maroko. The corridor leads to a large room with a huge chandelier hanging from its ceiling and a trio of musicians playing Moroccan music in the corner. We are ushered through another door and it opens out to a set of steps which lead out to an open air courtyard. There was a buffet line in the courtyard and a live band was accompanying a female vocalist who was singing love songs. I looked up to see the night sky and a solitary cloud and looked downwards towards the guests.


Wah. WAH. W A H.

Look at all that hair, baby! Fuyoh... I bet LOTS of hairspray had been used! Looked like the set of a new game show - Who Wants To Be Imelda Marcos. I'm sure plenty of the attendees were Who's Who in Jakartan high society as our host is a society man but I hadn't the faintest idea who they were. Apparently Indonesian Tattler was there to cover the wedding but no one approached us to pose for photies. I guess they recognise hoi polloi when they see 'em. Maybe I should have asked the hairdresser for more hairspray.

The invite said the reception starts at 7pm but when we left at 9pm, there were people who were just arriving. According to our driver, this is perfectly acceptable in Indonesia. Our host, the groom, greeted us when we arrived and accepted our congratulations and urged us to have a bite to eat. We joined the queue at the buffet and tried a bit of everything. Okay.. I like a lot of things in Indonesia but one thing that has yet to win my heart is the cuisine.

Halfway through the reception, the groom disappeared and then re-appeared minutes later with his beautiful blushing bride (the only woman there beside me without big-big hair but then she had a head covering on) as the emcee announced their entrance. The happy groom then made a speech and we all clapped and cheered.

Then the karaoke started and we decided to leave. We'd brought Connor along, left him with the maid in a quieter part of Rumah Maroko and decided it was time to get him home. So we sought out our host to congratulate him again and said our goodbyes.

This was quite different from our own wedding. We had a traditional Chinese wedding and we spent most of the time sitting at our guest-of-honour table, doing the yamseng rounds and going up on stage for yamseng and cake-cutting. I barely got a bite to eat and never got to talk to any of our guests.

We had a good time and it was really our first night out together alone since Connor was born. Rumah Maroko is open for events such as weddings, birthday parties... perhaps a product launch? You can check out their website at www.morocco-andalucia.com

Eating Out in Jakarta: McDonald's Delivery service

This isn't really eating out... more like eating in... but... I thought I would just post this for any hungry people out there in Jakarta who are also too lazy/tired to battle yet another traffic jam.

A long, long time ago when my cooking expertise was severely limited to boiling eggs, cooking Maggi mee and tossing salads, I had McD Delivery service in KL on my speed dial. I could recite the menu by heart. Then Dear Hubby taught me how to cook and little by little, I grew less dependent on McD Delivery.

Every now and then though, I will be struck by McCravings which can only be satisfied by a large value meal order of a Big Mac. So when we moved to Jakarta, I was delighted to find that Jakarta also had a McD Delivery service.

One day, I decided to put the service to the test. I called them up and placed my order in my best Indon-B. Malaysia. This was when I discovered that the Indonesian McD menu is a little different from the Malaysian version. For one thing, it doesn't have apple pie on its list of desserts. Their default size is medium and if you want a large, say "Upsize", don't say "Large". The chili sauce provided is a little different, it tastes sourish and I don't like sour in my food as a general rule. And you can request rice to come with your McD meals instead of fries. McD to me is a fun, gweilo food and should be served with fries, not rice which is my staple home food. Can't imagine the friendly McD employee saying to me, "Would you like rice with that?"

Anyway, all went smoothly until they asked me for my address. I read out my address to them, "... Jalan xxx 1A...." (I pronounce my A's as "ay" as in "day") The friendly voice on the other side asked me in Indonesian, "Is that A for apple or A for elephant?" I was stumped. You see, in Bahasa Malaysia, apple is spelt epal and begins with an E... just as elephant should. I didn't know if elephants were called alephant in Indonesian either which doesn't make sense since I was quite sure they were called gajah just as we call them back home. How was I to answer this question, the trickiest I've been asked since I arrived here in Jakarta???

Finally I said, "Er... er.. A for apple.. like apple juice?" "Terima kasih!" (thank you!) sang out the friendly voice at the other end who then proceeded to assure me my order would arrive in half an hour's time.

I learnt a few lessons that day. One is that no matter which corner of Jakarta you're tucked into, the clever lads who deliver the McD's will find you. The other is that the Indonesian language pronounces its alphabet differently from us in Malaysia. A is pronounced ah, not ay. E is pronounced ay, not ee. And there's no such thing as alephants.

Call McD at 14045 for their delivery service and delivery areas. You'll love(-in') it.

Eating Out in Jakarta: Gourmet Garage, Jln Kemang Raya

Ooh. You can't miss this place. It's a big place right opposite the Papillon on Jl Kemang Raya. You can't miss the Papillon because it's a simply gorgeous glass building. There is a rather posh French restaurant in the Papillon and I've been told it's very good but I haven't been there yet because I've also been told portions are small there and small portions are no good for a 33-week pregnant lady!

Gourmet Garage was a chance discovery for Dear Hubby and me. We were still new in Jakarta and on one of our first forays into Kemang when we saw the place and decided to try it. It quickly became our favourite restaurant and we've been back most weekends for a bite. It's a restaurant-cum-food shopping place. On the ground floor, you can get good quality meats, fresh veg and fruits and canned goods that are dear to (Western) expat hearts. This is where we picked up some lovely English sausages some time ago. They also have a small bakery which always makes my mouth water when I'm there.

There is small seating area downstairs for the restaurant bit, most of the seating for the restaurant is upstairs (including a smoking area) but we're usually too lazy to climb up. This place is very family-friendly. Each time we're there on weekends, it's filled with families out to enjoy a good meal. The staff are excellent - they are friendly, they know their stuff and yes, they speak quite decent English, so the non-Indon speaking expat need not resort to guesswork and sign language. If you are sitting downstairs, remember to ask the staff to bring you the menu for "upstairs". For some reason, it's more extensive. The menu is a mix of Western, local and Japanese and I've sample bits from all three and it has yet to disappoint.

What I really recommend there is the garlic prawn fettucine. YUM!!! It's so delicious that my heart melts at the very memory of it. You get three large prawns arranged very prettily on this bed of fettucine. The killer bit is the garlic sauce. Ooh. This is the one time when I really don't mind having garlic breath. The portion is just right too. Well, er... for me at least. It may be too much for smaller tums.

A value-for-money meal is the Javanese fried rice. Heaven! It comes with kerupuk emping (a sort of crisp, I don't know what emping is), fried chicken and the obligatory pickled vege that seems to be served with most Indon meals I've tried. It's spicy, it's sweet-ish and it's a HUGE portion. Dear Hubby and I usually split this meal as it's just too much for one person to finish off on their own. This is proof of how good the Javanese fried rice is -just last night, Dear Hubby was moaning that he was eating more rice than potatoes of late and was vowing not to touch rice till about middle of next week but the moment I suggested this dish, he readily agreed to have it for lunch.

For drinks, I highly recommend the banana smoothie. It's rich, it's creamy and so very smooth. Hence the name I suspect. Yum-yum.

As for the Japanese menu, I haven't been eating Japanese of late as I prefer my Japanese cuisine in the raw form and I can't eat raw stuff at the moment because of the baby. So I can't quite remember what's good there. The only one I eat off the Jap menu now is the Hiro beef with rice, that's deliciously prepared.

We were there this afternoon and paid about Rp150,000 (approx. RM40) for a Javanese fried rice plus two banana smoothies. So it's about the same as you would pay in KL for a meal in a eatery in say... a shopping mall. The food is always good, I've never had it disappoint in so many visits there, you can do a bit of grocery shopping at the same time, and the toilets are sparklingly clean. Each time I'm in there, there's always someone polishing something inside.

It's dead easy to get to. Just ask your driver/taxi to take you to Jl Kemang Raya.

Back home in Malaysia

If I've been a little quiet lately, it's because I've been busy stuffing my face. While I was back home with my parents, I stuffed my face full of local fruits. I ate lots of mangosteens and langsats while I was home. It's not that we can't get this stuff in Jakarta, we can. But I don't know where to get it cheap and I'm not going to pay some supermarket thousands of rupiah for fruits which I know cost a fraction of the price tag.

It was Dad's birthday on the Sunday and we'd gone out for dinner the night before. There were seven (and a half) of us - my parents, my two younger brothers, my two cousins, me (and Little Monkey) - and I think I over-estimated the amount of food. We ended up ordering herbal duck, salted roasted chicken, steamed fish, tofu, mee suah, vegetables... and satay to boot. Gawd. Nearly felt like my tummy was going to burst ala that infamous scene from Aliens after dinner.

On Sunday, I managed to hitch a ride up to KL with an old buddy. Her bro-in-law2b was driving his wife2b and her back to KL and they kindly offered me a ride. Thank you very much! And the best part was they stopped off in Seremban for eats. Yum, yum. It was the famous Seremban beef noodles which I'd never tried before and it was delicious.

Dear Hubby was waiting for me in KL when I arrived together with my bro-in-law. BIL is now living in Malaysia, having ditched the cold of the UK for the time being. We celebrated our little family reunion that night with a meal in one of my favourite ever places to eat - Suzy's Corner!!!

Suzy's is a mamak shop that's popular with both the locals and expats. It serves your usual roti canai, thosai, naan, teh tarik etc along with a very good steak and nasi lemak. There's also other stalls - the satay man, the otak-otak and a pasta outfit which I've never tried. To get there, go along Jalan Ampang towards Gleneagles Ampang. Keep to your left after you've passed Gleneagles and take the left at the traffic lights at the foot of the flyover. By the time you reach the traffic lights, you will see Suzy's tucked into a, er... corner on your left. There is a small lane to the left right after you pass the traffic lights, so go slow and watch for it. There's parking within Suzy's or further along down the lane. I've forgotten the name of the building just behind Suzy's... it's that pointy grey building. I always think it should be called Ampang Point because it's all pointy but Ampang Point is opposite. That's why I can never remember its name!

I looooove the nasi lemak here. I'd been dreaming of it ever since I knew I was coming home to KL. On the other hand, Dear Hubby had been dreaming of the steaks. We were regulars when we used to live in KL and the head waiter recognised us immediately. He also saw right away there was something different about me and asked with a smile, "How many months along are you?" When I told him I was about six months along, he immediately told me I should not have my usual teh ais (nono, I wasn't going to anyway) and suggested some warm barley for me. How kind! Hehe.

The nasi lemak was every bit as good as I remembered it. This is what I miss most about KL - being able to just go out and sit outside at some cheap stall and eat food that won't give me the runnies. Suzy's does look dodgy from a cleanliness point of view but we've never had a problem and have brought countless expat friends there who never had any probs either. It was nice to look out at roads that weren't clogged with traffic all the time and to have streetlights lighting the lanes so you don't feel that scared walking about.

I was very clear about my holiday objectives this time. I knew I had only a limited amount of time but oh! so much food, so I focused on what I could eat and made sure I ate them all. Hehe.

Despite all the fun I've had, I'm looking forward to returning to Jakarta this Sunday. Our house is finally ready and we'll be moving in next Monday... woohoo!!! Finally - a place to call home! Part of our frustrations stemmed from the fact that we'd felt a bit "floaty" all this while with only a hotel suite to call home. It's not a lot of fun to be living in a strange country without all your familiar stuff around to comfort you. Yes it's nice to live in a hotel where housekeeping and laundry are taken care of but there's really no place like home.

So I'm going to spend my last weekend eating and shopping as much as I can and then back to Jakarta to make us a new home! And I hope to get my first visitors sometime in September, we'll probably spend most of August trying to sort things out, buying new furniture to fit the place and the Top Monkey Hotel should be open for business come September!

Eating out in Jakarta: Eastern Promise, Kemang

This is one of my favourite places to eat in Jakarta. The hubby and I adore Indian food and we were semi-regulars at a place back home in KL called Passage to India. It's located on Jln Tun Razak and is the most delicious Indian food I've ever had. Be warned though - it is a bit pricey, so we usually only eat there when we know we can put it on the company account, hehe.

Indian food isn't as common here in Jakarta as they don't have the sizeable Indian community that we do in Malaysia and they certainly do not have our mamak shops where you can indulge in your banana leaf rice to your heart's content. However, someone took Dear Hubby to Eastern Promise quite early on in his stay here in Jakarta and he was just delighted with it.

Eastern Promise has two parts to it. One is a pub that's frequented by expats. On Friday evenings, they have something called the Pressure Cooker Hour (or something like that...) It's free beer for everyone in the pub from 5-6pm. The only catch is no one is allowed to leave or to to the loo. The moment someone does that, the free beer is over and everyone has to start paying up.

The other bit is a restaurant, located behind the pub. There is also an open air area behind where a band plays on Fridays, I think. Eastern Promise does quite good chicken, beef and lamb curries as well as your standard pub fare of pies and bangers and mash. They also do an all-day breakfast which we haven't tried yet because we always go for the curries. The curries usually come with saffron rice and a plain naan. If you fancy other types of naan, just ask them to sub it in your set. There's also a pool table there if you fancy a game or two. For the homesick Brits, you can get copies of the Guardian here to read while you wait for your meal.

We were there last night with two of Dear Hubby's work colleagues. One of them had never been there before and thoroughly enjoyed his meat pie and 1/4 of my Kyber Masala Curry. We ordered two pitchers of beer and each pitcher was enough to fill 6 pint mugs. I stuck with Coke and water of course, I've been off alcohol for 22 weeks now save for very small sips every now and then.

P told us a story about the pub last night at dinner that had my skin crawling. He said that it's common knowledge that when Kemang area floods (as it will when the rains are heavy), the snakes take refuge in the pub. His source were a group of his friends, all expats, who were none too pleased to be trapped inside a pub with snakes. YIKES. So you can imagine my reaction when the staff came out with powerful torches and started peeking under the seats sometime towards the end of our meal. I paled, "Are they looking for snakes? Do you think you guys can carry me out?" Dear Hubby took a look at my pregnant figure and shook his head regretfully, "I don't think so, babe..." Well, as it turned out... no snakes... for this time!

The place is easy enough to find. If you're headed towards Kemang via the Kemchicks end, Eastern Promise will be on your left, opposite an ABN-Ambro branch. It's usually packed on Fri nights and the weekends, so get there early. I have to say it's not the best Indian I've ever had, but it's decent enough. Our meal for four last night which included two pitchers of beer cost Rp500,000 (approx RM150, I'm just assuming an exchange rate of Rp10,000 to RM3). Pretty good price, I would say if you compare it to Passage to India... but of course it's much more expensive compared to just a street mamak.

Give the place a try... we're open to invites if you want company!

We've finally moved!

Finally. Our bags have been packed, we'd left on our jet planes and are now sitting pretty in our hotel suite here in Jakarta. The suite has a hall, dining area, a kitchenette, two rooms and two baths, so it's not too claustrophobic.

We've grown tired of the hotel menu, so we went out and shopped for groceries and cooked dinner on Sunday night. On Sat, we went exploring in Kemang which is where we'll be living when our house is ready in July. We found this nice restaurant called Koi Gallery. It's actually a furniture shop-cum-restaurant. When I looked around the dimly lit, tastefully furnished restaurant, it was filled with mainly gwailo expats and well-to-do Jakartans. How did I know they were well-to-do Jakartans? Easy! They had Chanel bags and Imelda Marcos hair!

Food was quite good. We had duck spring rolls with hoisin sauce and chicken tempura with wasabe mayo for starters and the portions were just right. Dear Hubby picked a shrimp salad with ginger sauce for his main course while I went for the home-made fettucine with pan fried lamb. The home-made fettucine tasted a lot like pok mee, a noodle that can be found in my hometown but not in KL. This plus his two beers and my two pink guava juices cost us Rp280,000++ (Approx RM90). Not bad hor. I think a close local equivalent would be something like... oh crap... forgot the name... the place in Bangsar which is located at Jln Bangkung and serves great pasta in small portions? Dang. Memory going. Been that way ever since I got pregnant.

We're planning to go back to Kemang again soon to look for more restaurants. One had caught our eye that night, it was an eatery above a bookshop near the Duty Free area. Yes, Kemang has a duty free shop but I'm told only those with diplomatic passports can enter. Dang.
Another eatery I'm eager to try is a lively hawker stall area that's quite close to McDonald's, Kemang. This McDonald's is my landmark in Kemang. Since I'm not very sure of where I am yet, I always tell the cab driver to drop me off there and from McD, I can get my bearings and make my way around.

All our wordly possessions are now sitting pretty in a warehouse somewhere in Shah Alam. We can't ship them over yet as Dear Hubby has yet to receive his official work permit. We expect to get them at the end of this month though.
It was a very busy week for us last week as we hurried to pack our carry-on luggage and had to direct movers to pack our other belongings. The company settled on Asian Tigers and they were pretty efficient. They came in on Sat morning and packed up the stuff in our hall, save for the sofas and tv, and stored the boxes neatly under our Stairway to Heaven. Then on Monday, about 10 of them showed up at our place at 9am and by 5pm everything had been neatly wrapped, packed and labelled and wheeled out to the truck for transporting.
Credit to Dear Hubby who stayed behind and did most of the work while I was off at the Canadian High Comm securing my visa. He stayed up on his feet all day supervising the movers and helped them to carry stuff. So at the end of the day, he was rewarded with a nice massage from me, the least I could do to say thank you for shouldering most of the work.

Right now, all we have are two suitcases of clothes each, his golf clubs, my guitar and about six pairs of shoes. And Dear Hubby's cowboy hat. He dragged it out of storage and insisted on wearing it, saying he would wear it as well when we go to Canada in June. He went on wearing it until he realised the combination of his hat and my guitar made him look like the latest country and western singer employed by the hotel pub. The hat came off real quick then! HAHA!

All I felt when I stepped on the Jakarta-bound plane at KLIA was a sense of relief that this was all over. After months of shuttling back and forth and house-hunting and feeling like we were hanging in no man's land, we have finally settled that bit of our lives.

So yep, looking forward to this new phase in our lives, absolutely looking forward to checking out all the eateries in Jakarta (the Malaysian in me speaking there) and looking forward most of all to the arrival of our Little Monkey in Nov this year.