Family Journey Through Asia

Welcome to What I Like About Malaysia! 1.  Affordability I am paying $600 for a 2-bedroom, one bath apartment with a kitchenette that has a cooker, a refrigerator, and a washing machine.  All bills paid. I recently had internet installed by Time .  The monthly rate for unlimited internet with 100 Mbps is $37.46.  A down payment of  $75 and valid passport information was required.   I ordered the service online, and the service was installed two days later.   It took approximately fifteen minutes for the installation.  The internet is fast, but my kids say that when they are chatting on Xbox, they receive complaints about a lousy ping issue.  Otherwise, it works very well until a month after the installation when we were not able to get a connection.  The installer informed us beforehand that it would happen and for us to call customer service.  That's what I did.  The only problem was that you lose the network name that you created as well as the password you provided.  The net

Welcome to The Visa Run! April 18, 2018 Our three months are almost up.  I booked an apartment in Bangkok, Thailand for March 29-31, 2018. At 1:00 p.m. on March 29th, we packed our backpacks and headed downstairs to the mall.  The girls picked up a waffle before heading to the airport.  We stopped by the information desk and asked the kind man to call a taxi for us because I couldn't get the Uber app to work. The taxi arrived fifteen minutes later, and we were on our way.    We arrived at KLIA2 around 2:00 p.m.  The trip costs 40 ringgits ($10) for four people. The check-in process was simple.  You either go to the self-check-in kiosk or the counter.  I tried the self-check-in method, but it didn't work.  After receiving our boarding passes, we went through two security scanners without any problems and then we were off to the gate lodge.   The process was less than an hour.  Our flight was due for takeoff at 4:25 p.m., but it delayed until 5:20 p.m. which was delayed

Welcome to The Mesa Hills! Around 1:45 p.m. on February 1, 2018, two taxis dropped us off at the North entrance of Mesamall in Nilai, Malaysia.  After dropping 150 RM/ringgits ($38.01) in one of the driver's hand, we set off to meet the owner's father, who was tasked to lead us to the place we would spend the next month; a two bedroom, one bath, apartment with a mountain view. All located over Mesamall .  After getting everything settled, I wanted to rush downstairs to the mall which offered a blessed grocery store.  For an hour, we walked around but didn't find anything exciting.  The reason could be that the mall is still new and not fully occupied.  Although the mall is not what we expected, it is still an excellent place to hang out. Like the other places, this one did not come without its own set of problems.  On the second day, the toilet wouldn't flush thoroughly, but the host sent someone over within a couple of hours to fix the problem.  The internet did

Ten days into Malaysia we were on our way to our third destination, Empire Damansara.  The hotel called an Uber to transport us.  The fare was 10 RM or $2.50. When we pulled up to Qliq Hotel , we were impressed with the area. Two employees met us at the curb with the luggage cart and wheeled our luggage into the cool hotel.  When they found out that we weren't guests to the hotel, they quickly removed our luggage.  When I booked our suite, I didn't know exactly we were supposed to meet the host.  I provided the Uber drive the directions, and away we went assuming the host will meet us at the hotel entrance for check-in.   We began to sit down on one of the sofa's in the lobby, but a staff member informed us that the area was only for the hotel guests.  I provided one of the employees the address and tried to explain that we didn't know where to meet the host.  I spoke with host earlier, but she didn't give any specifics. Eventually, one of the employees from the

Welcome to The Arrival! On the last blog, I talked about our air flight experience.  In this blog, we are moving on to our arrival in Malaysia. Now, here we are at Kuala Lumpur International Airport with no phone service or hotel shuttle.  I wasn’t worried as much because at least we had made it this far.  While I was casually taking my time, I found a booth where I had $1000 converted to RM, and I received 3700 RM!  Sounds pretty good, huh. So far, in Asia, we didn’t have to worry about transportation.  Taxi and Uber drivers were lined up soliciting their services.  It reminded me of the red carpet where ropes were blocked off on two sides while the passenger walks down the ramp as drivers tried to get your business with handheld signs.  We ended up using a taxi service that charged 43 RM ($10.97).  Not too bad for a 45-minute ride in a taxi-van. As usual, we had to hold on for dear life during the ride!  What I’ve learned so far with the Asian drivers is that they are not m

Welcome to The Trip! So far, I have discussed the Beginning and the Preparation.  I am now moving on to our experience in the airports and the new country.  Our first flight was from Dallas Love Field to LAX. In the last post, the Preparation, the family was busy preparing for the move.   We spent our last night, which also happened to be New Year's Eve (December 31, 2017), at a hotel to be closer to the airport in case of icy roads.  At 6:00 a.m. on New Year’s (January 1, 2018) the girls and I rolled our luggage down to the lobby of the hotel.  After checking out, the person at the front desk called an Uber for us.  Suffice to say; everything went downhill.  The first problem was that Uber driver went to the wrong hotel and a five-minute trip to the airport took twenty because the driver didn't know where she was going.  We got the airport around 6:30 a.m. and checked in our bags.  One of the bags was over the weight limit, so we had to shift items from that suitcase

Welcome to The Preparation! In this blog, I will discuss the process I used to prepare for leaving America.  Interesting enough, I did it all in less than a week. Let's begin. I've been planning the big move since August/September 2017.  I wasn't sure when or how I was going to make this happen, but I wanted to be as prepared as possible.  The first thing we needed to do was to downsize.  I had all the girls go through their property and get rid of everything they were not using.  If it couldn't fit in their suitcase and carry on, it couldn't go.   It was challenging and heartbreaking knowing that your whole life would dwindle to a couple of bags.  But my babies were troopers.  They knew they had to make some sacrifices to make this move successful.  Next, I went through all our memorabilia (baby books, school info, etc.) and necessary documentation.  When I say, 'get rid of' I meant digitizing.  I spent two weekends going through and scanning