Day two, Friday: I went for a long walk this morning with Alan and Yvonne. I saw a squirrel, and a bird that says “morning” , I met Sam (a friend of A +Y’s) and saw a big part of Seremban You wouldn’t usually see. The housing goes from a whole street attached together (like where A+Y live) to larger bungalow fully detached homes like in NZ. There are not many of these houses, there really isn’t the room. The cemetery is very un-kept, and the clay is eroding back – it is a bit of a worry as to what may appear in the next rain!!

In the afternoon we went over to Seremban 2, Yes, they are separate towns… Seremban, Seremban 2 and Seremban 3, Not much thought put into naming towns here!! We hit the Mall, went to McD’s for lunch, and there is a big arcade/play area in the mall so the boys hung out there for a while, and I checked out the sales!! The prices here on some stuff is the same as NZ, especially electrical stuff. Shoes are cheap, and food – like McD’s and KFC are about ½ the price. It cost us 53RPM for lunch (about $26 NZD) for 4 adults and 2 kids!! Fruit is about the same, but a lot of other groceries are cheaper.
We went to City Park for a while, and ate our PapaRoti’s which are a sweet bread bun with a big blob of butter in the middle. The boys just started playing when the rain came down… and it doesn’t start slowly either, it thunders and lightning’s then absolutely buckets down. We sat for a second and watched the locals run for cover, then realised they knew something we didn’t so we ran too – good thing we did!! The boys ended up going out and playing in it, they had brand new blue Spiderman t-shirts on, and when we took them off they were still blue!! The rain passed, we had a play and fed the carp and turtles in the lake, then made for home. We went out for Indian for tea, which the boys didn’t eat, and I wasn’t that fussed on, Mike did enjoy it though.

Day four, Saturday: today we went into K.L. by train. We spent some time looking around a big mall, did no shopping, as it is all very expensive. Armani and Gucci, Laura Ashley, Nike, all the brand stores you can think of. We had lunch, and off to the Petronium Discovery world. We spent 3 hours there, it was an amazing place. All about oil, how it is found, and drilled and used. It is a really ‘touchy’ place, loads for the kids to do. Today people were picking Joseph up to have photos with him. It was really funny (not to him so much though!) On our way home on the train we got talking to a lovely family, they have a 5 year old too, and he was full of so many questions. He noticed Jacobs missing finger and asked what happened, when we told him he got really concerned because he has a pet rabbit at home, the poor kid will have nightmares about his rabbit now!! Alan was saying that usually on a commuter train it is very quiet, people keep to themselves and don’t say much. Takes some Kiwi’s to come to town and upset things!! We had a great time and the kids (7 in all) made heaps of noise!!!
The people here are very regimented. There are signs everywhere – Queue here… and so they queue – in very straight lines, even if they go over a lane so no-one can get thru, their line is straight, no curving lines here!!

Day five, Sunday: Alan and Yvonne have gone of to K.L for Church this morning. We are mucking around at home, catching up on washing, and emails etc. We had lunch at home.. Cheese buns brought from a truck that comes around the streets selling everything from bred to popcorn, a kind of mobile bakery. They have another man on a pushbike selling sweets and chippies, a man on a motor bike selling icecream, and another selling pork. We all went to church that evening at the Tabernacle in Seremban where Yvonne was songleading. It was a really good service, and the boys behaved better than I expected. We went out for Chinese for tea, it was about 8.45 by now, and it was really busy, this is when people start coming out once the heat of the day is gone. The shops are open till 10 or 11 at night, every night, and open at 10 in the morning.



Day six, Monday: Today we went to Wet world. It is a big swimming pool theme park. They have pools from cold thru to really hot thermal pools. And one is a wave pool, one is a little kids playground and there is hydroslide and one with stones in the bottom to massage your feet. The thermal pool is really hot, you have to get in one step at a time. It is sid to be fed from a natural spring, but as there is no geo-thermal activity in the area, we can’t quite work out how it gets so hot (gas bottle mabe!!)

Day seven, Tuesday: Today we went back into K.L. We went to a huge mall in Mid Valley. The boys stayed with Nanna and went to 2 movies… Garfield 2 and the ant bully. Mike, Alan and I went back on the train another srop and went to china town. It was quite fun, once you got over people trying to get you to come into thir stall. I paused to look at a handbag, and the guy got quite upset that I was only looking and not buying. We worked out the bartering pretty quick. Mike wanted a wallet, and we got the guy down from RM65 to RM30 (about $14NZ) I have been looking for a pair of shoes, but can’t get them big enough in the shops, they are at least polite enough to wait till I leave the shop to start laughing…. Not the guys in China town. They wouldn’t believe me when I asked for a 42 (all the shops stop at a 40 in lkadies shoes), I tried on some mens, and ended up with a pair of Puma knock-offs for $22.00NZ, in a size 45! They thought I was very odd, having feet that big!
I found a really cool button shop that had walls of drawers full of buttons, it was so cool! Some of the buttons cost as much as RM16.60 ($8.00NZ) each. But I did manage to find some cute bikes, and strawberries for RM0.70 each.
Once we got back to the boys, then to the train it was peak travel time and we had to squash onto the unit. There was no room, yet another dozen or so people squashed on behind us. It was really amazing… Only enough room to breath. Luckily they are all air-conditioned so not too uncomfortable from that aspect. We went and had kebabs for tea in Seremban 2, then home as it was about 8.45 by now.

Day eight, Wednesday: We went back to the beach at Port Dickson today. The tide was in, so much deeper today. The boys didn’t swim as much, but built a sand castle instead. We neglected to put on sunscreen, as it is so overcast all the time that you tend to forget, and guess what colour I am now!! The boys had rash tops and hats on, so they are fine. Mike has a touch too, but he will just tan up over night. We stopped at a roadside market on the way home, and picked up a few bits and bobs, nothing very exciting really, it started to pour down while we were there, and the place started flooding, so we didn’t hang around too long. We are hanging out at home this afternoon, and Mike and I are going out to the mall in Seremban on our own tonight.
Niknak