KLCC

We are staying in KLCC slap bang in the middle of Kuala Lumpur for 11 nights before our final brief stop over in Singapore and our flight home. 

I’ve been watching the forecast for ages trying to decide how long we should spend in KL. it always looks sizzling - although once here we have found it ok as there are so many opportunities to go in the shade or head into some aircon. 

We are staying in a super cheap three bed apartment right next to Petronas towers. I think it’s cheaper as they are still refurbishing the pool on the roof!

The views are stunning. We are on the 46th floor and we can see the KL tower and the newly built Merdeka skyscraper - it’s the second tallest one in the world! It’s tall(!) and also very impressively lit up at night. Every night I go to bed with the curtains wide open looking out over the city with lots of lights winking at me. It’s especially awesome when the thunder clouds roll in and we get the best lightening displays!

Obviously on the first morning we took in roti canais with teh tarik in a local place behind our apartment. We ate 2 or 3 each and the bill came to 16 MYR which is about £3! We ended up back there quite a few times!

We signed up for an annual membership of the Petrosains science museum. We went to the sister one in Johor Bahru back in January and loved it. The one in KL is the main one and it’s much bigger. It has entertained us all for hours! So many fun bits to investigate. We liked the programmable robot, hurricane generator, drawing game, space section, the mind game moving ball, baseball thrower, speed hitting games and all the fun scientific games at the front. Boo loved the air blower keeping a ball up - the joy on his face was adorable. 

We’ve spent a lot of time in malls, especially the nearest one to us Suria. We’ve eaten in the food court there so many times. The veggie Indian was our favourite along with our daily Boost 5-a-day vegetable/fruit juice. Then we’ve watched the water fountain light display several evenings. 

We looked round a Buddhist Temple near us and ate their delicious veggie lunch. 

We did a couple of world schooling events with some of our friends from our Koh Lanta time. Olive did a science class and some indoor climbing. 

I got an insight into the administration side of Malaysia when I managed to knock my glasses off my head as I got into the MRT tube. They managed to fall through the gap onto the track. They survived but I had to wait two hours for the peak time trains to finish then a man in a high vis jacket was able to walk along the track to retrieve them for me. There was a clear process that needed to be followed and I needed to be patient which in true British style I was able to follow!

I’ve also tried to have a mini health kick before heading home. I’ve not had any meat for nearly two months which feels a lot better. I also managed to go for a few jogs round the nearby running track in KLCC park with the wave of other morning runners. I tried to get a session of Herbalife in as well but with no success - I needed to be a member, have a coach and buy much more than just a weeks worth of shakes!

Next stop a pit stop in Singapore before jumping on board our long flight home…

Loving Hoi An

After our weekend away we had a few more weeks of living in Hoi An back in our apartment. We did next to nothing off the tourist trail - just diving head first into all the home schooling stuff and just really enjoying being in Hoi An. What a super lovely place it is. 

We have really been spoilt by the weather being slightly cooler than usual - even wearing a jumper the odd time. There’s also a great group of people to hang out with and a diverse range of activities to do all week. 

A standard week looks a bit like this:
Monday - plant seeds and feed the chickens and fish (and cats) on a community farm, take a  Vietnamese class - Olive picks it up sooo quickly, volunteer in a library in the front of someone’s home - teaching Local kids English. 

Tuesday - acrobatics with a lady from the Bamboo Circus, book club, me and Olive learning chess. 

Wednesday - sweating it out playing badminton, Olive excelling at arial yoga, all of us learning about the local culture through making stuff out of banana leaves and eating tasty homemade snacks. 

Thursday - farm again (my personal favourite part of the week), beach play down by Phongs with other world schooling families (although this could be any day really as there was always a familiar face down there every time we headed down). 

Friday - all different arts and crafts and cooking classes with different families leading. 

Saturday - litter picking around Hoi An - so rewarding, another craft or exercise class. 

Around these there were so many other one off things going on. Great fun. Me Olive and Boo even did some painting - can you guess who did which?

A few other highlights that spring to mind:
Spending a chilled day at Pottery village on Mother’s Day after the essential coffee and pastries in bed! I loved the mini versions of famous places in pottery - obviously! Just a shame there weren’t any dioramas!! We all tried out making pottery as well. 

Watching the Memories mini shows which were a set of cultural shows before the main memories show - the kids loved them. We’ve done the main show before but Selina discovered you can pay a fraction of the cost of the main show and watch just the mini shows alone which is actually more fun for the little ones. Although they were most intrigued by the adults only mini show that I went into by myself!! Ha ha - it was obviously only slightly adulty! No naked bodies!

I did coffee tasting in old town with no children in toe. Nice. 

The kids loved a local indoor play place. It was so cheap - like £3 total! There was a bouncy castle, dodgems, merry go round, arcades, massive ball pit and a whole section of mocked up themed rooms. 

We spent a couple of sessions borrowing a moped from our super friendly neighbouring hire place. We practiced hard in anticipation of hiring next time. We’ve got this covered!

Meeting up with some old friends from the last time we were here was super. We know some ace people here. 

For the last few days I got up at 5am each day and headed down to the beach to watch the sunrise and do some jogging with the swarms of locals that are also down there exercising. 

As we left Vietnam we took in a cheeky all you can eat breakfast buffet at Sheraton. In one word - amazing. 

Fair well Vietnam - we will be back to your beautiful shores again soon…