Tamarind Springs

I'm a little behind on my post for Tamarind Springs as Bill and I went Friday night. Now that I think about it has almost been a week! The week has flown by. We love Tamarind Springs. The atmoshpere is so different than what we have ever experienced and the food is good, too. It is located in Ampang about 20 minutes from our house in Desa Sri Hartamas...give or take depending on traffic and rain. We have our driver take us there so we can fully enjoy the wine...I mean experience :). It happened to be raining Friday night which made for an even cozier night. Our driver, Nathan used the word cozy. It was funny. Tamarind Springs or should I say the entrance is up on a hill. There is a neat little gate and water fountain surrounded by lots of jungle. This is the place Bill and I saw monkeys when we were here in May. Lots of diplomats and such live up on this hill in Ampang. It is a little secluded and very beautiful. Anyway, after walking through the gate, there is a long walkway/staircase down to the restaurant. The walkway is just slightly descending so not many steps but it is a very old brick/paver walkway surrounded by jungle, a lit candle here and there, and many sounds of nature. The water dripping from the rain on the treesand plants, the water fountains surrounding the restaurant and the little night creatures all make for a very relaxing atmosphere. I wish my camera would take good pictures here, but alas it is too dark. You walk in the restaurant and to the left is a large balcony that portrudes out into the jungle. This is where we have sat both times. We've had table #8 both times - I assume you can request any table and it is in the very far corner of the balcony or deck. The place is all wood, wood floors, wood beams and railings and they have gold indonesian statues and pots carefully placed on beams and tables surrounded by candle light. There are candles on the deck railing and candles on the table surrounding a gold statue. It is all very pretty. I must say the only downside for me personally at this restaurant is the smell. Somewhere they have incense of some sort burning and I personally prefer to smell the food I'm eating rather than anything else. Still I will go back over and over. Prior to dinner they serve the chinese chips which remind me a lot of some chip you can get in the US, but I can't remember what they are called. Bill would know. It's like a puff - almost like styrofoam, but here they are good. They serve them with a spicy, sweet, tangy dipping sauce like you can get with egg rolls. I think they call them shrimp chips here. Something like that, but they are good and I think Chinese. For dinner this night we share the crispy crab and shrimp spring rolls which are served with a lime/cilantro/pepper sauce and they are delicious. I could eat 12 of them. For dinner I order the stir fried beef with lemongrass and pepper. Bill orders the Laotian beef soup, Tamarind river lobster (replaced with river prawns due to availabilty issues and we order garlic fried rice and sauteed asparagus and garlic. Lots of garlic? Yes. Delicious? Definitely. Our waiter tonight got our order a little mixed up, but they ended up bringing everything we ordered. We were a little disappointed with that, but everything else outweighed the mess up. My beef was very good. For anyone not adventurous eating Asian food this would be one of the things I would recommend. It is very good and from what I know does not contain anything weird. Bill's Loatian beef soup was wonderful. He decided that was his favorite thing of the night, but he loves soup. Yes even in the heat and it was a little spicy. SO my sweet man was sweating it up. It's a little warm eating out, he's eating hot soup, and it is a little spicy. But I did agree with him it was very tasty. Bill had the Tamarind river prawns and they were good as well. There were about 4-6 large prawns (grilled I think) and then served on top was the Tamarind sauce...a little sweet, tangy, smoky. I really can't remember too well, but it was very good. You do have to get used to seeing heads here. Almost all shrimp and fish are served with the heads on. I'm used to the shrimp. The fish not so much. I love Nemo! Our garlic side dishes were very tasty. The rice was wonderful and even though I'm a grilled asparagus kind of girl, the asparagus and garlic sauteed side dish was very good. Yes Bill and I could have killed people with our breath I'm sure, but we didn't care. We so enjoyed our dinner. I had coffee and dessert. The coffee was good and brought out on a cute little ceramic serving tray, with matching mug and bowl of sugar. The dessert was ok. They have two other restaurants down the hill - Italian and...I can't remember. For dessert you can order from the other restaurants as well. I chose tiramisu and it was just ok. I'm not a big coconut milk, fruity kind of dessert person which is very Asian. One note on Taramind Springs...duuring Ramadan they have a buffet. It contains food from all 3 restuarants. I checked it out and it looked pretty good, but we passed on it. All in all we really enjoyed the night. We walked back up the long pathway surrounded by the night and stopped at the top to admire the water fountain and tree frog staring at us. There was another frog making lots of noise, but we couldn't find him. I'm posting a few pictures I took back in May. They didn't turn out so well, but maybe you can get a sense of the ambience.

Learning new things..

I learned today that...

we have a very diverse complex - on our street we have people France, Africa (mgmt specified white so I assume South Africa?), and the UK. Behind us lives a German family and then up the next street we have a Korean family and an Italian family. Pretty neat. I can't wait to speak to all of them!

we have smart house - apparently you can program the lights in the carport, living and master bedroom to go on and off at certain times. cool!

Just when I was down...

God lifted me back up. I was feeling very homesick yesterday, but things turned around for me - alot of things. I felt someone shouting keep going, keep going, things will go your way. And they did. Thank you God.

Birthdays

My kids birthdays are right around the corner and I trying to think of how to make it special. Reid will be 4 and wants a firetruck birthday cake. We don't get our sea shipment until after his birthday so I can't make him a cake. If you know me then you know how sad I am to not be able to make my children a cake on their birthday. Especially Georgia since she will be turning 1. I'll need to put the word out to see where a good bakery is for birthday cakes. Now that I have some mom contacts, I don't think that will be too hard. I know their birthdays will be here before you know it and I need birthday presents and decorations...I can't remember what we bought Reid for his first birthday. Am I a terrible mom? I'm sure it was something small, maybe that's why. I also to think about what to do for him at school. The encourage healthy snacks so I can't bring cupcakes. Maybe I can bring assorted muffins instead? I'd also like to bring some kind of little goodie for the kids. Since we don't have any furniture or toys I can't really have a birthday party. I guess we could all just sit around and stare at each other. I just don't feel organized enough to do a party. We'll see. Oh yes and it is 5:27am. Why can't I sleep? Looking back a picture of Reid on his first birthday.

Reid is off to school

Today is Reid's first "full" day at school. He goes from 8:30-1:30. I can tell that the morning routine is going to be my back up work out. Carrying Georgia and all his school stuff while rushing him up the hill and the 3 flights of stairs to make it on time definitely breaks a sweat...all this while I see other moms all dressed up like they spent 2 hours getting ready just hanging around. These are the true Asians that probably have a maid, a nanny and a driver. We are SOOOO not there...yet. :) So last night I got Reid's backpack all packed up for him. He needed a towel, a change of clothes, kleenex, hand sanitizer, wipes, a toothbrush, toothpaste and cup, a snack, a book bag, a pencil bag, and a water bottle. Oh yes and a hat and I was supposed to send flips as well - which I forgot. Oh well. They probably won't do any sand and water play on the first day anyway. So yes I got all of those things ready with his name on them and thought, thank goodness they are providing him with lunch! Crap that is a lot of stuff. I was able to pull everything together before his first day - whoo. That shopping is done. I am so hoping he has a great day. We had a difficult time listening yesterday and caused quite the scene, I'm sure, at the bank. I reiterated this morning the lesson I hope he learned...to listen the first time so Mr. Balfour does not have to say things twice....yeah right. So yesterday we make the bank as our first stop as I needed more cash to pay for his lunches and his school supplies that I can get at their school store. I go to the ATM with the kids in tow and of course Reid says I want to help and I said no as I'm putting in the card. He says I want to get the money for you and I said no, do not touch it. So what does he do. As a whole stack of money comes out - 20 bills to be exact- he grabs them and they all fall on the floor. If that isn't a flashing red, blazing light to say come rob me please I don't know what is. I was furious. I'm sure we were quite a scene. Those people thought I was crazy. If we were at Hogwarts(sp) I think Reid would have burst into flames from my stare. He got a spanking in the car and again when we got home. If I didn't have Georgia with me I would have gotten him right there in the bank. So Georgia is sleeping now, I need to go shower, and the driver will be here in 45 minutes. He is taking us to Selangor to see a furniture store where I am soooo hoping we will find a couch. I'll get to see a new part of Malaysia. I'll try to take some pictures.

What I'm not finding

Good q-tips - we go through alot around here and the only ones I've found are like sticks. I've already called in a 4 box order from mom!

Hellman's mayonaise

Tampons - I'm sure there somewhere secretive

Velveeta

Baby food other than the basics like sweet potatoes, carrots, and pears

Sound machine - we had a noisy cheap fan in G's room in the US to muddle any sounds outside her room. The fan seemed to really heat up the transformer in the outlet so I unplugged it. I have not been able to find any kind of sound machine like white noise and such. Their fans are way to good to make any noise. So...I'm on the hunt for a little cd player and a white noise cd. Her room is right on the stairs and next to the playroom so at nap time we are all a little too careful for my comfort.

What I'm finding where

Since I didn't have a resource like this when I moved here, I thougt it a good idea to help other people out. I'm not sure if anyone will ever happen upon it, but I know my friend Mollee was very appreciative of the Hong Kong info she found on someone's blog. So this won't be an interestin read at all unless you are Ashley Kelly who I am so looking forward to meeting this month.

Baby stores
Mothercare at Bangsar shopping centre - the new one. I found good wipes and baby lotions here. They also have a good assortment of toys, clothes and baby accessories. I used Huggies wipes because they were thicker and hate the wipes I found in the grocery here. The are labeled with a M. I think they are the mothercare brand. I just started using the lotion on G and I think I like it. It is called Buds for baby and it is organic. Both of my kids are prone to eczema and I have always used Aveeno. Anything less and the eczema shows up.

Mom's care at 1 Utama- this is where I found the best baby gates for us. The are Little Boen brand and they carry the extensions as well.

Safe n Sound at 1 Utama - this is also a baby supply store, but the important thing I found here are the bolts for the tension gates I bought. We have very thin ballisters that are made of metal. These have little pacman shaped mouths that stay put on the thin ballisters. The are compatible with the Little Boen gates.

The trick to buying baby gates is being able to get them to your car. Most malls of shopping carts if you can find them, but if you are like me you are already pushing a baby stroller. So we buy them when Bill and I can go together.

I've been shopping at The Gardens mall lately and the Robinsons department store had a large baby section that I wish I had known about.

Grocery stores
Every mall I have been to as a Cold Storage grocery store. Just like any other chain some locations are better than others. We use the one in Solaris Mont Kiara, but I think we are going to start using the ones at the Bangsar malls. It appears they have a larger import selection. The Bangsar shopping centre (new) also has the Gourmet shopping area which is really nice. We have yet to try two different meat markets/butchers we have seen. One is in Mont Kiara called LasVacas- beef it up and the other is in Solaris Mont Kiara called MeatWorks. I know Meatworks is Halal or no pork, but not sure about the other. Per the name it may be just beef.

Malls
Bangsar new and old
1 Utama
The Curve, E Curve and Ikea - has an Ace hardware, a computer store, lots of restaurants, Harvery Norman (electronics and furniture) Authenteak, of course Ikea, a Maxis for phones...etc. This place is large so it is a little confusing getting from one section to another.
KLCC Suria

Internet Connection is good for now - typing quickly!

So the end of Saturday and sadly no pedicure. Well, it was a great day anyway. Tonight we ate at a Japanese restaurant and the kids had fun and we had some great food and wine. It was at the Bangsar shopping centre. Gigi ate tempura and Reid had rice and teriyaki chicken. Tomorrow I hope to get the pedicure in and enjoy some leisure time. Bill is off tomorrow for Thailand. I can’t wait to be able to join him on his travels!

Catching Up

Ok so in this world of high tech gadgets I am now forced to write my blog in Microsoft Word until our internet connection decides to work. This has been if not the most, certainly on the top 5, of the most frustrating things here. We have moved thousands of miles and can’t “keep in touch” on a regular basis. Also, as all of you moms know out there, you don’t get too many windows of uninterrupted time to actually hear your thoughts and then be able to write them, type them, etc. So Georgia just finished breakfast at 6:52am and I’ve been trying to get to my blog for the 20 mintures. The broadband stick says 3 bars and that I’m connected, but no internet. I even tried Bill’s computer and the same message. So here I am. I decided in order to keep up with everyone and not to miss any hysterical or crucial stories, I’ll just write in Word and up load when I can….why didn’t I think of this earlier? Oh, I probably did, but but in that split second someone was probably screaming demanding my attention…who could that be.? And the thought was lost.
So it is Saturday! Yeah for the weekend. We have a busy day ahead of us, but I’m looking forward to all of it. Most importantly I’m going to attempt to get my nails done today. It has been over a month since my sweet dear feet have had any sort of attention. I hoping no one has notice how absolutely terrible they look, but I’m probably kidding myself. I say attempting because I’ve seen a salon I thought was adorable, but have no idea what its called and therefore have not made an appointment. I’ll hours if I have to!
So what have been up to for the past 3 days or so. My last post was short and not so sweet. The last three days have been a little difficult and have gotten the best or should I say the worst of my emotions. Wednesday was the orientation at Reid’s school. We were all very excited to meet the teacher and see all the kids bustling around, but the timing was not great. The orientation was to begin at 1pm in the theatre and they told me to get there at 12 if I wanted a parking space. There are maybe 50 parking spaces on the school campus so finding one is a luxury. I was so worried about how I would manage the two of them if I couldn’t. The school is on a hill so no walk is pie with a 20lb bump on your hip. Georgia is usually down for her nap around noon. So I struggled with her in the bbjorn as she squirmed and screamed while the head of school was giving his introduction. I finally took her upstairs in the theatre so as to not make a huge scene on our first day. That girl never fell asleep. Thankfully Reid was behaving and sat down in the theatre all by himself. I grabbed him a bit early deciding we could skip the rest of the general introduction to the school. We met his teacher, Mr. Balfour. He is from Scotland, but has taught in London and Malaysia for 11 years. Seems to be a nice man and it will be interesting having a man for Reid’s teacher. I always think of teachers as women so some things catch me off guard. After first entering Reid’s classroom we met one of the girls in the class. Her name is Maya. She asked Mr. Balfour if he would fix her hair. She had 2 very girly ribbony barrettes in so I just giggled to myself. It turns out he has a daughter in preschool so he used to doing hair. It just reminds me to open my mind and not always assume the stereotype. Reid felt right at home and found a motorcycle helmet with a visor. We stayed for a little while and then we left. I was exhausted from trying to put Gigi to sleep. Reid was so upset. He wanted to stay and play. I think he was so excited to see new toys and be in a child’s environment. They divided up the KPA(Kindergarten Prep Advanced) classes in shifts to ease them into school. 3 shifts on Thursday (1 hr each), half of the class attends Friday and then the other half attends in Monday. Everyone goes “full-time’ on Tuesday. Thursday Reid went to school for only one hour 8:30-9:30. Again during G’s nap. As I mull over the best way to spend the hour at his school I decide that I’ll just bring the stroller and push G around while Reid is in his class. We arrive at school and park at the back of the school (thank you God for opening a space for us) and I begin to push her up the hill. I wasn’t sure at this point how far the entrance to the school was but I saw an entrance on the side. There was another family following us and I asked them if we could entre there and they seemed as lost as I was. They said why not and so we went. We were immediately confronted with two steps which I can manage. Whoo. Sure enough the only way up to the next floor is about 25 steps. Crap! Oh again thank you Mr. Man whoever you are for carrying my stroller with baby up the stairs for me. Ugh…this is not going to be a fun morning! So I walk around to get my bearings and look for the elevator. I can’t seem to locate it, so I ask someone and he points down the long corridor. AS I follow his hand I see the yellow “awas” floor sign out front as he is saying…but it’s out of order. Did I break down in tears? Nope. I sucked it up and said well we will just have to deal. “Awas” means careful, caution, or warning…I haven’t looked it up, but like Houston there is plenty of construction here so you see AWAS a lot. So we park the stroller at the bottom of the stairs and head up to Reid’s floor. The school is massive. I think there are depending on which part of the hill you are on 5 levels. And I sigh. We find his class, talk for a bit with Mr. Balfour, and then I decide to walk to the cafeteria/canteen, to get the school menus, check some email etc. I made it for about 30 minutes and then decided to go check on Reid. Everything was fine, I let Georgia get down and play and they all had fun. Reid and another classmate, Maya, made me tea, oatmeal and steak. Another girl seemed to be obsessed with the scissors (that should be a fun year for her and her parents) and the 5foot tall boy in his class didn’t seem to do much at all. His name is Oscar and he is Norwegian I think. Seriously a very tall kid. Reid is the youngest and already the smallest no matter where he goes, so I’m curious to get a glimpse of the entire class together. That’s ok – my baby can hold his own…I hope. It was time for us to go and Reid was upset again. Good sign I guess. I let him play on the playground outside his room for a bit and he loved it. He started running around with some girls trying to get in on their game. We head back down to get the stroller and I decide that the best option to get back to our car is to go back the way we came. SO this time I pull G down the stairs backwards…you remember…the 25 stairs as the stroller is going boom, boom, boom. I’m really glad this experience is almost over! So I get down the stairs make it around the corner and up the two little stairs only to find…did you guess? The gate was locked?! Are you serious? Are you kidding me? Tears? Almost, but I held them back and turned around to navigate the tower of steps once again. To make this very long story short, I made the stairs, but still have two more levels to go up and someone carried the stroller for me. God Bless her! We made it to our car to find…a flat tire!!! At this point I was kind of talking in that nervous way like should I laugh hysterically or cry in hysterics! Fortunately we are renting our car so there is an emergency number on the windshield. I made it to the house and they came and fixed the tire for us. Breathe…so I was in a mood for sure and it was not the good kind. After lunch and nap I went out with the kids, I turned the wrong way because I forgot I needed gas and just burst into tears. I couldn’t help it now. I was through. I was through with new. I didn’t want to deal with anything else. I just wanted to go where I wanted to go, know how to get there, know that there was a place to park, know that I could get easily get my children from the car to wherever and yet, I had more to do. I made it and that’s where I left off last post with a chocolate croissant and red wine. Oh it tasted so good and helped my mood tremendously.
Day two at school was Friday. Reid was to attend class from 8:30-11:50. I got to school on time, found a parking place, CARRIED Gigi as we went to Reid’s class and dropped him off. All seemed to be going just perfectly. I made it home to collect some things and let Gigi nap a little and then headed to the mall to do a little shopping before picking him up. Being the good parent that I am I was late picking him up from school. I was coming from the mall versus our home and I wasn’t exactly sure of the route I was using so I was late. I went to his class and no Reid. The assistant says his is in the office with the teacher. So I go to the only office I know (up 2 flights of stairs carrying G) no Reid at the admissions office. I go to the school store back down stairs and no luck. Really starting to get annoyed and about to have a major breakdown. I’m already feeling terrible because I’m late and now I have no clue where he is. So back to the class and now the assistant isn’t there. I stumbled upon another teacher who asks if she can help me and with that shaky I’m about to burst into tears I say I can’t find my son. She says maybe he’s in the elementary office and I say oh I didn’t know there was one of those. So up the stais we started and here comes Reid and the teacher heading towards the canteen as he calls it to get lunch. OMG! I could just die of guilt, sweat, exhaustion and relief. So even though my day started out promising it went a little downhill from there. I felt so guilty I took Reid to Wendy’s for lunch. Yep, it is almost the same minus the drive thru. That is about it for Friday. We had a family night out Friday night for dinner and went to place called the Gasthaus or something like that. I was very much like a Beer garten and we had a good time. I have some pics from the night. We had delicious paella, and pork steak and Reid had a sausage pizza…with lots of beer of course. Gigi loved the paella. We have been letting her eat whatever we have in hopes that she develops a very diverse pallette….in hopes I say.

You can only take so much " new"

So today, my 15th day in KL, was my breaking point. Several moments of tears followed by bitchiness, shopping, chocolate filled croissant and red wine. I had had it with "new". The croissant and wine is what turned it around for me. Who says i'm not easy to please?! That's it for now as i'm doing this on my iphone which is a major point in my frustration.