Miri Life

Nozar and a stormy day where Miri meets the South China Sea

The neighborhood behind our apt.

View from front of our apartment.

What we think we know, is really nothing at all. I am reminded of that fact more often as each year passes.  This past week we have learned lesson after lesson. My husband, over the past weeks, has repeatedly reminded me of why I married him. Simply put, he gets shit done. He’s not afraid. He bravely embarks on one small journey after another. It’s nothing short of impressive. He’s not afraid to leap off into the abyss where as I like to study the abyss first, stick my toe in, then step off. 

Our week has been full of learning opportunities. On Christmas day, while the whole of Miri was celebrating Christmas, we moved into our apartment. It’s a temporary apartment, because we could not find a house that met our criteria, so we will search again for a house at the beginning of 2014. For now, this is quite a nice apartment. Four bedroom, four bath and a pretty good view. Good enough for those brave enough to come and visit us here. You are all invited. We may just end up staying in this apartment for the whole of our years here, but we’ll see. Chinese/Malaysian architecture takes a bit of getting used to. Our happiness with our living arrangement here will be an ongoing adaptation of comfort level.

Shopping Mall w/ a few recognizable brands. Yes, that's a Kenny Rogers Roasters. Too funny!

Nozar and I both drove (in this country) for the first time this past week. That was an experience. Imagine, sitting on the “wrong” side of the car, driving on the “wrong” side of the rode, and not seeing one sign written in English. Yeah…it was a butt clinching experience the first time out. We both lived through it though. We only yelled at each other a couple of times. They have a traffic light system here that is essentially like ours in America until you arrive at a bright green U. What the heck! After getting used to it, I’ve decided, it’s a good system really, an indicator as to when it is okay to make a U-turn. I think it adds a bit of safety to the whole driving ordeal. Anyway, thank goodness the signs are the same shape and color as they are in the states. The parking garages here are a completely different story, as they are built for Smart Cars and Yugo’s. Not to mention, road side and direction often switch to American style in car parks – but not always. It’s a complete guessing game as to what to do once you enter a garage. Nozar (not taking the former into consideration) purchased the largest car available on the market here. Yep, we’ll have to take a taxi to any location requiring parking. Lucky for me, Shell allows for a rental car during the first weeks here so I have been driving a tiny Honda. Not a bad car, and – most importantly -  fits in the parking garages – no matter which direction I need to go. I used to dream of owning Mercedes and Audis, now it’s Prius’ and Mini Coopers.

Tamara, at a local Miri, beach front park.

The people here are amazingly kind and trustworthy. Every one of them always makes an effort to help us as much as possible, even if there is a language barrier. Lots of folks speak some English here so communicating only represents a relatively small problem.  (Specifics  about communication efforts here though, is a topic for its own blog entry.) Time and time again, we have just been trusted and left on our own to do what is right. For example, Nozar’s company is sometimes a little slow in handling things, so the day we moved into the apartment, while Nozar was getting the keys, the manager had our contract ready to go and asked about our form of payment. Since Shell handles the contracts for our living arrangements and since we are waiting to get our Ringgit (Malaysian currency) credit card, we told the apartment manager that we would come back to pay later. That was over a week ago now. It seems the Shell contract advisor is on vacation for a week and our credit cards won’t be ready until next week. The point is though, that not a sole has asked us to pay. We are just living here, in this huge apartment, rent and contract free. It’s very odd to be trusted. But nice to be in a country where it’s still possible.

White Spider Lily.

I hope you all are enjoying this blog. Thanks so much for all the kind and positive remarks. Makes me feel connected while so far away. If you have questions or want me to include different information I will happily accommodate. Next time, Nozar is posting about his visit to the Chinese Medicine Doctor. I swear he needs to hire a crew and film his own adventure show for A&E or the Discovery Chanel.

Attempting Life,

Tamara