The Left Foot:
Two weeks in to our new life and I've finally found time to post to the blog. The first week - new country, new home, new job - what other excuse do I need? Then last Saturday terrorism struck in Bali and I haven't had the heart. It's not a good time to be away from home - you just want to be with people who understand.
So what do you miss when you commit to a longish stint overseas in a place you didn't know existed a few months back? Well, Grumpy Girl and Petite Soeur of course but what else? Wine, a crisp dry Chardonnay or two with your dinner every night. You can get wine here - inferior sweetish Californian at inflated prices but no-one ever offers you wine if they invite you to dinner. Always lots of yummy food but flat Fanta to wash it down. What else? SBS news with the redoubtable Lee Ling Ching, "The Bill", the carolling of Magpies (actually, any birdsong would do) and the company of the gals in the ref office (it's lonely being a manager).
What do you get instead? Lot's of surprises like finding that although I'm living on the Equator I've been cold far oftener than I've been hot. Everything is air-conditioned to death and my office is freezing. Other surprises like wonderfully obliging people. One night we parked too long outside the Tourist Information Office and came back to find our car behind a padlocked barricade. While the Right Foot cussed and I calculated the cost of a night in the Hilton, we noticed a police station nearby. Polis set off to find a security guard but none were around. Then I noticed a note under the windscreen, written in Bahasa Malay. The polis could read it of course and it turned out that the guard had left the padlock slightly ajar and the note was basically asking us to please lock the gate on our way out!
Friday, October 18, 2002
The Right Foot:
You know you're getting to be part of the local scene when you get your first parking ticket. Four minutes late and the Brown Bombers struck! So how and where do you pay the fine (a whole 53 sen!) A few phone calls later and today I rocked up to an imposing-looking Wisma complete with guard by the door and held out my small pile of copper coins and the ticket. Oh no, they said. You cant pay here! You must go to the parking lot kiosk and pay there! It is impossible for us to take your shrapnel - here, we only deal in the Big Stuff when your fine is overdue (10 ringket). So out into the gathering morning fug and trudge off in search of a kiosk, any kiosk. Still, the walk along the shops is always interesting and you see heaps that you miss going by car. Eventually, success! It was worth it all to experience the way that people here give you your receipts or change - they use both hands and make this prosiac action look like an offering or something.
Meanwhile, back in the Enchanted Tower, things are getting so desperate that even the junk mail is beginning to look good!
You know you're getting to be part of the local scene when you get your first parking ticket. Four minutes late and the Brown Bombers struck! So how and where do you pay the fine (a whole 53 sen!) A few phone calls later and today I rocked up to an imposing-looking Wisma complete with guard by the door and held out my small pile of copper coins and the ticket. Oh no, they said. You cant pay here! You must go to the parking lot kiosk and pay there! It is impossible for us to take your shrapnel - here, we only deal in the Big Stuff when your fine is overdue (10 ringket). So out into the gathering morning fug and trudge off in search of a kiosk, any kiosk. Still, the walk along the shops is always interesting and you see heaps that you miss going by car. Eventually, success! It was worth it all to experience the way that people here give you your receipts or change - they use both hands and make this prosiac action look like an offering or something.
Meanwhile, back in the Enchanted Tower, things are getting so desperate that even the junk mail is beginning to look good!
Thursday, October 17, 2002
The Right Foot:
After so many weeks of planning and dreaming about living and working overseas, the reality is setting in. We have been in Kuching, Sarawak for exactly two weeks. Well, actually only the Left Foot is working and I am sitting here, typing away in the Enchanted Tower, a multistorey condo a la Gold Coast, set in the middle of jungle one side and a couth golf course on the other. There is a splendid lake and lots of holes in the ground filled with water and surrounded by luxuriant weed growth. This is because the rest of the resort has not yet happened but the model shows that it will be a Thing of Great Beauty. It is actually quite spooky living in a place designed for hundreds of people and there are only a handful, most of whom you dont see from one week to the next. I was feeling quite isolated until I worked out how to get onto the Internet. I can appreciate how the first settlers to a new country must have felt in years gone by as they sent off letters that might take years to arrive and pounced on and eagerly discussed news that was years old! Good old technology! I can even get the latest office jokes.
After so many weeks of planning and dreaming about living and working overseas, the reality is setting in. We have been in Kuching, Sarawak for exactly two weeks. Well, actually only the Left Foot is working and I am sitting here, typing away in the Enchanted Tower, a multistorey condo a la Gold Coast, set in the middle of jungle one side and a couth golf course on the other. There is a splendid lake and lots of holes in the ground filled with water and surrounded by luxuriant weed growth. This is because the rest of the resort has not yet happened but the model shows that it will be a Thing of Great Beauty. It is actually quite spooky living in a place designed for hundreds of people and there are only a handful, most of whom you dont see from one week to the next. I was feeling quite isolated until I worked out how to get onto the Internet. I can appreciate how the first settlers to a new country must have felt in years gone by as they sent off letters that might take years to arrive and pounced on and eagerly discussed news that was years old! Good old technology! I can even get the latest office jokes.
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