Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Check √

There is a  √ beside the ones I have been and for the ones I have yet to check off of my list.

Malaysia: Top 10 Places

1.Heeren Street & Jonker Street
Malacca

Heeren Street which is also known as the ‘First Class Gentlemen Street’ or the ‘Millionaires Row’, is a road with double storey houses similar to that of the modern terrace houses, but much longer. The houses portray a rich and detailed mix of Chinese, European and Peranakan architecture. Till today, the Peranakans (Baba Nyonyas) do live in them, making this a living heritage, though there are also some being turned into galleries, cafes, hotels and eateries.


On the parallel street is Jonker Street, also known as the ‘Second Class Gentleman Street’. More commercial, this street used to house mainly traders and merchants. On weekends, thenight bazaar of Jonker Walk comes alive. Malacca’s artists come out in full force selling their art paintings and handicrafts beside other Nyonya related food items like the popular pineapple tarts and Nyonya kuihs.

2. Khoo Kongsi
Georgetown, Penang

Khoo Kongsi, reputedly known as ‘The Heritage Jewel of Penang’. The grand architecture is said to resemble that of the Emperor’s palace in China. Myth explained that this was the reason that the clan house was burnt down only 29 nights after its completion as a wrath from the God. 

Khoo Kongsi was used in the filming of Anna & The King featuring Jodie Foster and Chow Yuen Fatt. Apparently, Jodie Foster was really impressed with the place and left good remarks in the visitors’ book!



3. Petronas Twin Towers
Kuala Lumpur
I have already been
there, but I haven't blogged
about it.  But to the left is
my proof because I took
that picture of Peter.

Visiting Malaysia is never complete, if one never visits this twin towers…. and that include Malaysians, be it from KL or any other parts of the country. The 88-storey Petronas Twin Towers is one of the world’s tallest buildings in the world, soaring to a height of 452 metres above the city skyline. Designed by Cesar Pelli in 1997 and mostly constructed with steel and glass, the towers were the world’s tallest when completed.

The twin towers is a common feature in the skyline of the city and can be seen in many magazines and books on the country. It is also shown in movies and TV productions, most notably the film Entrapment starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones

4. Tengku Tengah Zaharah Mosque
Teluk Ibai, Terengganu



Miraculously seen as floating on the water and hence the nickname The Floating Mosque of the East. The distinctive design of the mosque on a floating platform and its beautiful location on a lagoon by the mouth of Sungai Ibai creates the enchantingly floating impression to viewers.





5. Sarawak Cultural Village
Santubong, Sarawak

The Sarawak Cultural Village is the award winning living museum that showcases the heritage of the major racial groups in Sarawak. The concept is to build up a condensation of Sarawak’s ethnic diversity in the 17 acres village. Visitors get the chance to personally experience the different lifestyles of seven tribes at the distinct longhouses models. Its multi-ethnic cultural performance at the mini theatre is another fun event not to be missed that portrays the distinct cultures of the many ethnic groups.

6. Batu Caves
Selangor 
The Batu Caves is believed as a 400 million years old limestone hill over the length of 400 meters and a height of 120 meters, which has a series of caves and cave temples.

In the pristine state before 1860, some of the cave mouths were used by the indigenous Besisi people as transit shelters. Today, this is the most popular destination during annual Thaipusam festival in Malaysia when more than 1.5 million pilgrims escorted the statue of Lord Muruga to Batu Caves.



7. Cherating Beach
Pahang
Cherating Beach is a stretch of almost 10 kilometers of beach from the south of Kuantan in Pahang right up to the town of Chukai in Terengganu. With its sloping white sandy beaches and soothing sea breeze, it is an internationally acclaimed spot for surfers particularly in November and December.
Cherating has the perfect combination of great surf, extreme sea activities such as Jet Ski, nice chalets, fine dining and exciting nightlife. For a more thorough experience, visitors can sign up for the river cruise that sails around the coast and explore the nearby forests.
8. Sipadan Island
Sabah
Surrounded by crystal clear waters, Sipadan Island is voted as one of the best diving sites with its large numbers of greenback and hawksbill turtles which gather here to mate and nest. Another focus of the divers are to look out for the tornado-like formations of barracudas, big-eye trevallies, mantas, eagle rays, scalloped hammerhead sharks and whale sharks. Even better, various dive sites are assured with garden eels, leaf scorpion fishes, mantis shrimps, fire graces and various pipe fishes. Sipadan is now one of the nominees for the New 7 Wonders Of Nature.









9. Gunung Mulu National Park
Miri, Sarawak


 The Gunung Mulu National Park has been inscribed as a World Heritage Site in the year 2000. It is famous for its incredible caves and chambers and karsts formations. Researchers often come to the park to study the best example of tropical limestone weathering (karsts) in the world including enormous razor-sharp pinnacles, deep-cut canyons, and grand caverns that are home to millions of bats and cave swiftlets.





10. Kota Kinabalu National Park
& Mount Kinabalu
Kota Kinabalu National Park is Malaysia’s first World Heritage. Designated by UNESCO in December 2000 for its ‘outstanding universal values’, the park covers an area of 754 square kilometers and surrounds the majestic Mount Kota Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in Malaysia (and fourth tallest in Southeast Asia). The hiking of Mount Kota Kinabalu up to the Low’s Peak ‘summit’ at 4100 meters is the goal of many trekkers. If climbers wish to go further up, the climb is on bare granite rock. The Rafflesia plant, which has the largest single flower in the world, is also found in the Kota Kinabalu National Park.



Tuesday, September 28, 2010

New widgets

I just added some new widgets to my blog, the first being "Daily Bible Verse-Let Scripture Speak."  My favorite of the Bible verses is Eph. 5:22 "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord."  I picked this one because now that my husband is in the same country as me I need to remember to do this!

I also added "Quote of the Day."  Today my favorite quote is by Frank Lloyd Wright "There is nothing more uncommon than common sense."  SOOOOOO TRUE!!!!!!



Service Source International

The reason we have moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is because of my job with Service Source.  We are an outsourced sales company for hardware and software companies.  I am a Sales Support Coordinator, which means I build quotes for the sales rep.  The office in KL is going to be a data office for several of the teams that we have back in the states.  VMware, the software team I am on, is the first team to expand over here.  We have had a total of about 15 people from the other offices (Nashville, Dublin, Singapore) come over to get this office up and running.  Jonathan and I are the here for the long hall of 6 months.  Can you believe I have already been here a month!!??  Only 5 more to go!!




That chair is pretty comfy.  It just needs a foot rest.


Walking into the office from the front desk.


From the front

From the back at my desk


More cubicles by the kitchen that are empty at the moment.  If you go around the corner straight ahead that is where we all sit.




One of the training rooms.  "Peter's office"

The sitting area.  The short table with the stools is very awkward to eat at.

The kitchen

Chad and Jonathan in some local costumes


The locals, plus chad and jonathan


with everybody


The guys in costume plus John and Jason
From Right to Left: Jason, Jonathan, Hafiz, Jonathan, Chad, John, Pravin, Thilaag


The left side of the girl picture (I was obviously not ready for this one)
From left to right: Jesenta, Yaso, Vicky, Telacia, Siti (can't tell who is behind Siti), Umi, Christina, Padma, Manjo, Ellie, Kavitha, Parveen, Me, Huda, Suraya, Manju, Zila, and Chevlyn
 The right side of the girl picture
From right to left: Reen, Efy, Rohani, Neeta (hiding in the back), Darshini, then back to Chevlyn.


We saw this on the way home one day.  This is the bane of our existence (I hope that's supposed to be bane...I asked people around me before I put it on here) at work.  We build all of our quotes with this program and we thought it was funny that we saw a bumper sticker!!  Oh Horacle!!

Monday, September 27, 2010

Church History

Last night Gary and I were able to go to a gospel meeting.  I don't think they call it gospel meeting here, but that's what it was.  Douglas Foster from Abilene Christian University was here talking about Church History. 
He is an amazing speaker and an extremely good story teller.  He talked for 2 hours straight.  It did seem a little long because Gary was suffering from a little jet lag and we hadn't had dinner so we were both starving by 10pm when it was over.  The people that we rode with, Stephen and Eileen, used to go to PJ chuch of Christ so they had friends there so we stayed a little bit longer and had birthday cake for Doug's wife's birthday.  It was really cool that we got to see other Americans.  Everybody was so confused as to why we were there.  Everyone from Malaysia thought we were there with them or knew them before hand.  We didn't leave the church building until 11 and then we went and had dinner at a Northern Indian restaurant.  It was delicious!!!!  We finally got back home at around midnight.  It is so wonderful being part of God's family because we have traveled exactly half way around the world and when we step into a church building we feel so at home.  Actually the preacher of the PJ church knows Kok Hai Tan, who was one of my computer teachers at Freed and now goes to Crieve Hall.  It is such a small world!! 

Ellie's Camera


There have been a few things that A. I was not there for that I wish I was or B. I didn't have my camera with me to document it!!  So, I have stolen some of Ellie's pictures to share with you.
This was from the first week I was here I think.
John, me, Peter
John told Ellie he could take her earing out with some chopsticks...oh yes he accomplished it!!

Yummy!!!

Jason, Peter, John, Jonathan, Ellie, and me


Ellie and me at Batu Caves

Our office.  I could probably name everybody, but I won't

At Rohani's house (our HR manager)

At Rohani's house

Rohani is the one in the head wrap on the right!  She is so stinkin' cute!!

We have this place called the executive lounge in the hotel and everyday from 5-7 you can get free food.  We usually go up there after work for some appetizers and then out to dinner.  It is on the 29th floor and this is the view when the sun sets!! 

At Noodle Station.  There's no telling what Peter is doing.

While Gary and I were at church yesterday everyone else went up into the KL tower (the one on the 2RM)
and it stormed pretty hard yesterday.  I'm not sure if you can tell but there is rainbow!!!

Even though I don't really like going by Kim a lot of the people here call me that and I don't really correct them because I don't really feel like it.  Ellie saw this restaurant yesterday!  It is Hong Kong cuisine.  Gary stopped in Hong Kong on his way here :).