 |
| From my old hotel - awesome view of the towers; new place... no view to speak of other than from the roof |
Yup, it’s been 2 weeks since I’ve written last. Work has kicked in, with crazy long days, and
between settling into my new place and having my first mini-meltdown last
weekend (I blame hormones) there really hasn’t been much to report.
The new living arrangement – it was a process, like how most
things are. I was moved from the initial
hotel, which was at the center of the local bustling nightlife area, to a
serviced apartment further out, though still about a mile from work. (Though, now instead of having a nice
air-conditioned walkway, it’s crazy busy street with narrow sidewalks; I’ve been Ubering mostly, though that’s a
whole other post in itself).
Thankfully I was able to get a 1-bedroom instead of the 300
sq ft studio that was initially proposed, as I think I would have gone crazy in
a space that small for any duration. Now
I have a bedroom with a walk-in closet, a living room with a couch, a dining
room table in the entryway, a tiny little kitchen with a 2-burner electric
stove, microwave, and – importantly – a washer/dryer, and lots of storage space. As I tend toward the homebody, it’s nice to
have this little space to myself, as it gives me a bit of breathing room to at
least not always be in a single room.
 |
Waiting for my apartment to be ready on moving
day - lucked out to be here during time of day
when the sun was coming from behind the
building which cast a shadow over the small
kiddie pool. Quite lovely!
|
The place is definitely hotel-esque and not fancy but, aside
from the uncomfortable bed that I’m slowly getting used to, is fine. There are little splashes of color – the diningroom
chairs are green, there are colorful decorative pillows on the couch and the
bed. Little things like that really make
a difference.
And I got a few things to make the place more homey: a plastic-paper red Chinese New Year (CNY)
lantern hanging, some yummy-smelling soap (from
 |
| New place - bedroom with big closet and a splash of color |
A great feature of the place is on the top (22nd)
floor. There’s a little gym that has 2
elliptical machines (my preferred workout method), and a decent-sized
pool. The really cool thing is that
while I’m super sad that there is no shade at all up there (wish they’d
installed some umbrellas or a covering over the beams that are over the chaise
longues by the pool), but if you go at night, you get an absolutely amazing
view of the night skyline all lit up – and even a corner bit of one of the
Petronas towers. Really cool.
The apartment itself has some quirks – for example, the
all-in-one washer-and-dryer seems to take 2 hours on the “economy” wash cycle,
and 30 minutes doesn’t even begin to dry the clothes; and the
 |
| My little living area; note the water cooler I rent from the hotel, and my addition of the colorful red CNY decoration |
Every outlet has an on/off switch to it, which after you get
over the strangeness actually totally makes sense – no use wasting electricity
when the outlet is not in use. But – and
this is the one the still kind of gets me – the bathroom, while having an
outlet specifically for razors (which apparently have some sort of special
plug??), has NO regular power outlet.
The room comes with a hair dryer.
When I inquired at the front desk, I was inexplicably told that this is
in fact a feature (not a bug) in their room design, as they had an unfortunate
incident some years back. Presumably
with a person, a plugged in hair dryer, and a full bathtub, I would
assume. But this apparently caused them
to take wildly and decidedly extreme action and remove power from the
bathrooms. Say wha…?
When I asked how I was supposed to dry my hair, I was
apologetically told to just plug in in another room. Needless to say, the cord isn’t long enough
to reach the mirror by the door from any of the nearby outlets… I inquired about an extension cord, but was
told that sorry, don’t have any. After
searching unsuccessfully in the supermarket and at Daiso, I finally
 |
| Funny bathroom configuration where the shower is NEXT to the tub! (you pass through the shower to get to the tub) |
The other challenge I was having – and this is totally
telling on myself – is I couldn’t figure out the hot water situation. For the shower, there’s a wall switch you
need to turn on 20 minutes prior to your intended shower time in order to warm
up the water heater. Fine. Day 1 – I did so, but shower was lukewarm at
best. The hotel handyman came and said
he switched some lever to high and he showed me – now have hot water. Great.
Next day I tried it… nope.
Lukewarm, ahem – refreshing – shower #2.
As I was leaving for work I told the front desk, and they said they’d
take care of it, and when I got home there was a note on the table saying that
everything was fine. I tried it again
the next day… no go. It wasn’t until I
shared with an Aussie coworker and he made a comment about turning the tap the
opposite way that I realized I should try turning the handle to the “cold”
position instead – you know, the one with the little blue dot, to the
right. Yup, bingo. So yea, I feel kind of dumb for not having
figured it out sooner, but hey, not only was it backwards, but there was a
little blue dot….!
 |
| Hanging out at Wild Honey |
Hence, my goal for the next few days is to explore some
coffeeshop options – ideally NOT inside any malls, but I’ll take what I can
get! - where I can hang, read, write, chill, chow. As far as goals go not a bad one. Meanwhile, I’ll finish for now – writing from
Wild Honey, my 2nd time here, equally as delicious as the
first. (Amazing scrambled eggs, terrific
smoked salmon bagel, really tasty grapefruit-elederberry-honey “Queen Bee”
drink). Peace out.
 |
| My kitchen, such as it is, avec washer/drier |
 |
| The old hotel had a really nice lounge... |
 |
| For the move, my stuff had multiplied! Partly cos I got a few things (like the yoga mat), but mostly because I hadn't bothered to re-pack into the airtight plastic bags, alas |
 |
| S'not bad! (new place kiddie pool) |
 |
| Old hotel pool - small but with canopies over the chairs to hide from the hot sun |
Comments
Post a Comment