{"id":159,"date":"2006-03-14T18:18:50","date_gmt":"2006-03-14T09:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-03-14\/159"},"modified":"2006-03-14T18:18:50","modified_gmt":"2006-03-14T09:18:50","slug":"more-thoughts-on-malaysia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-03-14\/159","title":{"rendered":"More Thoughts on Malaysia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n<p>I've been in Malaysia for a bit over <span class='nobr'>a week.<\/span> <span class='nobr'>We stayed<\/span> the first three\nnights at <span class='nobr'>a hotel<\/span> on Penang Island (<span class='nobr'>a large<\/span> island about the size of Silicon\nValley and just about as well developed) and then moved two miles away to\nFumie's dad's place, also on Penang. <span class='nobr'>He's here on<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a long<\/span>-term work\nassignment.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nFor the weekend we went to Langkawi island, <span class='nobr'>a somewhat<\/span> smaller and vastly\nless-developed island <span class='nobr'>a 20<\/span>-minute flight north of Penang, just off the\nsouthern border of Thailand. Our hotel, the <a\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.theandaman.com\/\">Andaman<\/a>, was <span class='nobr'>a thirty<\/span>-minute drive\nfrom the airport and exactly at the edge of nowhere.\n\n<\/p>\n\n<p>\n\nThe Andaman is a study in contrasts. They aim to be a 5-star world-class\nresort, and their RM900 (about US $270) rate for <span class='nobr'>a small<\/span> one-bedroom room\nis on the slightly low side of par for that (<span class='nobr'>I did<\/span> meet someone paying\nUS$400 for <span class='nobr'>a room,<\/span> so <span class='nobr'>I guess<\/span> we got lucky). <span class='nobr'>The breakfast<\/span> buffet cost\nUS$21, and <span class='nobr'>a cocktail<\/span> $7.50. Yet, private in-room baby-sitting costs less\nthan $3\/hr.\n\n<\/p><p>The room has no clock, and none are available should you ask. Their\nfood presentation (utilizing flowers and leaves and shoots from the\nsurrounding rainforest) is the best <span class='nobr'>I have<\/span> ever seen, eclipsing what I've\nseen at swanky restaurants in DC, Paris, London, and Kyoto. <span class='nobr'>The room was<\/span>\nclean and the air conditioner worked very well, but the general condition\nwas not much better than you might find at the average <span class='nobr'>Motel 6.<\/span> (There\nwere, to its credit, many more towels than you'd find at a <span class='nobr'>Motel 6.<\/span>)\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nThe resort had its own private beach which was unfortunately devoid of\nyoung women in skimpy bathing suits. Massages ran about $25-$50 per hour.\nThey had a &#8220;business center&#8221; (<span class='nobr'>a room<\/span> with two computers) with internet\naccess, but the computers were running Windows XP with only 128 meg of\nmemory, which rendered them and their 2.8GHz Pentium processors virtually\nuseless.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nAnyway, we arrived back here (Penang) yesterday. Tomorrow, Fumie and <span class='nobr'>I go<\/span>\nearly to Kuala Lumpur for some shopping, then meet Anthony and Fumie's mom\nat KL's airport for <span class='nobr'>a midnight<\/span> flight back to Japan.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nSome random observations about Malaysia:\n\n<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n\n<li><p>The Weather Channel doesn't know much about Penang weather. Before\ncoming they (via Yahoo! Weather) predicted thunderstorms every day of my\nvisit. <span class='nobr'>One day had<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a brief<\/span> (30-minute) shower, and very late one night the\nskies positively opened up for an hour. Otherwise, it's been fantastic\nweather.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>There are a lot of wireless access points in residential areas, but\nvery few have WEP (basic minimal security) turned off. Since even access\npoints with <span class='nobr'>a name<\/span> like &#8220;default&#8221; have WEP, <span class='nobr'>I have to<\/span> guess that it's on by\ndefault for most units sold here. We're at <span class='nobr'>a cluster<\/span> of five or six\n22-story buildings with <span class='nobr'>a total<\/span> of 331 units, and <span class='nobr'>I found<\/span> only one open\naccess point that <span class='nobr'>I can<\/span> connect to. <span class='nobr'>I'm composing<\/span> this posting offline, and\nwill trot over to Building &#8220;F&#8221;, floor 16, to &#8220;borrow&#8221; someone's WAP to\nupload to my blog. (Since I'm composing offline, there are no embedded\nlinks, sorry.)<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>Mc Donald's offers delivery here. <span class='nobr'>I must stress<\/span> that <span class='nobr'>I have<\/span>\nexperienced neither Mc Donald's food nor its delivery on this trip, but\njudging from the &#8220;McDelivers&#8221; signs plastered on <span class='nobr'>a McDonald's<\/span> we went by,\nthey offer the service.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>There's surprisingly little smoking. It's wonderful. Tourists are more\nlikely to smoke than the locals.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>They're starting to put timers on the traffic lights and cross walks.\nThis, too, is wonderful -- more so than you can imagine. When at <span class='nobr'>a red<\/span>\nlight or <span class='nobr'>a crosswalk,<\/span> you know exactly how many seconds until it turns\ngreen, and vice-versa. <span class='nobr'>It seems<\/span> like it would be &#8220;nice&#8221; but not that big <span class='nobr'>a\ndeal,<\/span> but it's <span class='nobr'>a huge<\/span> de-stresser.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>Small motorbikes are very popular, and I've seen up to four riders on\none (Mom, dad, big brother, tiny infant). <span class='nobr'>The vast majority<\/span> of riders wear\nhelmets, although substantially less on Langkawi where everything seems to\nbe <span class='nobr'>a bit<\/span> more laid back.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>Traffic at first seems to be somewhat chaotic, but after <span class='nobr'>a while<\/span> you\nget <span class='nobr'>a feel<\/span> for the cadence of things, and now after <span class='nobr'>a week<\/span> it feels well\norchestrated. <span class='nobr'>My general<\/span> impression is that it's more sane than Kyoto or\nSilicon Valley (and vastly more-so than Southern California). <span class='nobr'>It's so much<\/span>\nbetter than in Thailand or India, which, previously, my preconceptions had\nMalaysia with.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>There are always exceptions. When traffic backs up at <span class='nobr'>a red<\/span> light,\nthere is occasionally <span class='nobr'>a car<\/span> which rudely jumps out and drives in the\nopposite lane to jump in front of others. <span class='nobr'>A notable<\/span> percentage of\nmotorbikes aren't generally too concerned about stopping for red lights --\nat least, not stopping for very long. (They're about on par with\npedestrians waiting for <span class='nobr'>a red<\/span> crosswalk sign to become green -- some wait,\nsome don't.)<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>At least in Penang, there's a preponderance of one-way streets with no\napparent &#8220;other way&#8221; street that <span class='nobr'>I can<\/span> detect. <span class='nobr'>If you miss<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a turn<\/span> and don't\nknow exactly how to get back, you're in trouble.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>The national currency is the Malaysian Ringgit, and prices are quoted\nas &#8220;RM900&#8221; (the hotel room) or &#8220;RM1.80&#8221; (<span class='nobr'>a can<\/span> of Coke -- 50 US cents).\nYet, there occasionally seems to be some habit\/fad to use the word &#8220;dollar&#8221;\ninstead of &#8220;Ringgit&#8221;. <span class='nobr'>It was quite<\/span> confusing the first time <span class='nobr'>I ran<\/span> into\nit.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>Malaysian food is yummy, although <span class='nobr'>I would<\/span> be hard-pressed to name or\ndescribe much of what I've had.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>Today we went to a department store that was as modern, well lit, and\nwell stocked as any I'd been to in Japan or the US. They had <span class='nobr'>a\nJapanese<\/span>-style bakery with all kinds of yummy things. <span class='nobr'>A fancy<\/span> pastry was\n&#8220;$1.30&#8221;, but the &#8220;$&#8221; really meant &#8220;Ringgit&#8221;, so the fancy pastry was US 35\ncents.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>Islam is the predominant religion, and as such many women wear head\nscarves (not the full-body black thing with just <span class='nobr'>a slit<\/span> for the eyes, but,\nrather, the kind of head scarf Aunt Fanny might have worn to church in the\nold days). Sometimes it goes with jeans or other regular clothes, but often\nit goes with <span class='nobr'>a stunningly<\/span> beautiful, vividly colorful long flowing dress. <span class='nobr'>One of the<\/span> most beautiful <span class='nobr'>I ever<\/span> saw (and I've seen many jaw-droppingly\nbeautiful dresses here) was on <span class='nobr'>a young<\/span> girl standing at an intersection in\nthe middle of Langkawi island, waiting to cross on her bicycle, on here way\nhome from school. <span class='nobr'>It was hot<\/span> and sunny and her scarf and dress were vividly\nlime, and her appearance was pristine in every respect. <span class='nobr'>I very much<\/span> wanted\nto take her photograph, but the taxi was moving and <span class='nobr'>I was<\/span> too stunned to\nact quickly enough.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>Malaysians really know their juice. <span class='nobr'>We were at<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a typical<\/span> outdoor cafe\n(which is much more of <span class='nobr'>a controlled<\/span>-chaos mad-house than the roads) and <span class='nobr'>I\nasked<\/span> the waitress what juices they had, and she rattled off <span class='nobr'>a list<\/span> so long\nand so fast that <span class='nobr'>I literally<\/span> couldn't listen quickly enough to take it all\nin. Somewhere in the list <span class='nobr'>I heard<\/span> &#8220;guava&#8221; and stopped her. What <span class='nobr'>I got<\/span> was\ngreen. (I've since learned that there's green guava and red guava, the\nlatter being what Kern's produces in Hawaii.) Watermelon juice is <span class='nobr'>a\npopular<\/span> drink -- you can get it anywhere. <span class='nobr'>It tastes<\/span> like they squeezed <span class='nobr'>a\nwatermelon<\/span> and poured the runoff into your glass, which is I'm sure\nexactly what's done much of the time. Apple juice comes with <span class='nobr'>a heavy<\/span> green\nfoam head; <span class='nobr'>I have<\/span> no idea what it is, but it's tasty.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>There's a 100% excise tax on imported cars. &#8220;Proton&#8221;, the main\nMalaysian car maker, therefor enjoys <span class='nobr'>a huge<\/span> price advantage. From what <span class='nobr'>I\ncan<\/span> tell, though, their cars seem to be in the same league as Honda or\nToyota. At least, visually, they seem to share the same designer. Cars in\ngeneral are getting more and more popular -- even just <span class='nobr'>a few<\/span> years ago the\nnumber of motorbikes was apparently much more than now, but people have\ngraduated to cars as the economy has gotten better. Things look very bright\nfor Malaysia, except for the impending traffic jam that will hit when the\neconomy gets just <span class='nobr'>a bit<\/span> better.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>There's a lot of nice public artwork (fountains, etc.) that's\nparticularly pretty at night. Both public and private properties often\nlight up their grounds at night with colorful lights, making for very\npleasant sights. This is all over, not just the big towns or tourist\nareas.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>Car seats are not required for children unless they're in the front\nseat.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<li><p>The general feeling I get around Penang is much of what <span class='nobr'>I feel<\/span> in\nSilicon Valley. Lots of specialty shops, lots of hi tech, lots of people, <span class='nobr'>a\ngenerally<\/span> safe feeling, mobile-phone advertisements everywhere. <span class='nobr'>The only big<\/span> differences are that high-rise buildings (20+ stories) are all over, and\nthe mosque (or whatever they're called) ring out five times <span class='nobr'>a day<\/span> calling\ntheir faithful to prayer.<\/p><\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I've been in Malaysia for a bit over a week. We stayed the first three nights at a hotel on Penang Island (a large island about the size of Silicon Valley and just about as well developed) and then moved two miles away to Fumie's dad's place, also on Penang. He's here on a long-term work assignment. <\/p><p> For the weekend we went to Langkawi island, a somewhat smaller and vastly less-developed island a 20-minute flight north of Penang, just off the southern border of Thailand. Our hotel, the Andaman, was a thirty-minute drive from the airport and exactly at [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}