Letter from Grace VM 🌸

Hi Everybody!

I wanted to write about the things that have been happening over the past few weeks. 

When we left Australia, we didn't go Vietnam immediately. First we went on an 8 hour flight to Malaysia. We landed in Kuala Lumpur, then we took a 1 hour flight to Penang. Our friends Graham and Jo gave us a treat bag before we left and it had pocket money in it. We bought a big bag of crisps each and we still have some money left over. Granny and Granda gave us spending money for ice cream, but instead we got chocolate waffles!

The Ferringhi Residence is where we stayed for nine days. There was a pool and kids park there. When we went down the street there were all shops lined out on the streets and they only really open at night. Most of them anyway. When we got there it was really late, like, 10:00 at night, midnight in Australian time. So we went to bed and didn't have much trouble sleeping, since we were so tired. The next morning, me and Daddy went for a walk down the street to the shops and bought breakfast at a place called Happy Mart. We got two cereals called Honey Stars, and Choco Puffs. We also got chocolate and strawberry rolls and they were very yummy. We also got coffee for mommy! 

That evening we went out for dinner. The food was lovely! Then for "dessert" we had oat-tasting jelly. It was OK, I guess. The next day, we went out for dinner again. That time, we became friends with the lady who owned the restaurant. She was really nice, and she told Mommy a story about her Christianity. The owner gave me a really nice necklace with a crown on it. At that restaurant, the food was also the best of the best. 😊

The next day we went to lovely gardens. On the way back from it, and at the start, we saw monkeys. There were lots of them, like, 17 of them. They were sooo cute.

Then the next day we went to a place called Monkey Beach. The weird thing was, we only saw 1 monkey. And it was a pet. It jumped on Sophia!

One of the days we met daddy's friend and his wife. They took us to see temples and we had "pizza"* in an Indian restaurant. It was a fun day.

Thanks for reading my letter. Evie, give the puppies a cuddle from me! I miss you! 

Grace 😄😉⚡️🌷🌹


* It wasn't really pizza. It was these pastries with cheese and veggies on it. :) 

Short break in Penang

Is a holiday really possible with 5 children? Perhaps not by most people's standards :) We thought that we should try in any case, on our way to Vietnam for 6 months, and we picked Penang both for its beauty and so that I could do a spot of business at the local University!

We rented an apartment in a new development in Batu Ferringhi for just over a week, with a pool, playground and great access to many of Penang's activities. We must have been one of the first occupants, and many of the other units were still being fitted out. This was great, for the most part, since it meant no trouble parking, safe roads and usually an empty pool. There was one evening, though, when someone decided to continue their work upstairs at a ridiculous hour. I think that my deployment to the next floor to confront the culprit must have been imminent, when it finally ceased!

After renting a car and stocking up the fridge and freezer at the local Tesco (so surprised to find Tesco in Penang!), we tried to explore in the morning and otherwise just took it easy most of our days in Malaysia.

Enjoying ice-cream on another hot day!

Swimming!
One of our main objectives for the stay was to swim every day in the pool in our complex. We nearly managed it but missed one through darkness and one because of pool closure. The pool closure was far more disappointing, since it was our last day and we left out all the swimmers and towels while packing up and then headed over, pumped for a final swim...but no, boooooo :(

          

Finding Veggie Food!
We ate out at least once a day, with a few highlights. Searching for vegetarian restaurants in Penang does not yield many options, but we managed to pick up an address for Idealite, a vegan place in Georgetown. We arrived as they were having a huge staff meeting with lots of cheering and speeches (apparently visiting owners and new staff for Singapore expansion). Anyway, the food was awesome but fairly pricey. Staff were extremely chatty and telling us about the vision of the place...really great spot. Judah said it was the best vegetarian food ever (a few places have earned that honour already during this trip!).

On our first day in Penang, we noticed a Thai eatery along our drive and the next day, we dropped in for dinner at Amphan Restaraunt. As was the case often in Malaysia, veggie options were thin on the ground but the staff were lovely and fresh fruit juice was awesome and served in big mugs! We spent a long time here and made some new friends, returning for lunch a few days later!

On the weekend we spent the day with Ali and Tayebeh, eating at a Chinese vegan place for lunch and a famous Indian restaurant in the evening. There was lots of really interesting food shared and a great day was had with lovely friends.

Botanic Gardens
One morning we decided to check out the Botanic Gardens that seemed to get good reviews, so we drove down into Georgetown and back up into the mountains to the west of the city. We later realised that there was a great 'youth park' really nearby, with lots of playgrounds and pools, that we never made it back to :(

In any case, the gardens were really beautiful, the downside being that it was a scorching hot day and we didn't last very long in the late morning heat (in true VM fashion we DID NOT leave the house as early as we had hoped!). There were monkeys and monitor lizards around to watch out for, we took a tram ride around the circuit and ate very rapidly melting ice-creams. Afterwards we realised that we were passing our fave Vegan restaurant (Idealite) and grabbed some take away dumplings and battered mushrooms!

                                                                      

Penang National Park and Monkey Beach
We took a drive out to Penang National Park, intending to go walking and traverse the famous walk-bridges. Maybe next time...without small children! Realising that we were not going to be climbing any mountains, in the heat or any other time, and being advised of a 1 hour walk to our destination, we quickly hired a boat ride out to Monkey Beach. Most of the kids hadn't been on this kind of a boat before...Judah's little face lit up :) Monkey Beach was a bit of paradise and the kids loved swinging on numerous ropes. We tried to trek into the jungle a bit but were rapidly repelled by mozzies! We didn't last more than 90 minutes, but it was definitely worth while.  

        

         

                             

Entopia visit
Entopia (previously Penang Butterfly Park) was a very cool place to spend a morning. The kids loved the butterflies all around and landing on them (except Caleb, who navigated the enclosure with great care not to be touched by anything!). As well as the butterflies, there were all sorts of lizards, bugs, spiders, caterpillars and insects, and a variety of great educational exhibitions.

                       

           

           

     

All in all, we had a great stay in Penang and even managed some decent relaxation time (I commented to Deb that my fingernails were getting long...a sign of reduced stress for this biter!). It may sound like hard work to take 5 kids on holiday...ok, so it is a bit...BUT we really like these little people and we wouldn't have it any other way!

At the end of our time in Penang it was onwards, von Medings, to Hanoi!

Our New Home

As I start to write 'Our New Home' I can't help but think of all the houses we've made home over the past few years. I think we bring 'home' with us wherever we go and as we unpack and become acquainted the home feeling settles into the building and we find our new normal.

I liked this house the moment our friend Chinh sent pictures of it. She was so kind to view it, and many others, for us and arrange the lease with the owner on our behalf. The first day we arrived, we faced a lengthy paper work delay including x7 visa applications to fill while bribing the children with lollies! Chinh was patiently waiting for us when we emerged, filled two taxi's and beeped our way through traffic to our house.

It has been interesting to move from living in one storey houses to this four storey one! Caleb just volunteered...ahem was coerced...into doing a stair count. We have 53 stairs! 

Through the green gates we have a small court yard with stairs leading up to the second floor - very Romeo and Juliet! I love this large bonsai tree.

Inside is a large living, dining and kitchen area and lots of little busy people!

The kitchens here don't have a big oven like we would at home, people mostly use the stove top. We have a two ring electric stove, a small oven that we have yet to use, a microwave and a rice cooker. A feature that I love about the kitchen is the drip drying area above the sink. You have two levels to put wet dishes and a grid at the bottom allows the water to drip into the sink. No drying dishes 👍🏼

Here starts the many stairs! We will be *so fit* by the time we come back - so long as we stay away from chocolate too! ☺️

Note our sad little collection of books. We will make a book depository purchase soon and make it more substantial. How we get them home is future Deb's problem!

The men hard at work.

This first bedroom belongs to Judah and Eli. Jude, who loves his teddies, managed to wrangle a deal to bring more  than the two limit and "only" brought a lion, a dinosaur, a care bear and four dogs. Believe it or not he also left some behind in Australia! They have a door that meets the stairs at the front of the house and the door remains closed and locked!

Jay and I are on the same level, across the hallway, and have a little bath in our ensuite that the children love. (And we use a lot because it's extremely humid here!)

Next floor up is the room Gracie and Sophia share.

The open drawer holds some of their toys, which explains the doll heads sticking out! A fun feature of this floor is that the ensuite is shared by the two rooms, making a "secret passage" to torture their big brother through!

Through the secret passage to the introverts dream...Caleb has long waited the chance to have his OWN room!

Caleb got to work as soon as we got here applying his Star Wars decorations and making the room his own.

But wait, there are more stairs!

The fourth floor (sauna level!) is home to the laundry area, spare room and another bathroom. It's the only bedroom without air conditioning so is a great additional drying space when it rains.

 The view from the top to Jason at the bottom!

The view from the top balcony out towards the lotus ponds, and the pre school's pool across the road. We think we are allowed to pay to use it, but haven't gone over yet except to play in their play ground with the little ones in the afternoon. There are lots of children about and although there are many cars and bikes, our little street is not very busy so the older kids have been out playing ball with local kids, despite the language barrier.

So that finishes the tour! We had hoped to have written more before now. It seems like we have done a lot in the very short time since we left Australia so will we write again soon.