Savannah's Sixteenth Birthday Party!

There are no famous buildings in this blog post.  No palaces, temples, mountains, or movie sets.  (But  mountains and movie sets are coming soon!)  This blog post shows that family life goes on, no matter where your family is.  

I think I posted the above picture from our Christmas trip back to Texas.  That is Savannah turning 16, soon after Christmas.  We celebrated with family, but Savannah wanted a real birthday party.  With friends.  So we just had one, a little late.  But better late than never!

Where does one buy party supplies in KL?  The best place I have found is Spotlight!  If Jo-ann Fabric and Bed, Bath, and Beyond formed a joint venture, you would get Spotlight.  This location is in the Ampang Point shopping center.  

Here I am, waiting for balloons.  This store carries all sorts of party supplies, piñatas, costumes, fabrics, home decor stuff, bedding, kitchen items, tons of crafting supplies, etc.  My kind of place!

I needed a birthday cake for the party.  Normally I would have ordered a cake from Costco or a nice grocery store bakery. There are nice bakeries here, but I didn't want anything too fancy.  Since I couldn't find what I wanted, I decided to make my chocolate peanut-butter cupcakes.  I have made these cupcakes many times.  The chocolate cupcake is your basic Hershey's recipe:

https://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipe-details.aspx?id=184&name=HERSHEY'S-PERFECTLY-CHOCOLATE-Chocolate-Cake

The real secret, however, is Barefoot Contessa's peanut-butter icing:

http://www.food.com/recipe/barefoot-contessas-chocolate-cupcakes-and-peanut-butter-icing-211987

When you click on the link, ignore the chocolate cupcake recipe.  Hershey's is much better!

Savannah said one is never too old for a goody bag!  I got the plain white bags at Spotlight (they come in several colors).  She stamped the chandelier, cut and pasted labels, and glued a rhinestone on the bag.  The goodies came from Chinatown.  About what you would put in an 8-year-old's goody bag!  :)

The real challenge was where to have the party!  I live in a nice apartment, but not big enough for 20 teens.  We needed to provide entertainment and food in one location.  No one wants to take their child to two different places in KL traffic.  The solution?  A scavenger hunt at The Curve Mall, with food at Bubba Gump.  That's right, Bubba Gump right here in KL!  We had the whole upper level to ourselves.  I just want to say, the manager and staff here were wonderful and very accommodating.  

Forrest Gump was playing in the corner.

This is Leah, Austin's girlfriend.  They don't offer a buffet at Bubba Gump.  I just ordered multiple servings of several dishes and they put them on platters and trays.  It worked out very well.

Completed goody bags!

Austin and Savannah

The kids were divided into five groups of four.  This was the list they were given.  They had a time limit and the team with the most points won.  By the way, this was all done with Instagram.  Each team created an account, took pictures of themselves as required, and posted the pictures.

Here I am, 'decorating' the cupcakes.

The white cupcakes are Italian Cream Cake with cream cheese icing.  I would have included the recipe I used but there is no easy link.  It is hand-written on an index card and I have used that recipe for almost 30 years.  Yikes!  That makes me feel old.

Hard to tell, but that silver star was a candle.

It took Austin and Leah quite a while to tally up the team scores.

The winning team!  The party turned out well.

We ended the weekend by taking our princess to see Cinderella.  Great movie!  Interesting to see movies with Bahasa (the Malaysian language) and Mandarin subtitles.

Stormy KL

I have always loved a good thunderstorm!  Good thing for me I live in KL.  We get thunderstorms just about every day, sometimes more than once a day.  Another one of my favorite things about KL is the view from my balcony.  I love to watch the sky.  This is a typical afternoon.  The photos have not been enhanced or edited in any way.

Rain is threatening

It's here!

Clearing up

Wait, more rain

All gone.  

Looking at these pictures reminds me of the movie The Wizard of Oz.  Do you remember how the movie starts out in black and white and then goes to color?  I wish I could have captured some of the lightning that came later.

The next morning

Muffins and Mimosas- Watching the Oscars in KL

It is common in the US to have an Oscar Party.  Friends get together to see who wins what and who wears what.  We had our own Oscar party, here in KL.  In order to watch it live, however, we got together at at 9:00 am Monday morning!

Side note:  I have lived out of the US for 2 1/2 years, longer than the other ladies.  Let's just say, they had to explain some of the jokes to me.  And who some of the celebrities were.

Our 'Hostess with the Mostest', Peg!  Cutting her yummy quiche.  I am not sure that she volunteered to have us all over.  I think she mentioned that she was going to get to watch the Oscars live and the rest of us just sort of invited ourselves.  But we did bring food!

Allison's veggie tray was a work of art!

Allison, me and Brenda.  Some people get all dressed up for Oscar parties, but we were lucky just to change out of our pajamas.  Not pictured:  Mary Ellen and her father-in-law Charlie.  Because they were late.  :)

I brought champagne.

And muffins.  These are my very favorite muffin mix muffins--  Betty Crocker's Lemon-Poppy Seed muffins.  I bought five boxes when I saw them at Ampang Grocers in KL and have not found them again since.  This was my last box.  I saved it for a special occasion.

It seems like every time we want to watch a movie, we can never think of what to see.  So I made a list of the ones that sounded interesting.  I may be the only person who has not seen Guardians of the Galaxy.   And I had not really heard of several of the movies nominated for Best Picture.  No real American TV means no movie commercials.

A fun time was had by all!

Gratuitous grand baby picture.  Braving the winter in New York City!

Ridiculous Reality of Expat Life #2:  My grand baby lives 25 hours of flying time away!  This is by far, the single hardest thing about being an expat.

Back to TV watching.  I have been asked what kind of TV shows I get.  I am subscribed to two different cable companies.  Hypp and Astro.  Hypp cable came free with the internet service we ordered.  I was looking for a bigger selection of English shows.  I can probably appreciate Walker, Texas Ranger more than most, but I needed more.  So I subscribed to Astro, so we could get TLC (for Savannah) and The Food Network (for the rest of us).  It turns out the FN is an HD channel, and in my particular condo building, HD only comes with a certain internet provider.  Which was not ours.   Oh well.  On Astro, I can watch American Idol the day after the US does.  And The Voice is available.  Peg watches Blacklist and The Good Wife, both the current season.  Some TV series are available, but they are old seasons.  The Oscars were on Astro, on the HBO channel.

Besides the several cable company options in KL, there are other ways to watch American TV and movies.  Peg uses http://www.ustvnow.com.  It is a way to watch live TV from the US.  But of course, we are 13 hours ahead, so that can be an issue. There is the sling box, which hooks up to a cable subscription in the US.  You can get a VPN (virtual private network) in order to access Netflix in KL.  There is Apple TV, and other devices like Roku.  Just don't expect any actual technical information from me.  That is why I have teenagers.

I need to finish up this blog post so I can get back to spring-break vacation planning.  I better add one of The Lord of the Rings movies to my list of movies to watch.  Spring break destination?  New Zealand!!

Singapore Sights!

I was recently in Singapore, as I have mentioned in my last two blog posts.  It occurred to me that some of you may not know where Singapore is.  That would have been me last year!  If you look at the bottom of this map, you see part of Malaysia, where I live.  Just below that, is the island city/state of Singapore.  Above Malaysia, you can see Bangkok, where I was last month.

We have been wanting to visit Singapore for a while.  It is just hard to find a free weekend between four schedules.  Well, our good friend from Oman, Julie, ended up in a hospital in Singapore, so off Joe and I went!  He just happened to have February 19 and 20 off for Chinese New Year.  We booked a cheap, short (45 minute) flight on Air Asia.

Wow, how cool, the dashboard of a taxi!  No, look out of the windshield.  We drove on this beautiful tree and flower-lined road out of the airport for a while.  I did not expect all these flowers.

Our hotel lobby

We stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel, which looks nothing like the Intercon in Muscat.  This hotel reminded me of staying in your grandmother's house.  Albeit an Asian grandmother with extremely good taste.  :)  I loved the hotel.

This is really where I wanted to stay-- Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  But the CNY room rates were TRIPLE the normal weekend rate.  The 'normal' rates are pricey enough.  A little info on the hotel.  It is the word's second most expensive building, at 5.5 billion USD.  It opened in 2010 and the complex has a casino, theater, convention center, stores, restaurants, and clubs.  And a famous infinity pool.  That is all I really wanted to see-- the infinity pool.

 I cheated and found this on the internet.

We divided our time in Singapore between the hospital and sight-seeing.  Marina Bay Sands hotel from a different angle.

We had lunch at the bar on the 57th floor.  You don't have to stay at the hotel to eat there, of course.

But you do have to stay at the hotel to swim in the pool, pictured in the background.

View of harbor from the top.

This is Gardens by the Bay.  That clam-shaped building is one of two conservatories.  We didn't actually see it on this trip.  With Singapore being so close, I will get more chances to visit.

View of the world's largest container port.

View down into Marina Bay.  ArtScience Museum in the center.  The Float in the upper right of museum.  The Float is where people were gathering for a big fireworks show on CNY's eve.  That is the day we flew in.  We would have stayed if we had any idea how to escape the masses of people and get back to our hotel.

Is this not the coolest museum building you have ever seen??  I wanted to save this museum for when I come back to Singapore with my kids.

Here is The Float, with it's giant peacocks.  I have no idea if the peacocks are a permanent fixture or not.

I thought this was very interesting.  Look what was to the left of the museum.  Loius Vuitton!  A Louis Vuitton store on the water!  I will have to visit that next time.

We walked from the MBS to the Singapore Flyer.

The Singapore Flyer is Asia's largest observation wheel.  I don't know how many observation wheels are in Asia, though I did see one in Bangkok.  A full rotation takes 30 minutes.

There are a ton of malls in Singapore.  Orchard Row alone has 22 malls in its 2.3 kilometer stretch.  KL also has lots of malls.  I was looking for a different shopping experience.  We were able to walk to Haji Lane from our hotel.  It is a quaint alley full of boutiques.  So I am told.  All the stores were closed for CNY.  

We were warned not to go to Singapore on CNY.  Being predominantly Chinese, most places would be shut down.  We were there to see Julie, so we took our chances.  We found it delightful.  Because all the offices and many businesses were closed, traffic and crowds were pretty light.  All the tourist attractions were open though.  I was not inconvenienced one bit.  Until we came to this street and all the shops were closed.  That's when Joe said, "Wow!  This really is the perfect time to visit Singapore!!"  Just wait till I hit that Louis Vuitton store next time!  :)

I am going to take back what I just said.  Huge crowds at the Night Safari.

Hard to take pictures in the dark when flash photography is not allowed.  The Night Safari is a neat idea of how to see animals that are nocturnal.  We did see some cooler animals, I promise.

It is hard to avoid all malls, however.  This one was by the hospital and had a Starbucks in it.  Here is one example of Asian fashion.  Overall, I am a fan of Asian fashion.  It is usually colorful, whimsical, and fun.  As long as I don't have to wear it.  :)  Which I literally could not do.

But I really don't know what to say about the $3000 crotched plastic panda purse on the right.

We did a Hop On Hop Off bus tour.  I snapped a quick picture of the Merlion on the other side of Marina Bay.  I had no idea what a big deal the Merlion is until I saw it pictured on the Starbucks Singapore mug!

I was surprised at how many parks and trees are in Singapore.  Not sure why, but I was.

Mark and Joe.  The guys went out the evening of New Years Day.  They got these t-shirts at one of the bars.  There may have been a minimum beer consumption requirement for the free shirts.

Mark and Julie were such a huge help and support to us last year when Joe suffered a brain hemorrhage while living in Oman!  We were so happy to spend time with them while Julie was in the hospital.  

I am going to start a new feature in my blogs.  One day I will have enough for a whole post, but here is the first "Ridiculous Reality of Expat Life".  These are things I normally would not mention because, well, they are ridiculous to most people.

Ridiculous Reality of Expat Life #1:  Not all air ambulances are created equal.  The four of us sat around the room, discussing air ambulances.  Who had the better one.  Julie won.  Joe only got a Lear Jet 45 while Julie got a Gulfstream!  They could actually stand up in theirs.

(Julie was in Nepal when she needed to get to Singapore and Joe went from Oman to London)

This evening we walked from our hotel to the Raffles hotel.  Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded the city of Singapore in 1819.  There are lots of things and places named Raffles.  This hotel is the most historic in the city, dating back to the 1880's.  It is the setting of several novels.

The Long Bar in the Raffles Hotel is the birthplace of the Singapore Sling.  The one on the right is the  original (and yummy) version.  Joe got the Spring Sling on the left.

One of my books described Singapore as "the perfect antidote to the region's trademark grit".  I couldn't agree more!  After seeing Bangkok the month before, I loved how clean and beautiful all of Singapore is.  I end this post with a video of the beautiful 'Kinetic Rain' sculpture at the Singapore airport.  It is formed from 1216 metal droplets.  One of the best pieces of public art I have seen!