I realize it has been quite a while since I have posted any travel blogs. I also know it is not completely out of character for me. Before you read the next entry of our travels here's a quick update (complete with additional excuses for not writing) from here in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Maeve and Liam are in school and Michael has a great job. While I am not working, I am swamped with gathering information to obtain permanent residence status in Canada. That whole process will be a blog by itself (I am just glad that Canada hasn't built a wall to keep immigrants out). I have had a medical exam which included X-rays and bloodwork. I have been fingerprinted (twice) and have battled computer apps to get application forms to correctly print. So my current daily life required tasks, which includes volunteering regularly at Maeve's school, have taken priority over the blog. I am hoping that once the applications are done that I can get blogs posted with some sort of regularity. It's good to have goals.

Here's more of what happened over the summer.

July 17-23, 2015

After completing our underwhelming visit to Penang, we hopped in a taxi to a mall to catch the bus to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This was a six hour ride with one of the best bus companies, so we were fairly confident it would be a good experience.

It was early in the morning and the area surrounding the mall was dead. Locals were just waking up or preparing for the work day. Maeve and I decided to explore. The mall was situated by water (Penang is an island just off mainland Malaysia) and some early risers were out jogging on the path around the shoreline. Eventually we came across a small, open-air restaurant. It was sort of situated in a tent and we went in to get some coffee and juice for the road trip. Our drinks (even the coffee) were presented to us in individual plastic bags tied up with rubber bands. Most take away drinks and food were served this way in Asia. At least we had straws.

The view near the mall. Penang is an island off mainland Malaysia.

Enjoying our juice and coffee while waiting for the bus to arrive.

The bus ride was great - probably the best of our entire trip. The six hours flew by since we could each watch our own programs or movies from the monitors on the seats in front of us. We were dropped off at a fancy hotel in Kuala Lumpur. From here we had to get a taxi to our less than fancy hotel. We endured yet another awkward exchange with taxi drivers. The hotel would not help us secure a taxi, so we had to go across the street to hire one. After talking to a few drivers (one wanted far too much money) we ended up in a taxi with a driver I was fairly sure was too old to drive, but he was pretty persuasive. He also seemed visually impaired. Liam was livid. I pulled up the hotel's location on google maps just to make sure we followed the correct route.

Thankfully, we arrived in one piece. We had chosen a Tune Hotel which is owned by Air Asia. I do NOT recommend this. Our problem was we were in the dead of summer and all of the recommended hotels were booked. We had gotten used to booking at the last minute without any problems, now it was a problem. We had spent hours searching for a place and this one was cheap and had a decent location near public transportation. The lobby was fine and we had no problem with check-in....then we saw the room.

The rooms were by far the absolute smallest rooms we have experienced on our trip. There was no closet. You walked in to the right there was a bathroom with a toilet, sink and stand-up shower and you could easily touch all of them from one place. Ammenities such as towels or shampoo cost extra. Just past the bathroom was the bed and that was it. A small night-stand to the side of the bed and about one foot of clearance on the other side of the bed to the wall. The television (also cost extra) was on the wall and if you needed a desk, a wood panel pulled out from under the wall-mounted TV. You would have to sit on the end of the bed as your chair for the desk. There was no place for luggage and only a hook to hang clothes. We needed two rooms (which was fine as they were $30 a night). We ended up switching our room because despite the no smoking policy, our room reeked of smoke. I can't imagine why I never took a picture of the rooms, but they looked fine online.

So we had this grim room with no view except out to about 15 feet where there was another wall connecting to other rooms. This was where we were holed up for five days with no real plan for our future. This was where we would sit (or recline) for hours trying to decide where we should go and what we should do. This was not ideal and unfortunately it did not help speed up the process. Occasionally, we stopped our plans to take care of our cockroach visitors. We didn't even flinch anymore as they were tiny and were no comparison to the four inch flying cockroaches we encountered in Vietnam.

Maeve and Liam had made it clear that they wanted to settle down and go to school. Liam clarified that this did not mean he liked school, but would prefer it to continuing traveling around. There was some interest for me for another international school in Shanghai China, but we weren't interested in that option. Vietnam was an option too, but we had no job prospects. It would be cheap to reside there, but the kids would need an international school which would be a large expense. We wanted to head to New Zealand, but their school year wouldn't start until February and visas for long term stays were an issue. If I was able to get a job, it would likely be in a very rural location and there were no guarantees.

Our decision was not an easy one. We weren't ready to head back to the states and redo what we had just sold and left. Canada provided a new experience with the comforts of family and Michael's friends. The kids were keen on heading to Newfoundland and they were Canadian citizens, so that was it.

Once that decision was made, we had to secure a route and time-frame for our return. We used our favorite travel site to plan multiple stops to St. John's. We contemplated many routes and grappled with the cost, weighing the pros and cons of each stop considering the time frame and reality of visiting a layover city. I had come across an amazing deal to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Paris. I thought it was perfect because Maeve really wanted to see Paris. We booked the tickets and announced it to Maeve, who was thrilled. Then we got the email saying that deal was no longer available. Sigh....onto another plan.

We must have gone through about a hundred different combinations to get to St. John's, which included a stop in Chicago. We were eager to visit family and friends before settling down. Also, while we were in Kuala Lumpur we had decided not to go to Singapore which was only a couple of hours by train ride away. Without any contacts, it would be a very expensive few days and we decided to save the money for our trip back.

Our cheapest option back was through London. We also thought we could get a room for the night, maybe see some sights before heading to Chicago. We booked those tickets only to find out that they were not available either. We were finding out that booking on this site did not guarantee the tickets. The request goes through to an agent and then they secure the route. So the seat options and prices were not updated in real time.

As you can imagine Michael and I spent hours and hours locked up in our room making all of these plans. The kids were content in their own tiny room enjoying their feedom and endless time on ipads. We took a few breaks to walk down the street or to the mall for food.

I was able to convince the family to head out for one excursion. We finally visited the famed Petronas Towers. These towers were completed in 1996 and are the tallest twin towers in the world. The towers have 88 floors, but they contain spires or pinnacles which add another 73 meters. The buildings are about 200 feet shorter than Willis (Sears) Tower in Chicago. We did not pay to go to the observation deck here. After visiting the 148th floor on the Burj Khalefa, a trip of about half that seemed to pale in comparison.

We did have lunch there and visit a great children's science museum. The Prosains Science Discovery Centre museum was sponsored by Petronas, an oil company, so it felt a little propogandaish in the beginning. Once you fully entered though, it was filled with great interactive science activities for the kids. We actually ended up running out of time there, but it was a great escape from our room.

Petronas Twin Towers. Walkway between both,

park area surrounding the twin towers - even a pool area for smaller children

beautiful areas near the towers to walk or jog

After five days, we were not able to secure our tickets back to St. John's, but we knew we did not want to stay at this hotel any longer. On top of all of the flight searching, I was also looking for a different hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Many of them would only book three adults and would say we needed a second room for a fourth person. I finally followed up with the Aloft hotel and asked if we could have one room with two queen beds for our family of four. They confirmed and we were thrilled to get out of the Tune Hotel.

The Aloft was in a different part of Kuala Lumpur. It wasn't much more money than the two rooms, but it had so much more to offer. The rooftop infinity pool alone was worth the extra money. It was a great spot to spend our last days of our adventure. Plus, it was across the street from the main train station, so additional excursions were simple.

The room was fabulous. We did not pay extra for television, air-conditioning, coffee or the wii dance in the lobby. It was time to enjoy Kuala Lumpur.

Posing by the rooftop pool. A good reason to smile.