Our Apartment in Malaysia

When we first found out we were moving to Malaysia, I thought we were going to be living in  a more……………………non-Western house. Actually, I thought we were going to be living in something out of one of those ‘feed the orphans’ commercials. Shows ya how much I knew about the world before leaving the US.

But, to be fair, it wasn’t just me. Some friends thought I was going to be living in a shanty town and my mom thought I was going to be living in a dirt-floored hut in the middle of a jungle. haha. Where we lived ended up being totally different than I thought and ended up being pretty cool.

When we first got to Malaysia, we lived in a Hilton Hotel for about two weeks. It wasn’t too bad. The hotel was nice; they had a gym, they cleaned the room daily, we were next to the executive lounge where we got free snack all day, they had wifi and they were across from the major train station. I was happy to stay there for forever. Except that they didn’t allow pets. 🙁 We had to sneak Sadie in there and hide her for a couple days before we could take her to Scott’s apartment where she stayed until we found our own place a few days later. Sadie was thoroughly traumatized before we found a home. Poor thing. lol.

It took us about two weeks, but we finally decided on a decent apartment. We had trouble agreeing entirely on any one apartment, so we ended up just going with one that had a room for each of us, was wifi ready, had an oven, a tv Troy approved of, had space for all his monitors, didn’t have pest problems (seriously, they showed me several units that they were very open about the cockroach problems) and was available within a few days. It wasn’t as fancy as some of the other coworker’s apartments, but we’re not really into that. We’re more into functionality than luxury. So, we ended up in unit A9-10 of the Suasana Sentral Loft.

When you first walk into the apartment, this is what you see. They had these lovely shoe drawers, but we didn’t use them much. I put my nice church shoes in there along with Troy’s dress shoes, but we usually just kicked out shoes off in the doorway, so I used a box to collect all the flip flops to keep things at least somewhat tidy.

The kitchen was one of the items we were a little picky about. I like to bake, so we had to be sure it had an oven. Baking is not a common thing in Malaysia, so most apartments don’t have ovens. I’d say about half the apartments got knocked off the list because they didn’t have ovens. Oh, see that red knob on the wall? You have to turn that to the ‘ON’ position before you can turn on the stove. Kinda nice having that safety feature with a gas stove.

Through the doorway at the end of the kitchen is a little area they call a ‘yard’. I thought it was pretty funny. The first few times the realtor was talking about a yard, I was thinking we had a little area with grass and was excited to have some greenery in the middle of the city. But, nope, the ‘yard’ is how they talk to Westerners about the maid’s quarters. This area is actually where the maid is supposed to work so she stays out of the owner’s way. We didn’t have a maid for the first 6 months, so this is where I washed the dishes. But even after we got a maid, she only came every other week while I was in school because I felt like a total schmuck having someone come clean the house for me.

This little stovetop came in quite handy sometimes. There’s no hot water in either kitchen, so we (I) had to boil water in order to wash dishes. It took a while, but I’d rather have it take a long time to wash dishes than was them in cold water. Eventually, we got an electric kettle (teapot) that boiled water in a couple minutes and that cut dish time almost in half. Yay!

Oh, like our little vice grips on the window? There are no screens on the windows and that window looks out onto a general walkway, so Troy bought the grips so we could secure the window. He was worried someone would break in while he was at work. I guess he does care. lol

Troy was actually really helpful around the house. He was always willing to help dump heavy pots of water into the sink for me when it was time to wash dishes. He even washed the dishes a few times, too. 🙂This is the part across from the sink. Check out that washer. That’s actually a washer AND a dryer. They do combined washer/dryer units in Asia. How crazy is that? I HATED this thing. With a passion. Seriously. And it hated me, too. I can’t tell you how many times I fell backwards and hit the wall because the door wouldn’t open and I’d have to pull with all my strength and then it would pop and I’d fall. It was awful. Eventually, the door broke entirely and then the maintenance guy ‘fixed’ it. He said it was all done and that I could start using it the next day. So, I left it open overnight as instructed and popped a load of clothes in the next afternoon. It all went fine until I tried to open the door. Try as I might, the dang thing wouldn’t open. Troy couldn’t even get it open. So, I called the maintenance guy and he said he may have GLUED IT SHUT! Apparently, he had put some glue on it to fix something around the seal and the heat from the dryer had melted the glue onto the opposite part. *sigh* Talk about a comedy of errors. I eventually quit trying to dry clothes and just hung them all up.

Oh, and see that bathroom there? That’s the maid’s bathroom and shower. Yeah, the litter box is all the way against the wall. Can you imagine only having that much space to shower and use the toilet in? We didn’t have a live-in maid, Ganga only came twice a month to help out while I was in school, so she never had to use that. Thank goodness. I would have felt terrible.This would have made me feel even worse. This photo is pretty awful, but you can see the other half of the bathroom/shower and then into the closet. But that’s not a closet. That’s where a live-in maid would live. Yeah, that’s a bedroom. How awful is that? I would never have been able to handle making a human being live in that room. It ended up just being a storage room for us.This is a somewhat better view into that closet. There wasn’t really anywhere to get a good angle from. That closet is actually the maid’s bedroom. Seriously, Malaysians are NOT good to their maids. That room is about big enough for a twin bed and a nightstand. Oh, and you can also see the showerhead that shoots onto the toilet. lol. Guess if the maid has an accident on the toilet, it’s fast and easy to clean up…………………………. Just another view of the kitchen. I actually really liked this kitchen. It had about twice as much counter space as my previous apartment and I really liked the gas stove. Like our pink rug? It was actually off-white when we bought it, but I washed it with some red bath towels…………………..oops. hahaMoving onward with our tour, this was our little breakfast bar. We never used any of those glasses (they were caked in gunk and I didn’t want to wash them all), but we did occasionally eat breakfast here. Mostly it was the ‘drop spot’ for all of our stuff when we walked in the door.This was our little dining room area. I really liked this table. It was fun. And very easy to clean.

See Sadie under the table? And see the smooth and shiny floor? It was hilarious watching her try to run anywhere on this floor. Troy had so much fun running at her, only to watch her run in place for a few seconds before she could get enough traction to go anywhere. So. Freakin. Hilarious.This was our living room. I really loved the floor to ceiling windows. The only downside was that they looked straight into construction. But, if I sat on the chair by the tv, I could see out into Little India and all the Christmas lights they had on the trees……………………all year round. lol. It was great. 

Our beautiful couch. This was actually the best couch ever. No cricked necks while watching tv because we could stretch out forward next to each other. This is also the couch I slept on for about a month while they fixed the mold that was overrunning by bedroom wall. I have to say that this couch was very comfortable to sleep on. I had injured my back several months prior and something about this couch made it feel a lot better. So, I have a special place in my heart for this fabulous piece of furniture.

Moving on, we go to Troy’s man cave. They had to build that desk especially for Troy because the original desk was just the one tiny side and you can plainly see that there was no way that small space was going to hold his electronic monstrosity. Troy has these monitors so he can edit photos, work on the android game he’s designing and do research for the game all at the same time. It’s pretty fascinating watching him work. I read books or played on my laptop on that couch quite a few times while he did his thing. Sometimes he’d ask if I wanted to watch him play video games and then he’d tell me all about it while he played. It was fun.

The box on the floor with the garland on it wasn’t just there because we were too lazy to throw it away. That box was Sadie’s happy spot. If we couldn’t find her, she was either under this couch or inside that box. Whenever Troy was home, she would be on that box next to him. It was pretty cute.

This is the other wall of his man cave. Back in Oklahoma, I had made him all these hearts and plastered his living room with them for our one month anniversary. Silly, I know, but it was fun. I decided that it would make a nice touch to his man cave to have little hearts with sweet words where he could see them. I was kinda hoping they would soften his cold little heart, but, alas, it was not so. He’s still as craggy as ever.

Oh, and check out that white remote on the wall. Each room had its own separate AC unit and remote. My room had one, Troy’s room had one, the dining room had one, the living room had one and the man cave had one. It was kinda nice because we could program the AC for each room to come on at separate times and at separate temperatures. 

Next up is my bathroom. Couldn’t get any good angles of it because of where the doors and walls are, but you can still kinda see how awesome this bathroom is. That tub there? You have to walk down two steps to get into it. It was pretty cool.

Yes, this bathroom is clean. I had just finished scrubbing it before taking this picture. Not sure what that white stuff is, but it never went away. Anyways, I liked this tub. I only took a bath in it once, though. The hot water heater was really small, so I could only take 8-minute showers before the hot water was gone, so it took FOREVER to fill this bathtub up. I ended up boiling several pots of water and using that to fill the tub because the hot water heater kept running empty and then I’d have to wait an hour for it to warm up and by then, the two inches in the bottom of the tub were cold and I’d have to boil water anyways. So, it was quite an ordeal that I only did once. But I do have to say it was quite a nice bath once I got it filled up. lol.

This was my showerhead. Ever shower felt like I was standing in a warm rain. It was very relaxing.

And this was my bedroom. I LOVED my king-sized bed. It was super comfy and I loved having tons of space to stretch out on. It was especially nice with Sadie (my cat) because she likes to sleep dead center of the bed, so that left plenty of room for me on the side. Most of the time. When she decided she didn’t have to move to right where I’d flipped the sheets. lol. Crazy Cat.

Oh, and notice the windows. Full floor to ceiling windows. I loved laying in bed watching the sun shine off the windows across the way. It was quite nice. 

Another angle of my room. That door there next to the bed was my closet. It’s double-sided, so I had a pretty huge closet. Totally loved it. Kinda wish I’d been able to bring the whole closet back with me……………………..And now, we move on to Troy’s bedroom. He had the small room, but that was his choice. He doesn’t like having ANY light when he sleeps and the room I had stayed fairly bright at night because of the lights from Little India and the moon, so he didn’t want the room I got. His room only had a tiny window, so it was perfect for him.

Funny story. So, we bought the sheet sets on the beds the day we moved in (the other ones were super nasty) and it took Troy FOREVER to pick his out. He seriously went back and forth between this set and two others before he finally picked this one. It took him over TWO HOURS to decide and the sales guys were laughing their heads off because we’d leave the department, then Troy would change his mind and we’d go back, then he’d pick one and we’d go to a different department, then he’d change his mind and we’d go through the whole thing all over again. I was about ready to clobber him. He did want to go back another time and switch to another set, but I put my foot down and told him he was stuck with this one. He ended up being really happy with it and wishes he’d brought it back to the US with us. And, finally, last but not least (or maybe it is), Troy’s bathroom. Troy did this special pose just for this picture. The bum. He had the smaller bathroom, but he was fine with it. He didn’t like the tub in my bathroom, so it worked out perfectly. This shower was pretty nice, I just don’t like showering in places where I touch the walls, even if I’m the one cleaning them. lol.

Our apartment certainly wasn’t the nicest one in the building or the nicest one out of what Troy’s coworkers got. I actually think ours was probably the worst out of what his coworkers got, in terms of decor and fanciness. lol. We totally looked like paupers next to some of the apartment some of the other coworkers got. I did want more decor and there were several apartments that were done up much nicer, but our choices were: lots of decor and no internet/cable for 6-8 weeks or sparse decor and internet/cable the day we moved in. We opted to have internet right away. And we weren’t disappointed. This apartment definitely wasn’t a bad apartment and we were both really happy there. We really enjoyed our time in Malaysia and with as much as we were gone and as much artwork as we bought while in different countries, we definitely didn’t need the extra decor, so having the extra space to hang up our own pictures turned out to be a really good thing.