Modern Convienence Week...

So this week was a fairly uneventful week as we again learned more words in our new language and fought the struggle between the ease of eating Western food (KFC just around the corner!) and the necessity of becoming acclimated to our new culture by eating at a local food stall. But that's just a normal week here in tropical paradise.
What did happen this week was getting a refrigerator for the kitchen and an air-con (as they say here) installed in our bedroom. These two modern conviences have revolutionized our home.
It's amazing how much better one feels - after the culture shock of eating at the local food stall- to drink an ice-cold coke and sit in an ice-cold room.
Here's a picture of the guys installing it...bless-ed, bless-ed men- they deserved the RM130.00 they got for their work (about $40).

Sorry no more pictures, but here's a story to give you guys a taste of what its like to go shopping here...with a dramatic twist at the end.
This week we had the opportunity to go with a curtain-maker to a fabric store to pick out fabric for the curtains she is sewing me. The curtain part isn't interesting, you guys have them in the US, although I do feel a bit spoiled hiring someone to make curtains for me...she says "I make you very exclusive design." Hmm...
Lemme tell ya ladies, if you have a low self-esteem, this is the place to come. The stares are never-ending...and even after speaking perfect English to them they still usually ask me "Are you Arab?" Then when I've sufficiently set in my mind to ignore the stares, an older teenage boy that works there sets out to follow me around the store. I glare at him, ask Anthony to stand close to me or to block him from getting near me, but his ninja-like moves between the bolts of fabric prevail and before I can start looking again, he's there.
Once I had endured the questions of "why you like the plain ones?" and "why you not get this one? This one nice color!" I had chosen my fabrics (one was too expensive so I decided to go with my first choice at IKEA) when we realized Kakak's 2 year old son was gone and we couldn't find him. This is the kid who each morning during our language lessons gives up "Sponge Bob Square Pants" to sit on top of the table just to be next to his mother. The store was 3 stories and Kakak, Anthony, and I were scouring the bolts of fabric beginning to get desperate after about 15 minutes of looking with no success. Oh, and instead of helping, the people in the store just decided its more fun to stare at the whities than to help look for the kid.
Then Anthony comes to the rescue. He decides to look outside the store...it is pouring down rain and the child is a block away standing in the middle of a street corner. Anthony triumphantly carried the child back to his mother and hopefully all the onlookers saw that the whities really are here to help.
I'll take pictures of my "exclusive design" curtains when they're done.