Author: admin

Hello everyone,

So, this year I got to celebrate my birthday in Malaysia. It was different but it was fun. One of my students even gave me a box of chocolate. It was very sweet!

My sweet husband made the doodle sign above for me that now sits on my desk at work. A coworker brought me a delicious coconut latte, and I made “brigadeiros” for my coworkers. First time I made them in a little cup but I think it worked well. For the most part it was a normal day at work. Since it was on a Wednesday, we left the celebration for Friday evening.

We went to Tonda for a real Italian pizza and the real pepperoni pizza for Ben. I tried something new, 4 cheese with walnuts and honey. For dessert, I had the delicious Baileys Tiramisu. After, this delicious meal we went to walk around the Sunway Pyramid Mall which is near our house. They have beautiful decorations for Deepavali, so I took advantage to get some pictures in to come back here and let you all know how things are going.

I think we are pretty settled now, we have not been going out to explore as much. We have been relaxing a lot at home and enjoying each other’s company.

My classes are going well, and I can see the growth in my students’ English. I am also working on learning Mandarin and I hear it so much that I think it will be quicker than I expected to learn. I really like teaching English and getting students ready for their next steps. It seems impossible that we are already more than half way done with the semester and will be done at the end of November with this school year. I will have a new batch of students in January. I have met a lot of different and fun people along the way. My colleagues come from all over the world and most have lived in a lot of different places already. The parents of my students also have interesting stories and it has been a fascinating experience to learn about so many different cultures and backgrounds.

I love getting home and being able to just sit and enjoy the company of my girls (Lulu and Pepper) and my husband. We have been watching a lot of different TV shows and Ben has been creating lots of new designs to cut on the laser cutter.

Well, I have another week of vacation coming up soon so I will hopefully have more stories to tell then.

Thank you for reading,

Hello everyone,

Here we are at the two months mark. We have been in Malaysia for exactly 2 months and every week we discover something new. This week I am on a school break for the whole week so we got to do some different things. We went to a friend’s house so we could swim a bit and Ben clearly made a friend for life. The 3-year old fell in love with him. She did not want him to leave at the end of the visit. This was also the first time I tried some Curry and it was good but a bit spicy for me, as usual.

On this day we went to visit a couple more Mosques in the city. One of them was much more strict and still made me wear a robe while of the second one I was used as an example of how to dress for the visit. 🙂

These places are very peaceful and beautiful to visit but I still liked the ones in Turkey a bit more, probably because they were much older than these ones.

This week we also accomplished something big. We visited the Batu Caves which meant walking up 272 steps. But considering last year I walked up 309 steps at one of the Temples in Thailand, I figured this was doable. The cave temple is amazing and very different than I ever expected. After that walk, we made a quick stop at Little India. To me this means I was able to see a lot of the Indian culture without actually going to India.

I think we are pretty settled now and we already have some of our favorites things and places. It is nice to discover a new thing every week though.

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more updates,

Well, we have been here for just over a month now…. Lots of adventures and new things to learn and discover…

I have also been teaching for a full month now too and it has been lots of fun and a lot of learning too. My students are mainly from China. I have a couple from Japan and Korea but the majority is from mainland China. I am actually trying to learn Chinese now so that I can understand what they are saying in class. I have made some friends at work, lots of like minded people. They all love traveling and discovering the world so we have a lot in common. I also love being one of many rather than the only one or one of two or three.

We are adapting to this much slower life style quite easily. We have had a lot more time for each other and to relax. We are taking our time to visit the different places around here. I get home between 4 and 5 every week day and just relax with Lulu and Pepper. Ben is becoming a great ‘chef’ for me 😊😍😉

Each weekend we choose a different place to visit, except this last weekend we had planned to see some beautiful lights in the evening and it rained right when we were going out so we decided to stay home instead.

We have gotten into a nice routine now and we are very happy!

I am trying to keep the blog updated with all that we are doing here. Please keep checking back here to see what is going on.

Love,

We visited the Thean Hou Temple which is a Chinese Temple in Kuala Lumpur. The visit was fun and very interesting. Ben and I are taking our time to visit things since we have a long time to see everything. After the Temple, we went to the Central Market which is the oldest market in the city built in 1888. It has more traditional things from Malaysia rather than the same stores we find all over the world. This Market is considered a landmark of Malaysian Culture and heritage.

Malaysia has 60 malls which are full of the same stores we can find all over the world and lots of restaurants. I have never seen so many restaurants in a mall as I see here. Every floor has many places to eat and drink different types of teas, coffees and fruit juices.

I actually learned from a local that Malaysia was formed by 3 different groups of people. The Chinese, the Malays and the people from India. The largest group was the Malays and that is one of the reasons that one of the official languages of Malaysia is Bahasa Melayu. Interestingly enough, there are the Malays and the Malaysians who are the ones born here but with the Indian and Chinese backgrounds.

The three major religions from these groups are Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. The diversity and differences is one of the reasons this place is so culturally rich and amazing to discover.

On another note, I have had a week and a half with students and so far it has been a lot of fun. These students are fun and so different from students I have had before. They come from a very different cultural background and are used to learning in a very different way. I am loving the opportunity to learn about them and their backgrounds.

Well, keep coming back here to follow our journey and this new adventure we have embarked in. Thank you for all the positive notes and vibes coming our way.

Love,

Hello everyone,

As many of you know, Ben and I embarked on a new adventure and on our 24th Anniversary we left the Pacific Northwest of the United States to live in Malaysia, where I will be teaching English at an International School.

To get things started we stayed at a very nice hotel provided by the school until our townhouse is ready for us. We were very fortunate that one of the teachers who is leaving to teach at a different country sent me a video of her house and we were able to secure it for ourselves. We had to jump on the opportunity because we brought Lulu and Pepper with us and not every place accepts dogs here. One interesting fact is that most people in Malaysia will not even touch dogs for religious reasons.

Bringing Lulu and Pepper with us was not an easy task. We started working on their paperwork about 3 months before our move. Lots of back and forth between two different companies, one in the US and one in Malaysia. Finally, we got it all figured out and we were able to get approval from Turkish Airlines to take them as service dogs in the cabin with us. The poor things were real troopers and did well the whole trip. They had paparazzi at both airports Seattle and Istanbul. Lots of people took pictures of them because they were wearing pajamas and each had their own backpack.

However, when we arrived in Kuala Lumpur we were presented with a challenge. Dogs are not allowed anywhere in the airport outside of a cage or crate. Because of this, we had to wait a couple extra hours until our agent brought the crates and I had to put them in even though they wanted nothing to do with it.

They are currently in their 7-day quarantine and we receive updates daily of how they are doing. I miss them so much and cannot wait to get them back and snuggle with them again.

We are still recovering from all the traveling. I spent 10 days in Greece and Turkey with my last group of students from Seton Catholic and arrived home the day before we left for Malaysia. Therefore, I have been recovering slowly from all the change in time zones and all the traveling. After all, I did 7 airports in a span of 3 days.

Well, stay tuned to see how our adventure unfolds. I start working this coming week and we move this week too. Once we are settled we will start exploring the country. We cannot leave Malaysia for at least 6 months for tax purposes, so we will be exploring more locally for the time being.

Love to all,

Juliana

Hello everyone,

I know it has been a long time since I have been here and shared my outfits. I have been working a lot and have been teaching college classes at night so time is getting away from me.

I have been doing a lot of crafts and have really gotten into sublimation. I made several Christmas gifts using sublimation and they were a hit. I have new tech toys at work and working with a laser cutter again has been a lot of fun.

I have been trying to accept and embrace my size again and I think some of these outfits will show that. The jeans with the lace were a huge hit at school. The girls loved it and all had something to say about it. At this point I know not many people would be able to rock them, but I have made a type that now people expect it from me.

Thank you everyone for checking my blog out,

Hello everyone,

I know it has been a long time, almost 6 months I believe. I have thought about writing here a lot and things keep happening and I keep postponing. But here I am now. I have been working a lot to stay busy and not think of stuff one should not think about. A lot has happened to me in the last couple of months.

I had a wonderful summer traveling with students. I spent time in Thailand and in Spain and it was wonderful to get some sun on the beach in Cádiz. Thailand is a beautiful country and the people are so nice. I also made some new friends in Cádiz and got to know a colleague much better.

Thailand and Morocco

Thailand

Spain

Spain and Gibraltar

Fall in Vancouver, WA

I was out shopping for shirts to make for my coworkers and a guy who backing out of his parking spot, stepped on the gas instead of the break and hit my car at full speed. My car was totaled and I started the school year in a massive stressful situation. A few weeks later, Ben got laid off (he got a job the next day), but still there are somethings that are stressful in the whole situation.

I am now driving Ben’s truck which is very tall so my knee and ankle (which were already an issue before) are hurting because of the jumping in and out of it. It is an adjustment, but we decided to keep our bills down for a while at least especially with the high interest rates of lately.

Well, I will try to stay more up to date here and let you know how things are going. I am hoping to grow my following but I need more time to devote to this, so we will see what happens.

Thank you for reading,

Hello everyone,

Here I am again, I haven’t had much to share. It has been a bit difficult for me to take pictures of myself and share things. But I thought I would try again.

The outfits on the pictures are a mix of old and new. The skirt I got more recently and the sweater is a bit older, but since it is white it is somewhat of a classic. This year the weather has been difficult. Cold and warm and we never know what we are going to get. It is late May and we are still wearing winter clothes some days. I can’t wait for the time when we can use spring and summer clothes everyday. The booties are a success every time I wear it. I have three of them in the same style just with different colors.

Spring fashion

Well, the school year is almost over and the new year will bring new challenges and new classes. I am looking forward to it.

Thank you for reading,

Juliana

Hello everyone,

There are a few things Turkey is known for, one of them is their leather, which the things we saw were made of lamb leather. Soooo soft!!! After days of seeing these jackets everywhere, I finally found one that I liked, that fit me and that was not very expensive and I bought it on our last day. It is a very different jacket and very soft to wear. (Funny enough, I had never seen them before but on my way back I was watching a ‘chapter’ from my Brazilian ‘novela’ “O Tempo Não Para”, and one of the characters was wearing a black version of the jacket. The show was recorded back in 2018.) 🙂

The dress was love at first sight. I saw the dress on the sidewalk of a store and I had to check it out. It was nice that they had my size and did not give me a weird look because of my size. I absolutely love the colors of this dress and it is so comfortable too.

I also got some scarves there, and I will post them at a later date. They are all beautiful and different from any others I have ever had. I was also able to find the ones with the places we visited which is a thing I do so I have souvenirs from the places we visit. The only other country I was never able to find a specific scarf was Germany.

Thank you for reading,

Last year, before taking the group of students to Europe I did some looking around Pinterest and found some posts about giving treats or gifts to the flight crew. I went ahead and prepared a few bags of candy from the Pacific Northwest area.

The flight attendants from Lufthansa were so surprised and touched by it that they even announced to the whole plane a big thank you to the group. Some of the other flight crews were so thankful they gave me some wine in a real glass like the business class gets.

So for the flight to and from Turkey, I prepared a big surprise for them.

I transformed two shoe boxes into vintage like suitcases and filled them with all kinds of stuff. I made some earrings and keychains and also got some other stuff like compressed towels, fuzzy socks, and of course some candy.

As a result from this gift, the flight attendants brought me a beautiful tray with “candle” light, cheeses and cake with a glass of champagne.

They told me they had never received anything so nice from anyone.

I truly believe an act of kindness can go a long way. I was happy I did this for them because the crew had a really hard time during the flight. We went through some really bad turbulence and people refused to follow their directions which were only for everyone’s safety.

I am not going to lie, it was a lot of work, but I love doing crafts and it was great having a purpose for these crafts.

Thank you for reading,