Where the Wild Things Are: The Trek to Pulau Sibu, Malaysia

The Bach Family has been in Singapore for about 2 months now so we figured we were ready for our first trip to Malaysia. The hard work of figuring things out (where to live, where to send the kids to school, how to live) is mostly done, so we deserved a celebration. Man, did we get it! We found Paradise at the Sea Gypsy Village Resort in Pulau Sibu, Malaysia.

But first, we had to get there. This first chapter will tell the tale of our adventures over the causeway and into the country to our north and the rest of the 3-hour drive and then boat ride.

(Admission: we packed the camera in the suitcase in the back of the car for our trip there. These images were actually taken during our trip home, but I'll put them in reverse order so it will seem like we took them on the way there. The trip to the place sets the scene and is way more important than telling you about our trip home)

We left on Saturday morning around 10. We had a boat to catch at 1:30 and left plenty of time for getting lost. While we didn't get lost, we were delayed at the causeway between countries due to high traffic. We thought most of the traffic would have moved through on Friday night and early Saturday but we were wrong. It was busy! Obviously, I did not take pictures while going through Customs or anything like that. You'll just have to take my word for it that it was busy.

Singapore is a very wealthy, very clean and organized city-state. In our little time here apparently I have already taken that for granted. We crossed the bridge and narrowly touched the city of Johor Bahru before heading onto a highway that reminded both of us of riding through Appalachia. Do you know those stretches of highway through parts of Ohio, West Virginia, even Pennsylvania that have houses built right up to the highway's edges? Houses that look like they were thrown up overnight about 100 years ago? Houses that are all packed together into one section and then in the distance beyond lies rolling green as far as the eye can see? Houses with coal smoke coming out the top? Everything reminded us of our long drive home to Ohio every year.

But then a palm tree would pop out. Or a monkey would scramble to the side of the road and run back away. Or a Hindu temple. Truly, we are not in Appalachia anymore.

The dramatic difference from the streets of Singapore was startling.

I liked this guy just cruising along the plantation on his motorcycle.

These pictures were all taken from the car obviously. It was drizzling rain and we wanted to keep moving.

We kept seeing field after field of plantation and were trying to figure out what fruit the palms were growing that would make them so valuable. These plantations lasted for the duration of the trip, just into Malaysia and all the way to Mersing, where we parked at the jetty. Two hours of plantations. Eventually, Ted found out that they are palm trees (duh) grown for their palm oil. Malaysia is the second biggest producer of palm oil in the world. Now you know.

Here are some pictures of the fields of palms in various stages of maturity.

And here is the plant where they render that palm oil.

Singapore has made us lazy with language. We forgot to learn any sort of Malay before we headed out, which made reading the signs kind of entertaining.

We did learn that "awas" is the word for danger or caution and the exclamation point is the international sign for "Holy crap, look out!"

This is an entrance to a village along the way.

All along the road were these little food stands. The rain must have closed them up.

When we turned off the main road, route 3, our GPS didn't know what were doing. The (paved) road didn't exist.

Once we reached the end of the road, we parked at the jetty and had a snack. We bought our jetty passes and grabbed some sand toys for the beach. Sitting next to us was a family who looked very nice with two little girls who looked to be Ella and Zoe's age. Turns out, they were heading to Sea Gypsy too and had been there in June but couldn't wait to get back. Coincidentally, they were not only from Singapore, but our neighborhood. They live probably within 2km!

We carried our bags down to the dock, wrapped them in plastic bags because the boat driver told us the waves were a little choppy, buckled our life jackets, and hopped aboard.

To take the scariest boat ride of our lives.

If Zoe and Wyatt could have opened up our skin and crawled inside, they would have. They were cuddled into us so hard. And Ella and her new friend Maya were holding hands and squealing with laughter every time we would hit a wave and get sprayed hard with water. We were soaked and my muscles were sore from squeezing Zoe so tight. Zoe wouldn't even let me let go of her to get a grip on the boat so we really were bouncing up in the air. As there was nothing then to hold on to, I held my breath and tried to not worry. It was fun, in an extremely dangerous kind of way, but still fun.

Once we neared the island, Zoe released her grip a bit. She smiled and pointed out the people wading out into the water to help us alight. The guys from Sea Gypsy grabbed the kids, one over each shoulder and carried them ashore. The rest of us stepped out of the boat and into shallow-ish water (just above the knees) and walked straight to the bar for our free drink while our bags were unpacked from the boat.

Hey, they told us to do that. We had to go to the bar. Someone met us there to give us our cabin number and tell us the rest of the procedures. We calmed down for a few minutes and headed over to check out our cabins. That's coming up next. 

Ella's School Books

Certainly it's one of the reasons I became a teacher. Every September I think about visiting the book shops and buying a stack of narrow-ruled notebooks with Bobcat paw prints on them. I get such satisfaction from the smell of the paper, the brightness of a blank canvas, the feel of a fresh new pen making a subtle indentation in the cardboard as I carefully, in my neatest penmanship write my name, date, and subject on the front of each notebook. Don't even get me started about the thrill of writing out my class schedule in the empty assignment book. Ah, back to school time.

In Singapore, it's not time for back to school, but it is time for a week off before Term 4 starts on the 10th of September. That's when Ella and Zoe both start school here. I have been getting them both prepared at home for a month now so hopefully they will be somewhat prepared, but we'll see. Ella can now do addition and subtraction of numbers up to 40 as well as multiplication of numbers to about 10. She will be starting to learn division at school this term so I hope she's where she needs to be. We also have been working on handwriting and even spelling because yes, spelling counts here.

The kids in K1 can write words here and by the end of K2 they are supposed to be writing whole sentences. I have taught Zoe how to make most upper case letters and numbers to 10 but she cannot yet recognize lower case letters (or for that matter all of the upper case ones) and the number 6 is always written backwards. I am proud of her progress and I hope her teachers will be gentle with her.

I don't know what to expect in regards to their school day. I don't even really understand how the cafeteria (or canteen) works. They will have a lot to teach me.

I have checked out Ella's school books so that I could check to make sure she's close to where she needs to be. We have worked on everything but Chinese. I thought folks back home might be interested in what the school books look like here so I took pictures of the covers and of one page inside each book. I do this because I find it fascinating and thought you might too. For those of you who are not book nerds, particularly school book nerds like me, you can close the window now. The beach report will be the next post.

The day that Ella took her placement test at her school we were able to stop at the school book store, right next to the canteen, to pick up her books. They packed everything into a nice tote for us to carry everything easily. The woman who runs the store said that one of the packets we paid for was a test packet and that Ella would be given that in class obviously and not all at once. Here is what we did bring home though:

An Art Folio for her projects

A folio for her work. It has her school motto and mission on it.

Her handbook is also as assignment book.

Isn't this beautiful? It's a case for all her report cards, I think. Each one will fit inside a plastic liner and all kept together in this nice little collection.

These must be for essays at school.

Subject folders for Maths and English

and Mother Tongue! In E's case, Mandarin for novices. 

This is a folio case for her book about cultures around the world. I guess it's like social studies.

She has her own white board, dry erase marker, and eraser for answering and working out problems in class. It all tucks into this holder.

As I said, spelling counts:

And this grammar books teaches the different parts of speech in quite a lot of detail for primary schoolers.

What good is a grammar handbook without some worksheets?

Handwriting practice. We've already done several of these to help prepare.

Here it is. The Singapore Math Book! We have been working on this one a lot, as well as the similar ones we bought before we moved here. Singapore Math is known around the world and with good reason. Luckily the books we bought at home that said they were based on it actually are  similar so we could switch right over. I am stunned at the progress she has made in three hours a day (5-6 days a week) for a month. It makes me want to keep it up with all three kids. Instead of returning to work, I could stay at home and do supplemental activities with them for a few years. If only I could stand the headache it gives me every day trying to help E with one thing and Z with another simultaneously. 

What I found most impressive is the supplemental subject materials. The music, art, and health books are beautiful and thoughtfully done.

And here are the Chinese books. I was relieved when they told me she would be placed in a class with other students learning Chinese for the first time. Because it's called Mother Tongue, I was worried she would have take a class with some native speakers. My relief evaporated though when I remembered that she's starting in Term 4 so the kids will have been learning the language for a long time already. I hope she gets something out of it.

I can't wait to start seeing the Somerville kids' pictures for the first day back at school that will hopefully pop up on Facebook. I will miss not seeing familiar faces on the playground. Enjoy heading back, everyone!