"The Snorkels" adventure

What to do in Malaysia while you are waiting for your working permit to be ready and the embassy holds your passport for almost six weeks? Well, here there is one activity that anyone can join and doesnt require any air ticket in Malaysia: diving.

Following our previous coworkers' instructions, we decided to contact Zol, a diving instructor to take the PADI diving license. The license is used worldwide and does not expire, which means once you get it, you are allowed to dive worldwide as long as you want, even after retiring.
So we decided to apply for it: first we had training and theory lessons, and after passing exams we went to Tioman which is an island 7 hours far from Kuala Lumpur to practice the real diving.
The island was quite pretty, even we could not enjoy swimming in the beach since we had 4 dives in one day and half! It was busy :-)

We took a small boat and went deep into the sea to dive, wearing the suits and oxygen bottles. Feeling nervous already, even the views seem really nice and the wind comes across your face, so healing and friendly. We (Sergio, Emily, Miguel and I) used to call each others "The snorkels" team, as if we were kids going to snorkel!!!

Once you carry on the suit, weights and oxygen bottle, you would certainly think you would sink in the sea quickly as you probably increase your weight in around 20 kgs; however once you are under water it doesnt feel heavy at all. More than that: you feel like floating. No gravity at all.
The first impression as you go down while breathing through the respirator in your mouth is quite surprising. Firstly, because breathing through your mouth is not something we really do everyday. As long as you try breathing from your nose and inhale, it certainly never works since the oxygen comes out from the respirator.

When you start going down like just one or two meters, all you can feel is you are floating and all you can see is one colour: light blue. And some bubbles going up. You turn left and right, nothing around you... just blue. You think where am I? Where did they take me? Am I alive or in a dream? This is totally a new world for me, and the feeling of the first impressions still remains very clear in my mind. Feels like you're nowhere, no noise, no view, no weight. But light blue.
You face down and luckily you can see some buddy who descended before you. You turn up and see clearly how the sunglight comes across the sea. You keep descending holding the rope, a few meters more while you are still amazed about the first sights.

Welcome to the new world!


Once you reach the bottom, around 10 meters this time, you feel relieved. Probably you would keep breathing still briefly and intense, but as soon as you calm down, your breathe becomes deep and slow, in a easy way, like it should be. Its the time to enjoy then!

The views in Tioman were quite beautiful. You feel exploring a new world, new species that you have only seen in aquariums before. You see them moving freely, in their own environment, so peacefully. There are no sounds, just your own breathing, an endless view and a perfect matching of harmony and beautiful views.

Small fishes, turtles, no jaws this time (^v^), all them in a friendly way together moving around you, a very small human who is no longer the king of this world. The sea life is amazingly beautiful, fulled of pure colours, quietness and harmony. As you dive, you feel so free, the world is so big, and you feel unique to be seeing the species at their own moving around, at the same time you enjoy seeing the sunlight coming across the sea to light you.

Diving is certainly an activity worth to try, as these are things you cannot see in our "daily" life for most humans. I would certainly take my best friends to try it!! Gambatte ne!

I was very nervous before I tried diving, and during the training as well. When I see it now it doesnt seem its something difficult at all, but you just need to get used to breathe properly and equalize if you feel any pain in your head. Then the pain goes easily, and you can enjoy diving for 4o or 50 minutes at your own!

This coming weekend we are going to Langkawi to dive again. I look forward to it!

I wish I had a water camera to take photos inside the sea... the closest views I have ever seen to diving is a 3D movie about jaws at Timesquare Imax theater in Bukit Bintang.
Since I dived and saw how beautiful is it, aquariums now dont seem so interesting to me... if you are an aquarium fan, diving is an experience you shouldnt miss!!

Finally we could rest easily in the beach for a while, got back to Kuala Lumpur and get our certification after a couple of days. So nice experience!!!

Keep in touch, more soon!

My New Family

When you become an expatriate there is always something good: you can learn a lot about life, and learn you are a very very small part of this world. One person over millions. One life over millions of different lifes. A unique life in a unique timing.

Before I came to Kuala Lumpur, I was living in Spain, had a job, had my family, had my friends. I felt my life was somehow settled down, more or less focused on a future in Spain. But when you go out and live in a foreign country, you learn that life is huge, lots of places to see, lots of different people and really different and unique lifestyles. You feel like a small ant in this big world, at the same time you learn the world runs and you feel part of it, and that the life you used to have is very small compared to how big the world is.

At the time I was leaving and saying good bye to my family at the airport, I didnt know what would become about me in Malaysia, since this was the first time for me to live in a foreign country for a long time.

I used to be in Japan and Thailand in totally different conditions -as a tourist-, and I was wondering how would it be to work and make my daily life in asia.

When I took my flight from Alicante heading Amsterdam and then Kuala Lumpur, I didnt know where I would stay, nor even the people I would meet. I was alone. Alone facing the real world!

This feeling was actually nice, though, 'cause I was very excited to know how would it be like.

My mind could only think forward and positive, of course I was nervous too but when I took my first flight I knew there was no way to go back.

My life was going to change and I had no chance to change whatever my destiny was going to bring me.

To tell the truth, I was nervous at the same time. I knew I had been waiting for a chance to work in asia for years, and finally my chance came, after hard trials! If that would be a good or bad experience was not only destiny but also how I could face and make good relations in Malaysia.

In this sense, I could meet two of my closest friends who are also expats in the same flight from Amsterdam to KL. All of us were new at the office but in different situations and work, and taking the same schedule to come to Malaysia. It was the first meeting for us at the airport, first time to see, first time to talk. The beginning of a new family. My new family.

So, let me introduce you these two special friends and coworkers, whose names are Sergio and Emily. Sergio, a Valencian who really loves soccer and Emily, from Malaga -but born in Galicia- whom I use to call "the malaysian Shakira" since her looks are really simiar to the singer!

They were the first friends to share the "Malaysian experience" with me and still doing very fine and closely day by day. You will certainly see them in a lot of pics from now as I keep updating the blog.

And yes, Emily is NOT my girlfriend but my housemate... :)

I believe to have a proper environment in a foreign country is very important. When you are alone everything looks different, the country can become interesting at the same time empty and lonely.

Depending on how you face your daily life you will meet good or bad people, feel your stay enjoyable or unstable.

Now I am in KL for three months and I certainly know how the environment can change people. I have changed much since I came here because my life has changed. And as for my past experience, I can tell people's character can become totally different if they can not adapt themselves to a new environment.

Thats a good topic for a future post as well :-)

Sergio and Emily have become very close friends of mine and so I wanted to introduce a bit about them. Actually the spanish community in Kuala Lumpur is not very big, but we are lucky to work at the Embassy and so we can meet many of them.

At the same time, I particularly wish to know people who are not spanish as well, to get to know the local culture as much as I can during my stay here. How long will I be in Malaysia? Certainly I dont know yet. But so far I like it, also thanks to my new family, so I hope as long as possible!

Arrival to Kuala Lumpur

Sorry its been months since my last update... finally I got some spare time to write so I will try to keep the blog up to date as much as I can!

Let me tell a bit about my story here...
On October 6, 2006 I moved to Kuala Lumpur for work. Surprisingly, I arrived here just on my birthday, and that became a really wonderful present!

Totally different from my sweet hometown in Spain, Kuala Lumpur is a quite modernized city, with two main impressive constructions that no tourist should miss: the Twin Towers (Petronas towers, KLCC), and the KL Tower (Menara KL).
KLCC is a huge shopping and business center, facing one of the biggest parks in KL. The park itself has a mosque, a swimmingpool area for children and a nice walking tour where people can even do jogging.
Menara KL, the communication tower, is also nice to visit and not too far from KLCC, just walking distance. At the top of the tower there is a sightseeing spot where you can enjoy beautiful views from all around KL!
There is also a nice restaurant on the top floor but my budget is not as good as to have a dinner there yet hahaha...lol

The arrival to KL was very interesting. The driver of the company came to pick me up at the airport and my first impression when I was arriving near KL was that there was a lot of traffic jam!
On that day it was friday evening and all cars want to go around the city center to go out and enjoy the weekend.
I clearly remember how slow the car moved forward even when the traffic signal lights were GREEN... it was very surprising for me and since that day I decided not to take a car and live near by the office so that I can walk everyday and avoid the traffic jams!

Kuala Lumpur seems a nice place to live and so far I am enjoying my stay here. Its not as chaotic as Bangkok even we also have traffic jams here, and of course not too crowded. People is very friendly and they speak to you on the street quite often even they dont know who you are.

I will be introducing more topics about Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur, my daily life, my trips and events in the blog.

I hope all you my friends keep reading from time to time! I am sorry and apologize to all my friends because since i came to KL i dont have much time to write emails, so I thought on writing on a blog and at least all of you can know how am I doing more regularly.

Keep in touch then, see you on the next post!