Pictures of the Neighbourhood, by Hannah

Before I left Malaysia I wanted to take some pictures of our neighbourhood. Our neighbourhood is very beautiful. Though I don't spend much time outside that often, I do enjoy running around the neighbourhood.

I will really miss our neighbourhood, but that's definitely not all I will miss. The whole island is amazing and filled with amazing scenery.

This is the view outside of our house. There used to be a large palm tree where the bushes are

This is our street. The clouds look really pretty in this photo but unfortunately they do not offer much relief from the sun. I think it is about 35 or 36 degrees Celcius outside today

A street close to our house 

A nice bush along my running route, close to the house

Our street, with the neighbourhood guard on his motorcycle. Our house is about halfway down

My Favorite Places, by Aimee

Here are some pictures that I took of favorite places around our house and the neighborhood.

Our front yard doesn't look like much, but it carries a lot of good memories such as playing with Jasper and looking at the sunset or sunrise before and after school

Here is a picture of the houses outside our house.  It is a nice picture of the neighborhood we lived in in Penang

Here is our piano.  Despite it being out of tune and not the best quality, it still was very fun to play songs and relax

This is a view of the playground and basketball court at school which holds a lot of fond memories of hanging out after school

Here is the elementary courtyard, and the door between the two poles is to my mom's classroom.  It was a nice place after school to play soccer or hang out

What's a Closet?

I had an interesting conversation with Elizabeth this morning.  We are in the midst of packing up to return to Canada and I had in my hand some clothes hangers.  The conversation went something like this:

Elizabeth:  Why do we have to pack hangers?

Mom:  Well, because we will need them to hang our clothes on in Canada.

E:  Why can't we put clothes in drawers?

M:  We maybe won't have any dressers.  I can't remember how many dressers we have in storage and we will still need to hang some things up.

E:  Why don't we just put a pole up somewhere?

M:  Because we'll have a closet.

E:  Will the landlord or the school give us one (pointing to her wardrobe, see picture below).

M:  Actually, that's a wardrobe.  The school won't give us one to use and besides, we will have an actual closet in each bedroom to hang clothes in.  Do you remember what a closet is?

E:  No.

This is another example of how the experience of living in Malaysia has changed us (specifically Elizabeth).  There will be lots of adjustments as we go back to Canada, even subtle and unexpected ones like not using somebody else's furniture, and hanging clothes in closets.