Tag Archives: living

Drinks I Enjoy in Malaysia

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phone of orange juice and strawbery soda

Orange juice and strawberry soda

Two drinks I have enjoyed since moving to Malaysia are orange juice and strawberry soda. Ok, the strawberry soda is just sugar water with some flavoring (that tastes nothing like strawberry to me) but I like it. What I really like is the orange juice. In the USA they have orange juice with pulp (essentially the inside of the skin of the orange. I don’t like pulp. This orange juice has intact orange “capsules.” I really don’t know what you call them, but the tiny bits of the orange that actually have the juice inside of them. The juice in the photo has lots of those floating in it, which are yummy.

I also like fresh lime juice and really most fresh juices. Green tea is nice, and I have been drinking much more tea recently. One thing I still haven’t figured out is what some places mean by yogurt. Some smoothies are great with really yogurt. Several places though obviously have no yogurt in what they call yogurt drinks – they are just juice flavoring with crushed ice.

Related: Residence Pass for Talented Expats – Bakery, Downtown Johor Bahru – Blogs in Kuching and Borneo

Exercise: Swimming

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Over the years I have thought about taking up swimming to get some healthy exercise but I never do. When I start swimming I am so lame I can barely make it a few laps. And I had to go to a pool, get changed, swim (for a few minutes before I was too tired), get changed, go home… So I never did keep it up.

Now I have a pool an elevator ride away. I have been swimming several times a week for a few weeks now. I still can’t get very far. Which is good in that I get an aerobic workout really quick, because I am such an inefficient swimmer. But also bad in that I get don’t a very long aerobic workout without risking swallowing large amounts of water. Today I made 10 lengths (5 laps, if a lap is back and forth) for the first time (maybe the pool is 20 yards long but maybe a bit shorter – about 15 meters, maybe a bit longer?).

It does seem like this will be a way for me to get some exercise though, so that is good. And hopefully I can add on the laps over the weeks. Hopefully I can find a place to play basketball, historically my main exercise. I will also look to see about tennis or badminton. I am still looking for the best places in Johor Bahru to participate though. Let me know, in the comments, if you have suggestions.

As I let the sun dry me after the swim a swallow (or some similar bird) buzzed the pool very close to the water. Which was cool, but I figured the bird was out of luck. I guessed it was looking for insects to eat and the chemically cleaned water didn’t support insects. But it dipped in and caused a small ripple and I figured maybe it caught something or more likely thought it would and tried. But over the next 2 minutes it dove into the water a bit more and at least 10 more time. I would zoom along, fold in its wings and then plop into the water causing quite noticeable ripples. It could just basically bounce off and be flying again. It either had to be playing or cleaning itself I think. It was fun to watch.

In Johor Bahru, most of the condos that expats chose have pools. Some are larger (Straits View seemed the largest to me) and some are pretty small (usually at the condos without too many units).

Related: Bakery, Downtown Johor Bahru – Android Mobile Phone Options in Malaysia – Megazip Adventure Park, Sentosa Island – Regular Exercise Reduces Fatigue

Salahuddin Bakery, Downtown Johor Bahru

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This bakery in downtown Johor Bahru has excellent breads and great prices. It is downtown in the historic district. It is on the same block as the Masjid India (an Indian Mosque).

photo of various breads

Bread at Johor Bahru Bakery

Related posts: The Village Briyani Cafe in Johor Bahru – P1 Broadband Wimax in Johor Bahru, Malaysia – Hotels and Accommodations in Malaysia

photo of muffins and breads

Muffins and breads

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Android Mobile Phone Options in Malaysia

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When looking at smart cell phone options in Malaysia the choices really boil down to iPhone v. Android (in my opinion). Here I will look at some Android options. Celcom, Digi and Maxis are the largest service providers in Malaysia (U-mobile is another option). For me the Celcom monthly prices seem to high. I am not planning on being a heavy user, they may make more sense for heavy users.

Samsung Galaxy S2

4.3 inch screen. 1 Gb of RAM. 16 Gb of included memory, can add another 32 Gb. Runs Gingerbread, Android 2.3.

Digi: 12 month, RM 48 plan (1Gb) RM 1,699 upfront payment – 24 month, RM 68 plan (3Gb) RM 1,349 – RM 88/mo (RM 1,349 upfront). Digi offers unlimited data roaming for RM 36 a day in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and more.
Maxis: If I understand RM 58/m (500Mb), RM 78/m (1.5 Gb), 88/m (3Gb). Additional RM 500 deposit for non-Malaysians.

HTC Sensation

Digi: 12 month, RM 48 plan (1Gb) RM 1,799 upfront payment – 24 month, RM 68 plan (3Gb) RM 1,399 – RM 88/mo (RM 1,349 upfront).
Maxis: If I understand RM 58/m (500Mb), RM 78/m (1.5 Gb), 88/m (3Gb). 12 month 78/m RM upfront payment RM 1,799. Super deal if you go for 88/m and 24 month contract RM 999. Additional RM 500 deposit for non-Malaysians.

Comparison of hardware and performance between Samsung Galaxy and HTC Sensation.

HTC Wildfire S

Digi: 12 month, RM 48 plan (1Gb) RM 849 upfront payment – 24 month, RM 68 plan (3Gb) RM 499.
Maxis: If I understand RM 58/m (500Mb), RM 78/m (1.5 Gb), 88/m (3Gb). 12 month 78/m RM upfront payment RM 899. 78/m and 24 month contract RM 599. Additional RM 500 deposit for non-Malaysians.

Huawei IDEOS X3 is a decent looking budget Android option (RM 599). Review at LiewCF. It runs Gingerbread (Android 2.3). 3.2 inch screen.

The cell phone providers don’t seem to offer the Huawei directly so I guess you need to buy it and then get a plan with them separately.

Related: P1 Broadband Wimax in Johor Bahru, Malaysia – Kindle DX with New E Ink Technology – Droid Incredible

P1 Broadband Wimax in Johor Bahru, Malaysia

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Update: P1 is unreliable, do not consider them for anything but a backup. Once they provide historical and real time uptime and real speed data from a 3rd party then you can think of considering them. In 6 weeks they have been down multiple days for multiple hours. One day for 1 hour would be bad. Being down several hours in a month would be very bad. They have been that unreliable and down multiple weeks (I think 50% of the weeks) for multiple hours a multiple days. Extremely poor. They don’t even have bother to apologize and explain each failure (at least 3 long term very serious failures in 6 weeks). As I stated in the last update, that tells you enough them to avoid P1, if you are smart. And it also explains why they keep failing over and over and over (when they don’t even acknowledge the causes of the failures, maybe they don’t even figure them out).

Finding a decent provider isn’t easy, the reviews online make it seem like P1 is as good as any provider (maybe Unify is best but it is offered on in very limited locations).

I needed broadband internet for my condo in Johor Bahru. In looking at the various options they seemed pretty similar. P1 offers the highest speed I saw 5Mbps and 30Gb a month (for the RM 139 a month plan) and so that seemed best to me. They also offer a 7 day trial period which was nice. And you can use it in 2 hours (after some setup by their system to activate your modem), which is nice. You can check out if your area is covered.

My speed was pretty bad at first. I was able to get support through Twitter. After awhile they said they would monitor the modem from their side. Then they said they made tweaks to the modem and things actually do seem better. I really wonder what they do to speed it up? The speed is still not near 5 Mbps. If I average 1.5 Mbps I would be surprised. I have only had it for about a week now so I do need to get more data. Today it has been above 2 Mbps for much of the day so if that continues it could be good (I even had 2 tests where it was nearly 4 Mbps – the average today may well be above 3). But it does seem 5 Mbps is much more a marketing gimick that what you can expect. But I don’t know if p1’s difference from their marketing is any more exaggerated than anyone else. Also I probably need close to 30 Gb so that factor matters to. If I could average 3 Mbps and had very little downtown (99.5% uptime) I will happy.

I have had several 10 or 15 min times already where I was trying to get online and couldn’t. I am hoping that is maybe initial setup issues (though really that doesn’t make much sense which is why I am just hoping). p1 has been good enough that I am passing the 7 day mark without cancelling, hopefully I won’t regret it.

I think I would have gone with Unify. They are a land-line provider which should be more reliable (historically the problem with landlines has been slow customer service and high fees, Unify is meant to address these issues and seems to be doing better on those scores). Unify’s VIP 5 plan offers 5 Mbps download and 60 Gb per month. Really I think if I was smart this is what I should have done. It takes awhile to setup and I think the upfront charges are more. I might even get Unify on top of p1 (just because I am so reliant on the internet to do my job). I really can’t have outages or it can be a serious problem. Probably it would have been smart to get the Unify package and then the a cheaper p1 plan. Oh well, trying to do all the things I have to do to get setup has been pretty stressful, making a few mistakes isn’t so horrible. I’ll just have to earn more money so I can afford to add Unify (or maybe I’ll find just P1 is enough).
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