Blog Hopping

During a spare hour this afternoon while my oldest daughter was colouring, my youngest daughter was sleeping, and my wife chatting with her sisters on Whatsapp, I had a hop around the blog world, to check in on what my friends are up to today. I enjoyed seeing the variety of different friends I have and posts they displayed. Here's a run-down of what people are up to today:

FOOD

First up is Mary's food. Mary has a plethora of tasty recipes just waiting to be discovered!

PHOTOGRAPHY

My friend Doug takes some wonderful photos with well-explained captions, like this one:

TRAVEL

Follow Travelling Hawk as she takes you on a journey of Japan

EXPAT LIFE

My fellow-countryman, John, and I, really enjoy the Malaysian sun. Here he is in Johor Bharu:

PHOTOGRAPHY

Lotta from Sweden takes lovely photographs of the Swedish countryside

WRITING

Rosalind and I are both from Leicester, England. She's a really good writer. Today she wrote a reminiscing piece about a teddy bear and her grown-up daughter

HEALTH & LIVING

Andrea is busy tending her garden:

ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY

Leovi is sharing more of his mouthwatering images

Hope you enjoyed that little blog hop around America, Europe and Asia. If you have a few minutes, go and pay a visit to any of these people who catch your interest. I'm sure they'd appreciate your visit!

Have a great day!

Living the Dream

During a recent conversation on facebook, an old school friend suggested I was "living the dream".

Living the dream in Kuantan didn't begin with a lap of luxury or a turn of luck. I can tell you it all started in a strange and unknown town, amongst complete strangers, with no job and very little money.

It took a lot of belief and very hard work to reach the stage where I'm now "living the dream". At times, Kuantan seemed a difficult and impossible place to live, let alone realise dreams. We had problems regarding finances, employment and my immigration status, continually having to leave the country and go through Singapore to get a fresh stamp in my passport. I have numerous stories on this topic, and although I have almost filled two entire passports, it was by no means easy, and quite terrifying at times.

But six years on and we have created our own dream and are really living it right now!

Let me share a few points as to how I am "living the dream".

Firstly, employment. In England, I used to have some agency work as a picker in a warehouse. It was tough work, heavy lifting and carrying 8 hours (or more) per day. I enjoyed it and gave it my all, but I knew it was temporary in nature. I don't know if I could work in that way on a long-term basis.

I always loved English and teaching English, but opportunities for that in England were limited. I didn't fancy teaching a class of 30-40 children at a secondary school, and I didn't have any experience or qualification to do that anyway.

Malaysia has been a much more fertile ground for teaching English. I'm living the dream by teaching English from home, choosing what hours I want to work and accepting as many students as I can fit in my classes. We have registered our own company, Horne Learning Services in a few simple steps. My wife wrote me an offer letter and along with an application letter from me, I received the necessary permission to work freely in Malaysia for Horne Learning Services.

I decided to walk in to the Vistana Hotel one day to advertise myself as an English teacher. Now I'm working in partnership with the hotel and teach a class of staff every Wednesday.

Being our own boss is a luxury I'm so glad we've achieved. Working from home enables me to spend all day long with my family, being with my wife and children, as well as doing my life's work, which I love! If we want a holiday, we have a holiday. We work for no-one, which means our income is as much as we want it to be.

This leads to the second point - freedom. Being entrepreneurs brings increased responsibility to make things work, but greater freedom too. Working hours are dramatically less, whilst still earning a good income. We are free to take holidays, re-arrange classes any time the need arises, and spend all our time with our children to raise them just the way I dreamed of doing.

Our recent holiday in Kuching. We stayed for a night at Damai Beach Resort for my sister-in-law's engagement ceremony, and enjoyed the lovely scenery as shown in this photo.

Not having to "go" to work means we can spend plenty of time with our children. Such a joy!

The third way I'm living the dream - every day feels like a holiday! Kuantan has turned out to be a beautiful place with gorgeous hot weather every day and lovely, attractive places to go and see. The beach is a 15-minute drive from home, a living dream I would never have imagined to have.

Being from the all-too-gloomy England with its infamous rain and wind, living in Kuantan, Malaysia, really is living the dream. Waking up to bright, warm sunshine is such a blessing and motivation. I just couldn't ask for more.

And it's not just the marvellous weather, but the Malaysian lifestyle in itself. Life is so different here compared to in England. Things are much more relaxed in Malaysia, everything is generously priced, even the TV channels and packages are far more extensive. I see more sports for a better price than I could ever have dreamed of in England.

One can cycle down to the beach or a park and saunter the time away. With the vast majority of my English classes at 8-10pm, I'm pretty much free for the entire day. What a lifestyle!

Finally, I think there's something about making it in a foreign country, including overcoming obstacles and finding success amongst a people who originally are wary of your foreign status. Being able to overcome that barrier and work together with locals is "living the dream". Perhaps my friends, Robert in Kuantan, and Linda in Italy, will agree.

Living the dream is living a lifestyle that you choose, not one that is thrust upon you. I'm extremely fortunate that I've been able to create my dream and live it.

You too can do it if you put your mind to it!

Teluk Chempedak view

Here is a view of Teluk Chempedak taken yesterday afternoon in Kuantan . . .

A tree-lined hill provides a luscious backdrop to the second beach across the bridge at Teluk Chempedak as the waves roll in to splash against the famous rocks. Beautiful, isn't it?

The Zenith Hotel, Kuantan - A Year and A Half On

The Zenith Hotel in Kuantan is over 18 months old now and stands as Kuantan's tallest building. It is one-third of a complete structure which includes the Sultan Ahmad Shah International Convention Centre (SASICC), and Menara Zenith.

At the end of 2011 I documented The Zenith Hotel after one year of operation

We attended the buffet dinner and soft launch opening on 31 December/1 January 2011.

A couple of weeks before the opening, I photographed The Zenith Hotel

The Zenith Hotel 2 months from completion

The Zenith Hotel 4-5 months before completion

Check out the progress of the construction of The Zenith Hotel from the earliest days of its existence back in April 2009.

Here's how The Zenith Hotel appears now, as of July 2012:

Pavilion Hotel, Kuantan

Pavilion Hotel is a beautiful budget hotel in the heart of Kuantan in an area which is developing quickly. Behind Putra Square, and sandwiched between East Coast Mall and Berjaya Megamall, Pavilion Hotel is a perfect choice if you are travelling on a budget but would still like a comfortable place to stay.

Pavilion Hotel is located on Jalan Tun Ismail 1. The owner of the hotel, and my good friend, Mr. Victor Tan, invited my family over for a free night's stay at the end of July.

As you can see, the prices start from RM98 which is a single room, very small, but remember, this is a budget hotel for travellers, so that's to be expected. RM188 will get you the biggest family room, which we stayed in last week.

Pavilion Hotel reception

The walls have the most fantastic wallpaper, as you can observe from this picture. The great wallpaper continues right through the hotel.

Corridor on the 1st floor. Mesmerizing wallpaper and carpet. We stayed in room 110.

Our family suite was lovely and more spacious than I had imagined! Two queen sized beds lay waiting for us, and I must admit, I don't think I've had a better sleep anywhere else in Kuantan! Along with Vistana Hotel beds, these were the most comfortable beds I've slept in.

The red swivel chair is a great part of the room

The girls loved the chair

So did we all!

Two wardrobes with iron and ironing board, mini-safe box and hairdryer. There is also a flat screen TV with DVD player

I was surprised . . . delighted . . . to see a Plasmacluster air-purifier! We switched it on

The bathroom was very nice and clean and simple. Loved the shower with a choice of large overhead shower head or smaller hand-held head. The temperature control worked well too.

A choice of toilet paper or water (via hose) is also very important for me. The hose is just out of the picture near the bottom right-hand corner. I was happy to see 5 towels folded up neatly in the bathroom!

Downstairs in the reception at Pavilion Hotel is a nice little area where you can buy food and drinks and toiletries.

Some of the channels on the TV in the room were a bit fuzzy, and the selection of channels is limited, but that is more than compensated by a great little scheme of DVD rental.

We chose a couple of movies to watch for the night. That certainly helped the night time pass by smoothly and we think this is a great feature of Pavilion Hotel!

A short walk down the shop lots from Pavilion Hotel will bring you to the junction where Berjaya Megamall is located.

We were very satisfied with our stay at Pavilion Hotel. Thanks Victor for giving us this chance, and we recommend Pavilion Hotel to any traveller coming to Kuantan on a budget.

Good night from Pavilion Hotel, Kuantan!