Pretoria

Son on Friday after dropping the kids off I head to Pretoria which is some 60+ km away. I am there to visit the Malaysian embassy so that the consulate can witness my signature. Here are some shots of a (rare) and cloudy day in joburg, I took the back route heading north via diepsloot, here is their new mall. Diepsloot is one of those "slums" where many of the fourway's workers live, its about 10km from where we live and is one of the places where alot of other black african immigrants got attacked during the xenophobic attacks.

The slums by the way are a lot nicer than the ones in Indonesia or India, there are toilet facilities, tho outdoors and water and elec. Was reading an article of an interview of Mr. Maponya (the guy that built the big mall in soweto), he said he was most disappointed about how in the last 15 years, not much has been done about low cost housing or even stack housing or apartments.

Anyway, I get to the embassy (last pic is of pretoria embassy row), its freezing, of all the malaysian embassies I have visited, this was the most quiet. I submit the papers, expecting to meet a human being, an hour later, they come back all signed (ie the witness has signed that he/she has witnessed my signature) but I had not signed on the spot yet! Worse I didn't get to ask him questions like should I not register as a citizen that I am now living here so the embassy knows of my "whereabouts" as the other malaysian embassies have done? Nor did I meet a human being to ask where the malaysian pot luck food parties were held. Speaking of food, its so cold I have just been hungry all the time.

So on this cold, cold day I head back to Loren's office to get the doc's couriered out and decide on a hot bowl of Japanese noodles at the restaurant downstairs... well its run by a Shanghainese guy who has lived here for 25 years. He is selling his businesses to move back to Shanghai. All three kids born here, the two older ones are headed to Harvard and it was a really nice conversation, esp. since his chinese accent was quite easy to listen to. I think I may ask him to be my Chinese tutor and help translate the rest of the recent books we found that my granddad did in the 1930s.