Why We Might Move Back to Canada (Honest Malaysia Update)

0:00We moved to Malaysia so that we could be outside all the time so our kids could swim every day. But it's been months since we've been able to do that and it's one of many reasons why we would consider moving back to Canada. So here are the top reasons that we would ever consider going back. [music]

0:25So, I think the first one, obviously, you probably can't tell right now, but is the haze. Yeah. And it's not it's not necessarily that it's the number one reason. It's just the number one reason that's in our face right now. I'm actually going to take a video of the haze right now um just off in the distance. And it is so bad. The rating is almost 200. It's been like this for months now. Yeah, and schools are even off. Um, kids are not even going to school right now uh because the haze is so bad. And if you look up how dangerous

0:59it actually is, it's pretty toxic. Y you don't want to be outside. Now, there is a caveat to that. So, the smoke is not because of Malaysia. The smoke is because of Indonesia. Shame, shame. Um, but like the the minister said, he's like, "But we also supply you with oxygen." [laughter] Which is also true. And actually researching a little bit, I came to under I came to understand that it's not necessarily their fault. Um because it's actually the ground that's burning. It's not necessarily the trees. So it burns deep into the ground because they have like Pete bogs there and it's basically because of big business because they've stripped the

1:36land and they've dug canals for irrigation in this pete bog. But the problem is when you do that it dries out the pete bog, catches fire, burns underneath for like weeks or months at a time. and we get all the smoke and it's bad. Like the the thing is is we were in Canada this summer and we did experience forest fires while we were there and we couldn't go outside but it cleared up like by the end of our trip like it cleared up. We had crisp clean

2:01air. That's that's Canada, right? Is you know it's not going to last forever because winter's coming. Yeah. Literally like like how many fires are going to burn when it's ice cold? It ain't. But here like it's literally been months since we got back. It's since August and we're now in October and it's just not fun, guys. Especially when you when you

2:20have kids that expect to be outside. Like we have a trampoline. We love to go swimming. We love to go bike riding every single night. Um we take our kids to the playground. Like we haven't been able to do that in months and it's hard. [laughter] It's It feels like we're in winter in Canada

2:36or or like COVID lockdown. Yeah. It literally feels like that. And I feel really bad. Like we're just driving now and you're seeing like workers and stuff all over the place and man, these guys are out here in this every day. Yeah. Breathing it in. So this is not a complaint to make us better than anyone else. I recognize and I understand the situation that so many people are in and they don't have an option and may you know Allah bless them with

2:59health and uh and lots of money. Um so one of the second reasons is Wi-Fi. Okay, I'm going to hold up a box. What is this? I've never seen this before. In Canada, we're like, "What is this?" So, it's a portable Wi-Fi box. Now, we've had to purchase this on more than one occasion because our Wi-Fi box. You purchase the box once and then you recharge it with like a SIM card and it gives you Wi-Fi, like

3:25portable Wi-Fi. You can you can kind of you can watch TV. You can like you can hook your TV up to it so the kids have at least something to do while they're locked up inside. Yeah. Um, so yeah, our our our Wi-Fi, our internet has gone out several times since we've lived here. It's been two years now and I've lost track of how many times I've had to call a technician because it just

3:42stops working. And for people, two people that work from home, we own businesses and we have to do our work from home. So like it's not like we can like pack up our three kids, go to a coffee shop and like do our work, which we had to do this past week. Yeah. And it wasn't fun.

3:56No. No, it wasn't. So I mean especially when you're the only one that drinks coffee, man, I feel awkward. [laughter] [gasps] Exactly. So that part has been really hard. Um, one thing one thing we did actually learn later on is it's not necessarily the internet. It's the internet provider. Yes. And they're not very well reputable

4:15where we live. Yeah. Cuz in in Malaysia, it's like Canada, I guess, too. Bell is different than Rogers, different than Telus, and they have different towers and it works better in certain localities. Um, we didn't know before we moved here. I think we got it hooked up before we actually even moved here at the advice of someone who didn't live in the neighborhood. The company is not very not very good. the service isn't very good and and we're locked into a contract. We can't buy it out. They don't make it easy to buy it out, by the way. It's it's just not fun. So, that part has

4:43been really hard. Again, we work from home and not having the same accessibility that we've always had has just been a little bit difficult. So, there's that. One of the other things that's really been annoying, and we've tried so many different things to prevent it from happening, but it just keeps reoccurring, is kitchen pantry

5:05bugs. Okay. Oh, yeah. So, we have a really clean house. Alhamdulillah. Like, we keep everything super super clean. I guess we should tell people first. No clutter. We moved since the last video we did about, you know, why we may move back to Canada. So, roaches are not on that list anymore and lizards are not on that list

5:20anymore. That's right. new house. No cockroaches, no lizards. It's been amazing. But pantry bugs, oh my god, we've been battling with them for so long and we just can't seem to get a hold of like where they just come from. Like you literally buy raisins from the store. Oh my god. For the kids, like the ones that we've always had growing up in Canada. I'm pretty sure they're imported from the States. Anyway, they come, we put them in the pantry, and then a few weeks

5:45later, we got a bunch of like bugs. We're constantly battling this. There's the the they're called cigarette beetles and weevils. And to anyone that's like, "Oh, make sure everything's in airtight container." Well, okay. Everything is in airtight containers, but somehow the bugs still find it or things that are sold here already have the bugs in it. And that happens a lot with like rice and

6:06stuff. Yeah. And but we freeze our rice. Our literally all of our You freeze the rice, you eat the eggs. So they say cuz we've had this so many times. So, I bought rice from here and then all of a sudden there's bugs in it. So, they say bring it home, freeze it so it kills the eggs, yada yada, and then they won't hatch, which we've been doing for the rice. And the rice has been fine now. But still, they just they're just it's just a constant battle. I'm like always fighting and cleaning out the pantry and like it's just it's getting

6:34annoying. Yeah. I don't want my food infested and having to throw it away all the time. One thing she doesn't do well with is bugs. And she screams her her and Yousef have a bug scream. Oh, he actually screams a certain pitch when he sees bugs. It's called his bug scream. Yes, you do. She also has that and I called her out on it today, but there's one instance and this was actually

7:00pretty gross. There was a jar of cocoa. Oh my god. And she had goosebumps remembering this. So I went and I checked it out and so it was like a glass jar and it looked like an ant farm. Like the whole thing was just tunnels with eggs all over the thing. So gross. I made the kids homemade chocolate milk powder with like Hershey's cocoa powder and like healthy

7:25ingredients and it became infested. Yeah. So I don't know where I mean it wasn't airtight but it wasn't it was a jar like it was a sealed jar. So, I don't know where these guys come from and we've tried everything. And then I've contacted pest control and they're like, "Yeah, so you need to like clear out every utensil and everything that you have. Everything has to be

7:44covered so we can come in and spray." And I'm like, "Is it toxic?" They're like, "Well, it is toxic, but only for like 3 hours." I'm like, "Um, pass. [laughter] Pass." Which leads us to another issue. Yeah. In regards to we can fix it, but it's going to totally disrupt your life. Yeah. And that is cracks.

8:04Cracks. So again guys, you anybody who knows our situation or story, whatever. Um I've worked in construction, you know, many years as a younger person, even though I'm very young. Um so like building standards has been a big issue for me. And you know, the place that we just moved into was actually a new build. So nobody had ever lived there before. It was just

8:26completed. Yeah. And like there's massive cracks in like all the walls. Literally all the walls. And so after we moved in, they started to become more apparent. And I don't know if that is because we had just moved in or uh or what it was, but irregardless. So some of the walls are like cracked all the way like in half basically, which can't be safe, but and and [snorts] the the landlord offered which was nice. The fix for that is they come and they chisel out the crack and

8:57then fill it with cement. We've literally seen them do this, too. They take this massive like chipper thing and they smash the wall like this and they basically shatter the wall and then refill it. Yeah. Or they'll use as if that's a proper they'll use like a um a hammer drill, right? Either way, it's it

9:13creates a ton of dust. But let me let me let me just preface this for the people in Canada and the US. You're probably like, "Huh? Cracks in the walls?" So, there's no drywall and there's no framing here. It's all the walls are made of cement and concrete. Yeah. So, and so once you fill it with concrete, then you have to sand all the concrete down and and sorry, you put the concrete, then you have to put the plaster over top. Then you have to sand that all down a bunch of times to make it smooth like like drywall basically. So, the problem is is when you have a house full of

9:43people, carpets, books, stuff, everything has to be covered. You can't you can't do that in a house with kids because it's going to get in their lungs. And and and we've we've we've experienced what that dust is like and that dust goes on everything. The next thing that we really struggle with um as a Canadian family that moved to

10:02Malaysia is the lack of storage. So, we're really used to having a basement, having walk-in closets, having storage in general, garage, this entire house has the tiniest little storage underneath the stairs. And that's it. Yeah. And that's there's nowhere to put anything. They do built-ins here. You're not going to make a built-in for like your shop back or or you know like

10:28No, but in general for closets, right? Like they do built-ins. But I find that funny because there's such a problem with termites. Yeah. Which is why they don't build houses with wood like at the last place. Everything was infested with termites. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So it's weird. It's a struggle because we'll buy something like for instance we have this little carpet shampooer. we have nowhere to put it. So, it's literally just sitting in like our dining room and then like our cat feeder that we don't need when we're not home. We have like no storage for like the extra foam mattresses we have. They're just like in

10:58our kids' rooms. So, yeah, that lack of storage is really hard. Yeah, as a Canadian and a guy that likes to have tools and like my shop set up. I can't do that here. And and I understand. I mean, obviously everything that we're saying is from is through a Canadian lens. Yeah. Right. So, what we're used to,

11:16guys. Yeah. What I'm looking at is here, you can't do that because it would be so ridiculously hot. Uh, it just wouldn't make sense. You got to have an air conditioning unit in there because you don't have But but the thing that would work is a is a garage. Sorry. A garage that has

11:32It wouldn't work. But why? Because you don't you have to have air conditioning to cool it off. Otherwise, it's 500°. It's going to be hot in your garage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be hot. But you still have a place to store your stuff. Yeah. It's just not not a common thing. I know. And I I wish we had another option for storage, but we've we've literally like our kids both of their rooms, they have this like sun room thing. We've had to convert those into

11:55like a storage area. Yeah. Which looks great from the outside. Yeah. Like definitely. Wo. So, anyways, you guys, we're not saying we are moving back. We're saying these are things that strongly make us consider moving back because and if if you're from the west and you're thinking about moving to Malaysia, I mean, understand that most people just live in trees here. If they don't have houses, they literally live

12:17in trees. Yeah. And everything is AI. So like when you see how pretty Malaysia is, it's probably just AI most likely. Like the the whole like, oh, downtown beautiful thing. It's just a video of New York where they put in some different buildings. It's not Malaysians live in trees. It's mostly jungle. Yeah, everything. That's what they all want us to tell you. So, it's basically like um Charlie in the Chocolate Factory when Johnny Depp goes into the jungle and there's all these

12:40crazy big bugs and all. It's really bad. So, so yeah, don't don't take every anything that you see as fact. Um it's just how we see it as a Canadian or if you're from the West, you know, looking maybe possibly. It's good to know these things. And we really went into this totally blind cuz there was

12:56nobody talking about it. Right. That's right. And I and I think it's important to not just glamorize everything and you got to be honest, speak truth even if it's against yourself. Yeah, exactly. It's important to be it's important to be like transparent and share struggles as well because yeah, we definitely struggle in some areas and so yeah, the glitz, the glam for sure like it's an amazing place to live and we

13:17absolutely love it here. Before you drop your comments be like, oh, you're complaining and it no talking about your your life experience is not complaining. If that bothers you, then why are you complaining about me complaining? You're just adding to the level of complaints. [laughter] It was like just a complaint. Now it's like a complaint X2. It's like squared. But we

13:36don't want your complaints. Just so you guys know, today is our 13th anniversary and we are on our way for the first time having a date night in like the longest time. So we're going to dinner. Last time I can remember was when Amina and Zay were really little and we went to Wonderland. Oh yeah, that's right. It's been a

13:52while. So that was well before Yousef and he's three. Yeah. And a half. So, I don't think we've gone since then. It's got to be probably 5 years. Four years, probably. Yeah. Wow. This is official, y'all. Anyway, guys, thank you so much for tuning in. As always, we try to keep it as real with you as possible. Anyway, guys, thank you so much again. Take care and

14:10we will see you in the next one. Just kidding. Bye. [laughter] [music] We don't know where tomorrow leads, but we know who we want to be. Side [music] by side. Come what may, every step is a leap of faith. This is our story. This is our song. Every moment we're moving on.