We’ve been living in our apartment in Kuala Lumpur for three months now. In life’s bigger picture, three months is but a small drop of paint, a lonely pixel that hardly seems significant. A lot does change in three months, however, and the thing that stands out the most for me is the feeling of newness that has somehow vanished. This place just doesn’t feel foreign anymore.

When we first came to Malaysia, we had finished up a month of traveling through Thailand. Everyday in Thailand was a frenzy of street food, warding off touts and dodging motorbikes while crossing the street. Crossing the border into Malaysia, there was a definite feeling that this was another country, and it really is nothing like Thailand. It has its own personality.

We came to Malaysia in November. If you saw us today, you’d think we’ve lived here for quite awhile. The confusion and novelty involved with a foreign place has dissipated from our lives. We have our grocery store, and when we go in we know exactly where to head toward to pick up some eggs. Not only that, but we know exactly what kind of eggs we’re going to buy. This extends to other things to – we have our restaurants, and our favorite dishes at the restaurant.

The other day I went downstairs to the convenience store to pick up a pack of smokes, and stepping up to the counter I didn’t have to say a word. The clerk just looked at me and said “Marlboro?” It was like being in New York. For the first time I felt something like a local.

When traveling long term, I suppose it’s necessary to make a stop here and there for an extended amount of time, especially if you have to save up a little dough. When your new temporary foreign home loses its “foreign-ness,” is it time to move on? Or should you celebrate the fact that you have “integrated” (to whatever degree), and enjoy life from the perspective of someone who feels a little more like an insider?

For us, I think we’re going to search a little deeper in this massive, sprawling tropical city, and see if we can’t find a new source of that foreign-ness. After all, we are still traveling, no matter how long we end up staying here. To travel is to seek the foreign, the strange, and the new. I’m sure there is still plenty of all three hiding in the dingy, smelly corners of Kuala Lumpur. It’s just a matter of how deep we want to dig.

All of that will have to wait for tomorrow, however. Today, we are heading to the movie theater to watch Rango, another day in our temporary lives as Malaysians.

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