It's plenty warm today - the weather is ping pong-ing around. I'm already missing the slightly gloomy weather. I can get where you're coming from, sometimes my knees ache when it gets colder too, a rewards for excessive squats in my early twenties.
The sun setting at 8pm is pretty good, feels like you have a much longer day and it still feels alright to wake up a bit later too.

I've seen a few pics of the flood in KL due to the rain. It's probably good you're not caught in them or the bad daily traffic. I would think inflation hit KL badly with the recent prices of vegetables I saw being circulated in my family chat.
Has the food prices not gone up a fair bit?

As i have just been back in KL for 6 months, i have not really got to know the vegetables and meat prices very well yet. I guess as i settle in a little longer, i can then find out slowly how much each item would cost. I normally buy my vegetables, meat and fish at Lucky Garden morning market - we have not bought a lot of these because my wife has been buying a lot of takeaways. My wife really loves KL because she spends her time doing things she enjoys rather than having to worry about what next she has to cook for lunch/dinner. Takeaway food is about 40% of how much we pay in Sydney - Sydney is so bloody expensive!!

My wife and i would go down to Coogee or Clovelly beach after dinner in the summer months for a short stroll along the beach. I have seen Bob Carr (ex-NSW premier) walk there quite a few times as well. Summer is very nice - we sometimes eat Italian at La Spiaggia down at Coogee Bay Rd but the food there is a little pricey. We have been going to La Spiaggia since the early 90s - very good Italian food there. We would sit along the side-walk tables whenever we eat there. When you are free, pop along Coogee Bay Rd during summer - it is beautiful. Park along Brook Street (behind Coogee Oval) as parking there is free. I have spent a lot of my time in Coogee/Randwick in my 40 years of life living in the Eastern suburbs.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Dec 19 2021, 10:49 AM

Relatively good I would say. Give it a try!

For those in Australia, today is the Dec 21 - longest daylight hours. From here the daylight hours will start shortening until June 21 where daylight hours will be the shortest.

I love the days leading to Dec 21 as we seem to get more things done with the longer daylight hours. After dinner still plenty of time to go out for a evening stroll.

now that the gov u-turn the tax thingy so i dont have to rush TT back the money now

What a relief!!

I transferred a small sum back to KL 3 weeks back (rate 3.02) with a deal struck with a younger couple who have migrated to Sydney a few years ago. They just sold their unit somewhere near 1-Utama in KL and wanted to move the funds to Sydney - lucky they contacted me after they sold and wanted to know if i wanted some ringgit. I don't have much Aussie so i had to sell some shares (which i have held for a long time). I think they too are also quite happy with our mutual arrangements because they will also find it hard to shift funds out of Msia (esp when the amount is six figures) nowadays with a lot of Bank Negara tight restrictions.

If you Non Tax Resident status, nothing to worry at all

I am aware of this - the problem is now i am residing/retired in Msia so i am classified as a Msian tax resident (even though i have never lodged a tax return in Msia) because i have spent more than 183/365 days living in Msia. I may never return to Aust to live (if i like it in Msia) and will slowly need to bring my funds back to Msia later on in old age. At the moment, more than of my 80% of my assets is still in Aust.

Dont bring back, send to stock market, let it grow. Bring back minimum monthly.

I am now retired so rely on my rentals, dividends, capital gains and interests to live on.

I am lucky i have quite a lot of income to live on and i like retirement in KL as there are a lot of options when it comes to food and the KL weather is quite ok. I do a daily budget (will be stopping that shortly as i know my monthly spent now in KL) and my monthly expenses in KL is a lot lower compared to Sydney. Sydney is so bloody expensive!! I guess you have to pay a premium to live in Sydney .

My siblings in Sydney is missing me and keep asking me to return to Sydney while my siblings in KL is so happy i am back in KL (after being overseas for more than 40 years). I will keep my options open and have 5 years to decide whether i want to maintain my PR (will have to go back to Sydney every now and then to make up the 2/5 years stay condition to keep my PR).

I know, KL is alot cheaper to spend for life, assume u just need food and pay utilities bill, house and cars fully paid. I would retire in Malaysia as well because siblings in KL. 40 years is very long time. Enjoy your retirement. KL is considered too cheap as compared to elsewhere (other big cities)

I tried writing a bit of my life in /k and i have got so many negative responses dis-believing me.

All i have written so far is a real collection of my life and i get so many dis-believers

I better stop posting so much now nowadays as i am attracting a lot of unwanted attention. Imagine a 60 year old man trying to convince younger /k forummers

Dis-believers are those who never went out at all and not looking at overall picture. Expectation must be realistic.

Very true.

I now am beginning to understand the mentality of Malaysians - i guess i have to understand the Malaysian culture more. I have been living in Sydney for 40 years and probably have a Aussie attitude and way of thinking.

I also cannot comprehend forummers on /k. There was one user who i thought was my neighbour's relative but just two days ago found that he was a dupe and his stories are all made up. Why on earth would someone create an identity just to have fun? I guess i have to be more careful now in KL and on /k because i still totally cannot understand the Malaysian way of thought - one thing comes to mind is the way Malaysian drivers drive

Had a few friends who take glee in trolling and doing things like creating alternate/dupe accounts is merely one of the many tools. People do all sorts of things for fun or attention, which are why some of these forumers react/behave this way. They've probably experienced it multiple times.
I can understand where they come from as I can be equally as cynical or distrustful (especially online where it's easy to hide behind a screen name). The above is the reason why I'm quite reluctant to join in some conversations unless they're serious or interesting enough.
You'll be able to find like-minded people and have a good conversation, but trolls will be everywhere - why waste your time trying to convince them?

Driving in KL is pretty stressful - try to time your driving when it's not peak hours and you should be alright. Let others overtake if they want to and just avoid the troublemakers as it'll be mostly a waste of time engaging with them. Gotta limit your generosity while driving or other drivers will take advantage of it. Gotta think it's as if you're driving in the Punchbowl/Bankstown.
Spend another year or two and it'll be fine - you'll be back in your element in no time. Just be more mindful of petty crime as it will not be going away (in my opinion, never going away). Take the Bankstown approach to things: don't keep valuables in car and always lock it either in/outside. Always keep an eye out for bikes with 2 male riders and pick pockets.
Motorcyclist are always right in accidents and always hide the handbag (especially the ones your wife likes). Makes me miss KL a lot less whenever I think about all my old encounters. My mum always locks the car doors immediately after dropping me off since childhood and I've been making fun of her ever since.. but that's the mentality we practice when living in KL.

Stay safe and Happy New Year all!

Thanks for your advice.

Your advice rings true now that you bring it up. The drivers here are so different compared to drivers in the Eastern suburbs.

I have never used any social media before - /k is the one and only and i only discovered it by accident as i was trying to find retirement costs in KL. Now that i have been living here for more than half a year, all my worries about not having enough money to retire have all vanished. KL is a lot cheaper compared to Sydney. You have very good advice about trolls and people using /k for fun - i never thought people would create dupes just to troll. Well, i have just learnt something about social media but i honestly cannot comprehend trolls and how creating fake stories can be fun - maybe i am just born into the older generation and having no kids makes me unable to understand what the younger generation would do for fun.

Happy new year to you and thanks for your advice

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Dec 31 2021, 03:58 PM

Happy New Year, bros,...

Diff places have diff qualities and diff characteristics. This is one thing I always keep in mind,....

Good morning Hansel

Agree with your thoughts. Definitely a lot of differences in the two cultures. Good to experience what a new culture may bring and also need to adopt and learn a new approach how we react to things. Sydneysiders tend to over-react when things are not to our liking.

Retirement gives us too much free time unlike the days when we need to work. Now with 2022 coming on, will need to adopt a new approach on how to soak up my free time. Now i understand why all my retiree friends (mostly 65+) in Sydney is always wanting me to go out with them (children all have their own lives).

Happy New Year to you and your family and may 2022 be a fantastic year (2021 has been a very good year for me in monetary terms).

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Jan 1 2022, 06:00 AM

social media maybe have pros and cons but basically facebook now like instant news, some info are not filtered. so always keep in mind that, always refer to the accurate source. Most of information update sometimes spread faster than official news channel (i guess everywhere is the same).

sometimes comment on facebook can be toxic, dont bother to read everything but u can understand whats happening in the community through these platform. my pov on social media that is for connecting with friends, i still prefer Instagram.

Thanks for your post.

I thought initially in /k what people write is at least a 80-90% true reflection but i didn't realise that a lot what people write is total bullshit!! After going through some posts in the last few days, i have formed an understanding that a high percentage of /k users here are trolling - i couldn't understand why people troll but then i am 60 y.o. and people my age won't be spending time trolling. At least i now understand this forum more correctly now and i shall desist from posting in the other less serious threads.

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Jan 6 2022, 10:27 AM