Have I Landed on Mars?

3 of the 4 towers of The Cove

         I come from a relatively humble (read that "normal") middle-class American background.  We had one bathroom and one phone for a family of four.  Still do, except that the family is now only two, the nest having emptied out quite some time ago.  Please keep that in mind when reading  the comments to follow.
     I've been told by a totally partial (NOT impartial!) source that "Penang is a place where ordinary people can live like royalty relatively cheaply."  These days I get occasional glimpses into the homes and lifestyles of my new acquaintances. (It's still too early to call any but one of them a "friend.")  The things they say, the things they do, the way they live their daily lives continually amazes me.  I guess I hadn't  been exposed to "the other half" much in my life before Penang.  In Japan of course there were wealthy people, but I didn't know them.  Or, more likely, I knew them but they never let on that they were well-off.  But here, it's a whole 'nother story.
    Take, for example, The Cove.  (Check out this link, just in case you want a little get-away vacation!  Ha-ha!)    An acquaintance's husband once declared, "I don't want to look down on birds; I want to look up at them!"   Well, in most of the units of The Cove (one unit per floor), the birds down below are such tiny specks, they're almost invisible. Unnatural!  It's hard to have sympathy for people who can't decide which of the three verandas to use when they have the ladies over for tea.

          My friend lives in a "super condo."  This is the view from her veranda.  (She thinks the floor she lives on is too low and she thinks she might want to move to a higher floor in the same condo.)  The standard units in this condo are from 3,669 to 4,873 square feet. (Just as a point of reference, our "unit" is 1,440 sq. ft and it's all I can do to keep it clean and tidy!)  There are two units per floor, but you can't access your neighbors' unit unless you go downstairs and convince the guard man that you have a legitimate reason to go there.  If he thinks you do, he'll step into the elevator, swipe his special security passcard, and away you go!  There's a separate elevator for tradesmen so they don't have access to your entryway / vestibule.  Good thing, I guess, as those are so spacious, they actually require furnishings.  (More than I have in my whole living room in one case.)
     Please don't think I'm writing this out of envy or sour grapes!  We're delighted with our normal-sized, down-to-earth abode here.  It's surrounded by trees with chirping birds, national-anthem-singing elementary school kids and a little village just beyond the gate.  There's a "lifestyle shopping mall" opening up on one end of our lane, cheek-to-jowl with the regular mall that I visit almost daily.  The other end of our lane has a famous hawker food market, a bus stop and a man who sells durian and other fruit from his truck.  What more could anyone ask?