Kuala Lampur, Malaysia

A bunch of system design eng students from NTU and I left for a 4 day weekend trip to Malaysia last Thursday and just got back Monday morning. It was my first trip in Asia, and it was a lot of fun. A lot of fun meaning that I got to see a lot of places, and try a lot of yummy food. I think that food is one of the defining parts of a culture, and a good trip just isn’t the same without it. But then, I just like food.

Thursday 19 Jan 2007:

Me and the NTU gang meet at Woodlands MRT station to take the local bus to get into Malaysia. I think a lot of people must live in Malaysia and just cross the border every morning to go to work. We take the bus (rt 950) to Juror Bahru, and then find another bus which will take us to Lakan bus terminal, which has a bus to take us into the city of Malacca.

Turns out we could’ve taken the 170 bus, which would’ve taken us directly into the Lakan bus terminal. The bus ride into Malacca was about 3 – 4 hours (I forget) and the bus was pretty comfy, although a bit cold!

When we get into Malaysia, we must have “tourist” tattooed to our foreheads, cause everywhere you turn, there is someone offering to take you in a taxi somewhere.

We had some trouble finding a place to stay, be eventually found one, the Gold Leaf Hotel. The ride there was a bit sketchy at one point, the cab driver took this side road, which just looked like a deserted alleyway at 11:30PM, and our first thought was, “Oh, great, he’s meeting up with some people and going to rob us.” I was really scared! In the morning when we walked by it, it just turned out to be a construction site.

We paid RM20 per person, for 2 rooms, which worked out to be about $6 per person CND. ($1 sing = RM 2.26, and $1cnd = $1.3 sing).

Friday 20 Jan 2007:

After an unrestful night of sleep, we’re up and embarking on our Malaysian journey at about 9 30AM.

We head for coffee at the Discovery Cafe, which didn’t have too much to see / experience, but coffee is always good. The Discovery Café was mentioned in the our guidebooks, so I think that’s where some of its tourism comes in.

The server was quite intrigued when we said we were from Canada. He even brought over a guide book, pointed out some pictures of the Toronto skyline, and asked if this was where we were from. It almost seemed like a story book to me. I mean, Toronto looked really nice J, perhaps that is how the outside world views us.

We head to Chinatown, and settle for some dim sum. These dim sum dishes were much smaller than what I was used to in Canada, but the food was great. My mandarin was also useful in this situation as well.

We took a walk around china town, there were many old temples there. Almost all the stores we passed by had people burning the gold and silver paper, or hell’s money for their ancestors. The temples were quite busy, and the smell of incenses was everywhere. There were even some incenses that were taller than me! They sure let out a lot of heat!

We got a little tired of Malacca, a lot of things were not open until later in the afternoon due to a Muslim religious event. We also wanted some beach experience, and it was a perfect day for the beach.

Asking around, we get directions and suggestions to head to Tan Juan Kling, which wasn’t in any of our guidebooks. Taking a cab there, we check into the “motel.” A double bunk bed room, for the five of us. Poor Steve sacrificed and took the floor.

We drop off our stuff, change into swimsuits, and head out to the beach. The water was perfect, and the sand was hot. There were a lot of people fishing around the area. We later find out, from walking along the road that fishing is a way of life for a lot of the people in this village.

This is a picture of Drew and some of the local kids. They had a jolly good time playing with a piece of plastic while Bernice and I were in the internet cafe their parent's owned sorting out some stuff.
We didn’t really have any meals during the day, just a series of snacks along the way. Committing to a meal would have meant missing out on all the other good food. People were just selling things along the street, such as fried bananas and various other little bites. We stayed on the beach and watched the sunset and it was beautiful. A perfect ending to a perfect day on the beach.

Saturday 21 Jan 2007:

Another night of bad sleep, but we were up to hear the roosters crowing, and it was a beautiful morning at the beach. After a breakfast of roti, we head to Kuala Lampur.

This is a picture of me and a local mosque.

KL was quite the experience. First stop was Chinatown for our hostel. LOL… its funny how Americans seem to have a bad reputation there, well at least for the people whom we bumped into, anyway. When people asked where we were from, and we replied Canada, they seemed pretty happy, and welcoming.

This is a shot of the marketplace in Chinatown. Crazy, I tell you. But I loved it.

Chinatown was pretty crazy and crowded. It was pouring really hard, but I guess they are used to it, since there is a big huge overhead cover. Got some pretty good bargains, but I think that may be one of the last times I shop there. The quality isn’t too good. I would be referring to my pair of shoes. It was cheap, but I guess you get what you pay for.

I did score a pretty good deal on a purse with Bernice :). Spent pretty much the entire day there, and it didn’t really stop raining.

Sunday 22 Jan 2007:

Petronas Tower!!! Yea, all day. Well, not really all day. We took a tonne of pics, we couldn’t get up to the skywalk, tickets sold out. So we just walked around the bottom and took a million pictures.

There was a mall KLCC right next to it, and it was so ritzy. I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between that and the Eaton Centre really. Or any other Canadian or American mall for that matter.

We also went to the KL aquarium, which was pretty neat. Nothing amazing, but it was nice. We decided to stay later, and have a nice dinner at a nice restaurant, you know, without people screaming at you for what to order and stuff.

We had really good service at this place called the Royal China Restaurant or something like that. And then we went to see the Petronas Towers at night. It was so pretty.

We leave on the last bus, a sketchy, but cheap, to get to Singapore at 11PM. It was alright, until we get to the first part of the border crossing at 4:30AM on Monday morning. We had to go through customs, and the driver said it was alright to leave our stuff and just take our passports.

Lucky for us we took everything! Cuz when we got out of customs the other side, the bus was gone! There was about 20 other buses waiting, but none of them was ours…

So we hitch a ride off another bus passing by so we can get to the other side of customs, and then we wait for about an hour for the transit buses to start running, and then take that home. HOME, finally. And I was able to shower, and make it for my 9AM class.

So this concludes my little adventure!

Singapore Time

It was nice and sunny this morning, and now its raining again. The rain keeps it less humid, so I'm not complaining much, except on the weekends, when I want to go to the beach.

I'm still just settling into classes. Haven't been to my Viet one or Japanese one yet. Viet doesn't start until next week. My civil engineering classes seem alright so far, taking water resource, construction project management, and CE materials and steel structural systems.

There seems to be so much going on on campus, much more than waterloo. there are so many plays, production, sports. Or maybe at waterloo I just don't see them advertised. There is definitely a lot of student body spirit, here.

This is a view from my old apartment.

The cars here -- like everything else -- are so clean! Seriously, they all look like they've just been driven off the dealership lot! When I was living off campus, I saw people wiping them down every morning. Wiping the dew off, I guess. I later learned that its so expensive here to own a car -- since they are trying promote more public transportation and limit the number of cars sold every year.

I heard that for even a very basic car, such as the Honda civic, costs about $70K Singapore (conversion rate is about $1cnd = $1.3 sing). So basically, if you can afford a car, you can afford to pay someone to wipe it down every morning! amazing. I think we wash our car every month or so at home! Even less in the winters.


The people here are very serious about what they do. Whether it be sweeping the sidewalks or cleaning the garbage. They seem to always be busy and concentrating on whatever it is they are doing, and happy to be doing what they are doing.

Oh yea, there are so many more Dove and Oil of Olay products here than Canada. Or maybe I should say different. I guess they must be the Asian division or something, because they seem to be catered towards Asian women.

For instance, I bought a shower gel, and its got "pearl powder known to help whiten skin naturally. Its rich and creamy foam, with nourishing milks proteins, gently cleanses away dull dark skin to reveal smooth, fair skin." and they have the same stuff for face too. Some of the more strong "whitening" products are really expensive. its funny how in North America, we have bronzers and self tanners, and here we have whitening products. lol...

People text like crazy -- or SMS as its usually referred to. Its cheaper than calling, so thats what they do. I'm getting quite good at it now. Yea right. I am so glad that my phone has the feature where it will guess the word. It would drive me crazy if I had to press the button 2 or 3 times just to get the letter I want. I'm lazy. I know.

Time to do some hw. Apparently, its supposed to be pretty competitive here since everything is bell curved. Since I've missed the first week of lectures, I should do some reading. Course notes are so cheap here. I think you really just pay for the paper. And books are pretty cheap too. I might buy my books here. My concrete texts (though i havent bought it yet) was only $44 sing, which is about $35 cnd! Wow. Its really ridiculous how much we're ripped off in Canada!


I finally get to meet the people in my res with a res party later tonight. Apparently here, if you have your door open, it doesn't really mean, "hey come meet me..." It just means that they have their door open. I learned that when I was being friendly to the first person who opened their door on my floor. She seemed to be confused as to why I was introducing myself, and it was a somewhat awkward conversation. Lesson learned.

The food. I'm in heaven. Seriously. So delicious.

There are so many malls here. There really isn't that much to do in Singapore. So people shop. A lot. If you can afford to, that it. Here are some pictures along Orchard Rd. The other picture is taken in Vivo City. It looks much like a playground with stores in it, due to all the bright colours.

much better :)

a lot has happened since my last post and things have been happening for the better.

1) i have moved from gillman heights (where i was living when i first got here) to PGP (an on campus residence with lots and LOTS of exchange students and friendly people)

2) for the same amount of rent, i get AC and my own private bathroom!

3) I finally have sign up for modules! yes, now to decide if i can and should take 2 or 3 civil eng courses and 2 cse's... but yes, i am not longer module-less!

4) i have learned here that if you complain, or appeal, you can get almost anything you want. ie. courses, and accomodation, etc...

5) i am starting to get used to taking the on campus shuttle buses

6) i should have brought sweat pants...

i have started to meet people and everyone is really interesting. so many people from so many places. tonnes of exchange students living around here.

so i finally got my modules sorted out, and believe me that wasnt easy. took me almost 2 days to figure out things, and get my papers signed. things here work very differently than back home. basically there seems to be a lot of processes, that you're supposed to follow. but they're always leneint on these processes, but they still want you to follow them first.

for example, me trying to add japanese studies modules. i asked them to sign a form from the registrar's office. they told me that i was supposed to register online, during round 2. i asked what if i dont get the course during round 2. they said that i will. well, what if the class is full, i asked. then you should appeal. i asked how do i appeal, they said online... and then i asked, what if i don't get it after the appeal since the class is already full. they replied that if i appeal, i will get it for sure, since i'm an exchange student. well, my question was, if i was going to get it for sure ne way, then why go thru this process, why couldn't they just sign the paper i brought?! ** sigh... apparently its that way with a lot of things here

yesterday, i met a friend and we went to orchard rd to watch a movie. i cant believe how many malls there are around there! and they have cheap move nights on monday - wed! then we went to china town for dinner. there were parts to the dinner that was a little sketchy. i guess its just the way they do business there. for instance, they charge you for using the wet naps they give you, 50 cents each. the food was pretty good. i really liked this spicy fish they made. yummmie... ne way, must head downtown more often!

its finally stopped raining. so me and a bunch of UW students might head down to santosa, the island part of singapore! there seems to be alot to do in the brochure, so i'm excited. i'll be sure to bring my camera this time! :) i am a little behind in uploading pictures... lol

o yes! i bought a school bag! i cant wear my backpack around cuz it makes me sweat too much. anyway, its this fake puma bag for $15! lol...

ne way, gonna get ready now... thats all for now!!!

and did i mentino food is really really cheap here?? esp on campus! i spend an average of $2 -3 a meal. and its a good meal with lots of food! and i loveeeee food!

Singapore

i feel exhausted...

it took me almost 48 hours to finally reach here, including delays, hotel stay... etc...

i guess i should say how the delay occured since it is quite amusing on hindsight. so, some old dude decides to bring a couple large jars of peanut butter with him at the Vancouver airport security place. When told that he could not and for some reason had to be rescreened, this guy did on the only logical thing he could think of and "ran" through the security gate. thus, causing a shut down of the entire airport, all flights grounded until this guy could be found, due to this "breach" of security. why it took almost 3 hours before they found this OLD guy, is beyond me.

anyway, a bunch of us missed our connecting flights and were put up at a hotel in hong kong for the night and scheduled for the first flight out the next morning. I would have liked to explore HK a bit, but i dont think that me walking around alone at 12AM in the morning would have been the best idea. so, after getting up at 5AM to get to the airport 2 hours ahead of departure, i find out that my flight is also delayed for another 2 hours... o what fun...

might i add that the airport at HK is like a huge, gigantic mall? although i did not find much that was "authentic" HK, like a shirt that said I LOVE HK.. mebbe in chinese or something. instead, they had stores upon stores of big name brands, such as prada, gucci, fendi.. that i felt out of place just stepping into there.

i would also liek to add that singapore airlines is one of the best services i've had. people actually seemed attentive to what you were saying... instead of pretending to be. well, mebbe they were pretending, but at least you weren't able to tell. the flight went well, we just experienced alot of turbulance, and i was getting a little sick after a bit. i didnt know that a plane can fly up to 772km/h. i mean, imagine that... that is pretty amazing.

so i finally finally get into singapore, move into my hostel for the night. and today, i moved into my apartment closer to campus.

to summarize, this has been a tiring tiring exhausting day. i won't even begin to explain... cuz im too tired to. i miss home, i miss toilets with seats. my apartment has this squatting thing which i havent tried yet. i'll post pics in facebook. that should be interesting. anyway, although i am tired, im still looking forward to this experience. i guess this week will be full of getting paper work done with. i still need to apply for a few courses, the website seems to be down. my eyes are beginnig to hurt. i wonder if there is a place to nap in this library....