Happy Merdeka Day!!!

Ally and the petronas towers!



I'm drinking from a bag!!!



Ramadhan Bazaar!!! So much food!!



Jinn-Eric, Arthur, Alex, Simon...and the towers (again)

Hello, hello! A few things I’ve noticed the last few weeks…

Everybody here is scared of H1N1. They take it very seriously. They’re making a huge kafuffle about it all! There are plenty of people around wearing masks. We are temperature tested when entering uni, clubs and other crowded areas. They cancelled much of the festivities for Independence Day for the 1st time in 52 years!!! I couldn’t believe that. Imagine cancelling Australia Day celebs!?! We had a lovely evening last night. Went to a Ramadhan bazaar with plenty of food. Went to KLCC gardens to enjoy the feast and waited around until midnight for the “Merdeka” fireworks…only to find that when the clock struck 12 the only fireworks were the ones of outrage at having waited 4 hours for nothing!!! All in the name of swine flu. There was still a massive crowd celebrating and we got a free train ride so I’m not actually complaining!

Went out with Arthur last week to an Indie club, Zouk, in KL. It was great. He has HEAPS of friends and they are all SO nice, it’s crazy. It makes us feel bad for the Malaysians who come to Australia. I am quite sure we are not as welcoming. They are very strict with closing times here when it comes to clubs and pubs. At 3am everything shuts. Except food, which is where we went next :) Malaysian food is quite delicious. The funny thing was seeing families out and eating at 4am, although maybe it was due to Ramadhan.

Ramadhan month. Doesn’t mean much for us apart from a few public holidays. I did learn however (pardon my ignorance) that there are 2 laws in Malaysia. Your “normal” average law and Muslim law. It means that if you are Muslim you will be charged under Muslim regulations. For example, recently a Muslim girl was whipped for drinking beer. I’m not sure exactly how they enforce this stuff but it is apparently so.

Another thing I learnt. I have a class mate from Yemen who grew up in Saudi Arabia. It turns out, in Saudi, you can’t do anything. They don’t even have cinemas apparently. If you want to go to the shopping mall you have to go with your family. I asked him what they did and it seemed like they would just hang out on the streets with friends, although I think there may be limits on the size of the group you can be in. It seemed so strange and quite the paradox because back home I feel that people need bars and movies and things to keep them occupied so that they stay out of trouble. But apparently in Saudi, it’s the opposite and it works! Who would’ve guessed?!



Well, back to studying on a public holiday!

(Don’t worry Dad, I’ve been very good this weekend, was at the uni library ALL day both Saturday and Sunday!!! Although I could be making up for the upcoming trip to Cameron Highlands next weekend :P )

Love to all

Ola xoxo

Trip home from KL....

I've heard a lot about how corrupt the Malaysian police are, people getting out of sticky situations by "buying them a drink" or whatever else. Last night I experienced it for myself!

We were on our way home from KL (after Ally's fashion debut!!!). Our friend, Arthur, was driving and I was very grateful that we got caught out with him around. Basically, we were stopped at a road block on the highway. Clearly, we were targeted because we're so obviously foreigners. Cars speeding past the block were always full of locals.

So, they asked us step out and provide ID. We gave them our Australian drivers license but it didn't suffice, they needed our passports. Now, for some reason that is still unclear to us here, when we first arrived in Malaysia the university required that we hand in our passports so they could be sent off to get our VISAs. We were told that the process could take anywhere between 6-10 weeks...that's right - we've been without our passports since we arrived. They did give us an "official" photocopy that we were told to carry around with us. Thankfully, Ally and I were particularly organised and were carrying these bits of paper with us (it is really VERY amazing and quite lucky!). Still, it wasn't enough for Mr Policeman.

Now this is where it gets interesting...he refused to talk to Ally and myself (who were apparently causing the problem) but took Arthur aside. He took down his details and were having a nice long chat. Ally eventually had enough, went over and asked him to give us an official fine or just let us go and for some reason, he did.

What Arthur told us later was that the policeman said that there was an "easier way to take care of the situation", unless Arthur wanted us to be locked up until we could provide our passports (which, theoretically, could have been another few weeks!). Ally interrupted just in time and I guess the policeman was just frustrated with us "tourists" and knew that he could make more elsewhere. The following car that was stopped was full of caucasian girls...

An interesting experience!!!

Untitled

I can't really be bothered writing tonight (i'm sorry, hope I don't sound too flat). It's late, so I'll try to keep it short (although knowing me, it won't be!)

The weekend before last I went to Melaka (or Malacca, depending on the sign). It's a town about 2 hours south of KL. A bit of a cultural stop. It was a massive trading centre back in the day run by the Portuguese, later the Dutch and finally the British (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca). We went with my friends Elias and Mohamad. Elias use to study there so he knows it quite well. Ally had her first dorm room experience. Quite funny.

Some highlights; Chicken rice balls, crazy Trishaws (they like to decorate), the melaka tower and melaka eye (we didn't go up but I was quite ammused), Chinatown (we were staying there in a backpackers), night market (I always love a good market, found some delicious "Fried-egg ice cream"!!!) and bike riding. On Saturday we went out. Driving along the road we saw many bikie gangs...but not the same as back home. Here, bikie gangs are skinny emo type kids. They drive around in masses. At one stage we had to stop the car to let them all drive past. Sometimes they do tricks apparently, but we missed out on that :( On the Sunday some other Monashians (including my name twin, Alex) came down for the day so we caught up with them as well.

Last Friday I went on a site visit for my Design unit. We went to a paper mill. Basically, they make paper for boxes and things out of recycled paper and cardboard (a novel concept I found, considering it's impossible to recycle anything around here!!!). Anyways, the visit itself was alright but what I really enjoyed was just getting to know my class mates. There were about 30 of us. I just love the diversity of this country. Some of them went to find a mosque for their Friday prayer, another was telling me about Buddhism. I met people from Yemen, Brunei, Malaysia Borneo, Sumatra Indonesia and I don't know where else!!! They're all so friendly and talkative. It's great. There was plenty of free food. I had such a good time. It was a pleasant surprise overall :)

I've made another local friend Arthur. They're great to have (local friends). They often have cars and they know the best places to go. Arthur took me out for breakfast near his old high school. We ate the best Roti in town. Also got to visit his high school which was kinda cool. The buildings were quite old school and everyone stared at me (although slowly you get used to that around here, I have even found myself giving fellow white strangers accusatory looks ("what are you doing here?")!). Arthur will be coming to Australia next year so you can all meet him!!

Played volleyball on the weekend with some other locals. Was outdoor...in 30 + degrees and extreme humidity. It was quite intense. We had to finish early though due to a thunderstorm. I'm loving the rain here. Almost everyday, at some point, it'll rain terrentially with lots of thunder and plenty of lightning. Just for about 15 minutes. Can get quite scary, it's a lot of fun though. And 20 minutes later you might not even have noticed it rained because it clears up so quickly...Amazing!

Uni is going fine. Plenty of contact hours to keep me busy. Assignments are starting to stack up. I'm really enjoying my Microbes unit. Our Irish lecturer is very cool and Tom (my new biomed buddy) is great to annoy in lectures :) The labs here are also really fun. I think they're a bit more relaxed. For example, I still haven't managed to buy a lab coat here, they're always out of stock. 3 weeks in a row I've turned up to my lab without one but they don't mind. Back home I would've been shot by now!

OK, so I think I've summarised well enough (not really, these always end up being novels!!!). I'm going to recommend my name twin's blog http://www.alex-at-sunway.blogspot.com/. It's less about what he's up to and more about cultural differences/observations. It's quite good so if you have time to procrastinate (in particular, maybe Dad now that he's retired!!!) feel free to have a read.

I'll end with a few observations I have made recently:

- Footpaths in Malaysia do not really exist. They don't like to walk for more than 5 minutes because it's too humid. Our 20 minute walk to Uni seems like a hike for them!

- When crossing the road to uni, every now and then there'll be policemen directing traffic...the thing is the traffic lights are functioning perfectly well. Up there for thinking?!?!

- I think I expected everything at Monash to be the same (or similar) to the way things work at Clayton, but it's a Malaysian university, run mostly by Malaysians...(yes, seems obvious now). Also, the small size of the uni means that it's a totally different system. They don't have double degrees either and they seem to be a lot more flexible. At Clayton, if your classes clash, it's up to you to deal with that. Here, chances are you can ask your lecturer to swap things around...just for you! Bizarre!

- They love shopping malls. I have been to Pavillion, Time Square and Sunway Pyramid (it has an ice skating rink and a pirate ship restaurant) and I'm quite sure there are plenty more. It's like Chaddi, yet so much more!!!

- Cooking tomorrow night, chicken and sweet corn soup!

On that note; bonne nuit, sweet dreams, love to all

Let me know what you're all up to, feeling a little home sick and out of the loop the last few days.

Ola xoxo

It's a girl!!!

Sabine Anne Beatrice Thompson born Wednesday August 5th in Melbourne at 9H39 AM. 3.98kg

Update...

Hello, hello!

Lots has been happening, where to start? This is not going to be in order...

Birthday was brilliant. Ended up at a bar/restaurant called Rainforest near the big pyramid shopping mall. About 30 people were there from Monash, most of whom I had never met before. My friend Elias knows the management there so I got in lots of trouble including being forced to dance with Tom (a new biomed buddy)...he was NOT happy! Ally absolutely spoilt me. Scrambled eggs for breakfast, cake, presents - including an Asian cookbook. We've started cooking a bit now. The kitchen is quite good so it's worth it. Nice to have some fruit and veg too.

Have done a bit of visiting around. Went to the Sunway Lagoon water park..."FEEL THE FUN". A few slides, some pirate rides, a roller coaster. It was a nice day but we were a bit disappointed. I think it was a bit over hyped...but it's ok...we definitely felt the fun!

Saw Harry Potter in the Sunway Pyramid cinemas...Very good but next time I'll take a polar fleece! They crank up the air con here, you get goose bumps in lecture theatres. Never forget a jumper! (ridiculous considering it's 30 + outside!!!)

Went to KLCC, massive shopping centre in town, and saw the aquarium. It seems I always need to visit the fish in a city to really get to know the place (strange but it always happens). Also had a quick look at the Lake Gardens. It's beautiful, I'll have to go back to check it out properly. We only got there in the afternoon so the national mosque was closed and our legs were already wrecked from all the walking previous.

Visited Chinatown and Little India with Ally and the South Africans. I haven't seen so many white people in a long time! VERY touristy. They sell all the fake stuff in the market - Versace, gucci, Lacoste etc. Bargaining is always fun.

On the weekend we had an "orientation bash" for uni down at Port Dickson. (about 2 hours south) Spent the day at the beach. Some of the games were a bit lame (ice breaker type stuff) but it was a pretty good day over all and a lot of free food so definitely not complaining. Met plenty of people including my name twin, Alex. He is going to INSA de Lyon next semester so I have lots to discuss with him. His french is really good too!!

Uni is going well. The people are so friendly. In class, they always introduce themselves and chat with us. The classes are generally smaller than in Clayton which is really nice. I have two REALLY poor lecturers and two REALLY good lecturers. My microbes lecturer is Irish. She's quite funny so it keeps it interesting. Facilities such as labs and things are really nice. They have drink fountains and toilets everywhere which is really handy. I'm also getting used to the asian toilet. I'm finding it's actually more hygenic than the traditional kind that I am so used to. The annoying thing in public toilets is the hose they have that (I assume) they use to wash themselves with. The floor is always covered in puddles which is not so nice. Also, toilet paper (or lack of) can often be an issue.

I'm becoming a Yoga Junkie. Joined a centre nearby and I'm really enjoying it.

In other exciting news, Anne is coming to visit in the mid-semester break. We've booked the walk up Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia Borneo. Can't wait.

Even more exciting news...As of tomorrow, I will no longer be the baby of the family but be promoted to Aunty Alex!!!

Love to all, XOXO