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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