Condensed version of Melaka & Kuala Lumpur

I apologize for not blogging while in Malaysia (there was no internet access). After our 9 days in Singapore we took a bus to Melaka, Malaysia. We stayed at Hotel Puri in Melaka's Old Chinatown. The ceiling had little holes where these little birds would sleep in. At first I thought they were fake and wondered who designed such a thing because it was really ugly. I mean come on, bird's asses sticking out from the wall? I soon realized that they were real and moved on. The Chinatown in Melaka did not look like your typical Chinatown. The architecture there was very different, and I later found out that it was occupied by various different people at different times and therefore the architecture took after whoever was ruling at the time. The hotel is located in the middle of many temples, mosques, and museums. However we never ended up visiting the museums because it was more a collection of antiques rather than your traditional museum. It felt very different in Malaysia because EVERYONE knew you were foreign. Strange men would drive by and stare at you, and one guy said "Ooh La La," and another meowed! He literally meowed, like a cat. Aside from the weirdness, the Taiwan clan didn't really do anything too special. We visited the mall (Graham would not have been happy about this, for he is nostalgic about the past, and malls are just for shame!). Well too bad because most of us ended up going to the mall anyway. Haha. We found one rather dingy looking mall right across the street from a rather modern type mall. Outside on the streets there were people riding bicycles carrying carts that you could sit on, and they often blasted Hokkien music while they dinged their little bells. Many restaurants and shops were closed around the area because apparently they only open during the weekends, but unfortunately we were there on a Monday and Tuesday. We did however find a chicken rice restaurant (I think we all became addicted to chicken rice after the NUS students brought us to that great place in Singapore). I had chicken rice for $1 cdn! Beware of your choice of restaurants in Melaka though, they do try to charge you for everything possible, such as tissue and even utensils! Haha, but overall, food in Malaysia is pretty damn cheap. The constant moving around countries made money conversions difficult. After we left Hong Kong and went to Singapore we started converting Sing dollars to HK and then to Canadian. After we arrived in Malaysia we were still thinking in Sing. Conversions started to become formulas.

After 2 days in Melaka we took a bus to the capital city of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. Very different from Melaka. KL was a lot more commercial while Melaka was much more historic in both architecture and feel. Again in KL I went to a mall. Haha. we took a cab to Times square and of course we had to watch Pirates (Chow Yun Fat personally told us to watch it, who can resist). We also visited the twin towers, KL's trademark buildings. Lily, Michelle, Jen, Fu and I also went to the aquarium at the KLCC mall where we touched stingrays, baby sharks, and Michelle, a scorpion. Although I didn't do anything characteristic of Malaysia, I found things to be entirely different in KL in comparison to Melaka. Things were more expensive, still cheap, but more expensive; and overall the people were just more "modern." All the UBC-NUS students and profs also gathered for a dinner with some Malaysian students where we talked about "being Chinese" and the makeup of Malaysia and its brief histories. Ah, I must not forget to speak of the fruit bar right outside the Hotel Malaya in KL. In Hong Kong I went to 7-11 about 3-5 times a day. In KL I went to the fruit bar just as much. I would usually buy at least 2 bags of pre-cut fruit during each visit. Fruit is SO cheap in KL! Each bag costs 1 Ringget (3 Ringget is equivalent to $1 cdn). The guy at the fruit bar knew us after the first day. KL was interesting and I'm sure there is a lot more to see, but unfortunately we only got to stay there for 2 days. We then took an almost 7-hour bus ride back to Singapore. We took group photos of everyone that night since that was officially the end of the course. Everyone has bonded so much in the 3 weeks that we have been together so it was rather sad seeing everyone split up.

The next morning some of the NUS students saw us off at the airport and we had one last group lunch together. We took photos like crazy. People would have thought the NUS students were some sort of a famous rock band and us UBC students were the crazy fans (kinda reminds me of Chow Yun Fat day). Haha. Anyway, they were so cute. We must have stood on either side of the glass window at the airport and waved to each other for 5 minutes straight. I really hope the USP is able to sponsor them to come to Vancouver in September. I would definitely like to see everyone again.

As for now, I am back in Hong Kong for a couple more days and then I'll be officially back home. I went back to the YMCA today and Fu and I took some pictures of the place. We also made videos of impersonations of the people on the trip, which I thought was pretty funny. Fu and I shopped some more and of course we went back to Maple and Tsim Sha Tsui. I am already missing everyone, the scary monster bees at NUS, the elevator and hotel music in Guangzhou, the fruit bar in Malaysia, and of course all the people.

I have uploaded some Singapore and Malaysia photos on Facebook so I won't upload them on here again. In the meantime....toodleloo