Author: Jeff Milner

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Malaysia – Days 18 through 22

What a Nice View
I went to Tioman Island over the weekend. We hopped on a chartered bus through the night and then took a boat the next morning. It seemed a little disorganized in the heat and with the lack of sleep (it’s hard to sleep on a bumpy road through the mountains when the bus driver thinks he’s in a race). The ferry was late picking us up because the tide was too low to come in. I’ve always thought the tide comes in at about the same time (based on the lunar cycle of course) and I couldn’t help but feel like they should have known whether or not they’d be able to pick us up when they said they would. Finally they decided to deliver us to the ferry via speed boat. And then everything got a LOT better.

Getting to the island was a nice trip. But seeing the Island? – wow! It was the most fantastic place! The beaches were truly magnificent and the jungle was gorgeous. I had a great time doing everything from snorkeling to trekking through the jungle in the rain.

On the first day we snorkeled out to a small island. The water was great, nice and warm, and full of beautiful fish. We had a great supper, especially because I had been really craving some western meals.

On Saturday Danny and I rented a scooter from some guy for the hour. It was just his private bike but we had a great time going down to the village and back. I got going about 60 km/h on the way back when I tried to see how fast I could get up to going down hill. Probably too fast for no helmets, but all’s well that ends well. Later that afternoon we went on the Jungle Trek. It rained pretty hard and my shoes were soaked. The jungle trek started half way up the mountain after walking through the golf course. I found it ironic that we just waltzed right through the same golf course that requires golfers to wear golfing shoes. I guess because we weren’t on the greens it isn’t such a big deal? Either that or it’s a case of what they don’t know won’t hurt them. On the way back the rain was really coming down and a few of the others in the group used the golf course as a gigantic slip and slide.

The next day Andrew and I headed off to the other side of the island. It was fantastic. We hired a taxi driver to take us in his 4×4 through the muddy roads over the jungle covered mountain. The beach was huge and even more beautiful than the side with the resort. I enjoyed having it all to ourselves and meeting some of the islanders. I did get a little sunburned from snorkeling for an hour in the hot sun. I didn’t notice it until it was too late.

We headed off the next morning and to our delight the guys running the show told us we’d be heading back via speedboat the whole way. The “speed boat” is a lot faster than the big ferry that brought us there, but it’s quite a bit smaller too. They stopped at another dock (to pick up more people?) but because the dock was designed for bigger boats, this one was being swished back and forth and when it hit the dock it smashed in one of the windows. I heard a loud snapping sound and then what sounded like water rushing in. I thought for sure we’d have to abandon ship. The water sound was actually broken glass spreading out over about three seats and four or five people. The dean of management was one of the ones to get hit and had a couple of tiny cuts on her arm and thumb.

After that we just headed out to sea without further incident. It was a totally perfect weekend — with exception to the fact that I got sunburned, but even that wasn’t so bad and totally worth it. I’d love to go to Tioman again. I’ve been told it’s not even the nicest island around here — which is hard to believe because this place is amazing, but that’s what they say.

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Malaysia – Day 17

National Air Cargo

Today we shot a video for National Air Cargo (the Malaysian division) and I got to be an extra.

I posed as a customer asking questions about the company.

Later in the day I worked on some proposals for channel V and checked out some cool New Media related sites (the first three are portfolio based, the last one has AfterEffects tips):

Got any good ones for me to check out? Leave them in the comments.

Five days after I posted these links, Patrick O’Brien (AKA Transfatty) was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease). He decided to make a movie about it.

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Malaysia – Day 16

Today I had a good long chat with Anna-Maria. That was nice, but it put me a little behind schedule. (My own fault).

On the way to work I was approached by a woman who wanted to know where I was from. This was the second time in two days that someone approached me and I didn’t have a good feeling about. Not that I was afraid of her, but just that I felt she wanted something from me. Not to mention the fact that I was going to be late for work. She couldn’t seem to read that I was in a hurry and close by her was a man who also tried to stop me to ask for the time. They seemed to be working together. I didn’t have time for them whether or not they were just being friendly. I gave him the time and kept walking. I am suspicious that the guy was the same guy I ran into yesterday but I never got a good enough look at him. All I can say is that it was weird, and not weird like hey some stranger on the bus wants to chat you up because you look like a foreigner, but weird like, spidey senses on alert — these people are up to no good.

Anyway weird people on the street aside, I had a great evening. At the end of the day Jon took me to Channel V, Malaysia’s version of Much Music or MTV, to get the specifications for a new project GXM Studio is doing for them. I got to meet Jeff Selamutu, director of programming and production at Channel V, and take notes at the meeting.

Later we went for dinner and had a great time talking about everything from how Jeff got into the business to how new artists enter the music industry, to what direction music television is going. I liked Jeff because he’s a really fun guy that likes to call it like he sees it. He reminded me a lot of the directors and producers that I met recently in Vancouver. They have a kind of fun yet ambitious personality that I find magnetic. He told me to keep in contact and that if I have time during the week he’ll show me around the studio.

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Malaysia – Day 15

Today I went to the Cathay Pacific Airline office to see about changing my flights around. That in itself was kind of a tricky operation because I got some conflicting help on the street by a couple of different people that thought they were being helpful. Anyway one of the people that I met on the street wanted to know where I was from and a little bit about me. Normally I would have been very open and chatted it up with the guy but I have heard that it’s a common scam for people to tell you that their daughter is coincidentally returning to the same place that you live, and then they want to take you somewhere to ask questions about what it’s like where you live. Except then when they take you, they may be out to use you in some way. I have no idea if this was a scam or not &#8212 the guy seemed friendly enough and there are lots of friendly people here, but I just had a bad feeling about it.

Anyway I rearranged some of my flights and will see if everything goes through tomorrow.

I decided to take a break from the usual foods and go back to something western. I was so hungry I had an entire large Hawaiian Chicken pizza to myself. Yummy.

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Malaysia – Day 14

Today was so amazingly fun I might have to break into ALL CAPS TO DESCRIBE HOW AWESOME IT WAS! Jon picked me up and we had lunch at this Indian food place. The food is served on banana leaves and the idea is, you don’t use any eating utensils. YOU GET TO USE YOUR HANDS!

We had coconut milk with our meal which is a nice treat. It started to rain and ironically that was one of the most fun parts of the meal. We got out of the rain under some nearby canvas but some other tables were half covered and half exposed. The water started to pour down on the tables and the employees there were scrambling to help the people. One guy brought this huge umbrella up to the place where water was coming down and instead of stopping the stream he just spread it out over everyone. Everyone was in a pretty good mood though and we all just laughed about the gong-show that was happening around us.

We were going to visit Malacca but then the rain changed our minds. Instead we went to the Ganting Highlands. It was great.

We stopped at a Buddhist temple and climbed up the nine floors — representative of the nine levels of heaven. The clouds were coming in and although it made it hard to see very far, the mist brought with it a nice cool breeze.

There are many rides both indoor and out at the Ganting Highlands but rain kept us inside. They even have a water park there. The best part — at least in my mind — was an attraction they called “Free Flying”. They have a vertical wind tunnel that has a continuous stream of air zooming by at least 193 km/h. The force of the air is enough to lift you off the ground at which point you are literally flying. WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE HOW AMAZING IT FEELS TO FLY! Controlling yourself is not to hard either, once you start to get the hang of it.

Moving your hands left and right and up and down can control your side-to-side motion; bending and straightening your legs will send you backwards and forwards respectively. The best part was having the instructor grab onto me and go into a wild spin up and down the wind tunnel. I was worried it wouldn’t be worth the money but it was TOTALLY WORTH IT! I had a VCD made of the entire flight and I’m hoping to find some software that will let me convert it to a *.mov and then I’ll post a clip from it here.

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Malaysia – Day 13

I was hoping to take in some scuba diving lessons today, but with the presentations due at work it just wasn’t possible. There is a chance I could do it during the week, but with my busy schedule I’m not holding my breath…

This evening I just read a little from my “Canadian History For Dummies” book and chatted with the other U of L students. Tomorrow I’m going to go with Jon to either Malacca or the Ganting Highlands.

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Malaysia – Day 12

Today I was majorly stressed out thinking about “relationships”, and so I headed to work an hour earlier than usual. It was nice to just sit on the bus and think. It was also nice to beat the morning rush and get to work in less than half an hour. Luckily Jon was there to let me in early.

In the evening I went out for some fun on the town.

First we went to a nice open market style restaurant. The idea is you get to pick one or a few dishes from any vendor you want. They bring those dishes to your table and you get a variety of styles of food all at the same place. I had the shark fin soup.

I understand that the way it works is, there is one owner that sells drinks and all of the vendors rent their space from him.

Since the evening plans were somewhat impromptu I didn’t have a shirt with a collar and had to borrow from one of Jon’s friends because of the dress code. It worked out nicely and we had a good time at “The Loft”.

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Malaysia – Day 11

Zoom

This morning I took some random photos down in Chinatown on my way to the bus. There are a lot of people riding motorbikes or what in Canada would be called scooters. They are everywhere. Most people seem to agree that they are extremely dangerous, nevertheless you see so many weaving in and out of traffic. A friend of mine warned me when crossing the street that the cars may stop but the bikes probably won’t.

In the evening I mostly hung out with the other students from Canada. I went down to the market for awhile but they were pretty much closing everything by the time I got down there. That’s another thing that seems weird. Even though they call it the night market, everything closes at 11:00pm. We met this Kiwi there who told us that earlier he had seen some police walking down the streets and all the CD and DVD vendors throwing everything into a box and getting out of there. We couldn’t really understand why they would be worried about the police since the pirating is everywhere but apparently it has more to do with where they are selling than what they are selling. I guess if you’re in a booth on sidewalk or in a permanent store you’re ok but selling pirated movies on a card table in the middle of the street is not allowed.

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Malaysia – Day 10

I never had supper last night. I had agreed to wait for a couple of the other students to get home from work and then we’d go out to eat. Well I should have just gone on my own because they thought they’d be home by 8 but I think it was around 9:30 when they finally came knocking on my door. I had already fallen asleep and was too tired to go. So this morning I was extremely hungry and ordered 3 of my favourite, the banana roti.

Making the Banana Roti

Here the cook has already stretched and folded the bread and is now adding the banana inside it. Next he cooks it on a small griddle to the side. It’s served with a “gravy” of curry or dahl sauce.

It’s really good stuff, but if I had my choice I’d probably drown it in maple syrup, honey butter, or icing sugar. They are very much like scones and so that’s my natural desire.

The rest of the work day I spent improving my storyboard for Kick-Ray. It’s coming along nicely.

This evening we had some guest speakers come to our residence. Their names are Kesh Singh and Jamison Masse. They talked to our group about life in Malaysia and about their work at a company called Profitera.

The best part of the evening was when we went out with Jamie for a great cold treat. The conversation was light and fun and the treat was absolutely wonderful. I can’t remember what it’s called, but the one we all ordered has fresh mango, shaved ice, some kind of sugar based syrup, topped with tapioca pudding. It’s so good my mouth is watering just thinking about it. WOW.

Jamie is also a Canadian — about my age — and has been living in Asia for the last 4 or 5 years. He’s a programmer / manager at his company and it sounds like he really loves his job.

I asked him about tax laws with regard to importing and exporting software from Malaysia to Canada. He figures that the laws are having a hard time keeping up with technology and that a lot of laws don’t treat software development the same way they would a tangible object. I supposed Canadian customs would have the answers and he agreed. I was curious about this because it seems very closely related to importing and exporting New Media content.

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Malaysia – Day 9

I checked out the cost to go to Iran from here, but when I checked the dates I realized that I made a gross miscalculation with regard to how long it is until I leave Malaysia. It looks like I won’t have time to do any extra travelling after all unless I finish up the work-study early or have my flight plans changed. I’ll have to look into these respective possibilities.

I shaved off my beard today. I was holding onto the hope that Anna-Maria might come and visit me here and well… though she’s a big fan of my facial hair, she’s not going to see me here.

On my commute to work I’ve been listening to the audio version of the book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It’s by Malcolm Gladwell, and it’s about how we make decisions — both good and bad — and why some people so much better at making decisions than others. My friend Jason recommended it to me along with another of his books, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, which is about change and more specifically it shares a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does.

So far Blink has been an eye opening experience; when I’m done I will certainly pick up The Tipping Point. In almost every chapter—if not every chapter—I find myself at the edge of my seat hanging on every word. I particularly liked the insight on improvisational acting (he believes in Keith Johnstone’s techniques), the story behind a massive war games held by the United States in 2002 (which in reality was a failure), and the decision for the Coco-cola Bottling Company to switch to New Coke in the 80’s (read about New Coke at Snopes). I’m only on Chapter 6 of Blink but I love everything about this book.