I shot a few photos on my way to work this morning. This one is of the Jalan Petaling Street sign that marks one of the main roads in Chinatown. At night this place fills up with booths hocking cheap watches, belts, fake cologne, shirts, shoes, and just about anything else that tourists like to buy. I’ve been told not to buy anything from these guys because the shirts fall apart after one wearing and some of the DVD’s don’t actually work, etc. The advice for those that do want to shop here, is to take whatever price they originally give you and try to get the item for half that much.
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.
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 — 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.
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.
Malaysia – Day 4
What a great day. I started work today and I really like it. Before I left, I was told that it would take at least an hour and 15 minutes to commute to Sunway. As it turns out the bus ride this morning took exactly 45 minutes. Needless to say I’m pretty happy about the extra 60 minutes that adds to my day.
I did however get to work a little early which gave me a chance to grab some french toast for breakfast and take a couple of pictures around the area.
Photos from Malaysia
Here I am by Malaysia’s own twin towers. Here is another photo of the towers by themselves.
Malaysia – Day 3
It’s the start of my third day in Malaysia. I’ve been sick with a cold, and that coupled with my jet-lag has made sleeping an arduous task. Actually falling asleep is not the problem. The problem is staying up past 6:00pm and sleeping past 2:00am.
My plan for the day is to check out my workplace. I start there tomorrow and want to have some experience getting there before the actual day I need to show up for work. The deal is, I have to take the train for about an hour to the end of the line. From there I need to take either the bus or a taxi. Apparently the taxi takes about 15 minutes and the bus is anyone’s guess because public transportation doesn’t seem to be the most reliable here, not to mention buses are not as good at manoeuvring through heavy traffic.
I’m still not used to the food, though most of it is quite tasty, it’s very greasy and I can feel my arteries clogging as I chomp through the deep-fried everything.
There is some kind of small bug climbing down the chair beside me. I guess that that will pretty much bring this post to an end.
Malaysia Day 2
After a long night of not really sleeping, I decided at 5:30 to go and explore. The humid scent of incense and garbage was still very much the atmosphere even in the early hours of the day. I met a couple of backpackers from the States and chatted with them for a few hours until the restaurant opened.
I was looking for a “western style” breakfast, but with all the travelling I’ve done you’d have think that I would already know that finding something I’d like would be difficult.
I ordered the “big dragon breakfast”: fried eggs, hash browns, sausage, orange juice, and tea. What I got was half cooked sunny side up eggs, a tiny hash brown pattie (like you would expect to get from McDonald’s) and some chopped up hot dogs lathered in grease and fried with onions, green peppers, and mushrooms. Well I’m being fairly critical I guess my biggest complaint was all the grease.
I met up with some of the other University of Lethbridge students and together we’re all geeking out at an Internet Cafe. I think I’m the winner for the biggest geek… checking out Flickr.com, Blogger.com, and Gmail vs. everyone else and their Hotmail accounts. :) Well that’s it for me for now. I think the plan for today is to scout out the worlds biggest mall, and you all thought that was either the West Ed, or Mall of America. There are a lot of enormous malls here.
Space and Time Are No Match
After skipping a day (Sunday’s are usually so boring anyway) and travelling half way around the world I’ve found myself an Internet cafe here in Malaysia. It’s just down the block from where we are staying. It’s pretty strange here and I’m feeling the culture shock. I’m also very tired and stuffed up with a cold. I haven’t eaten supper yet but to be honest I’m a little leary of the places to eat around here. I better get over that soon or I’ll end up starving! :)
I’m walking around with a guy from Edmonton named Dave Woods. He tells me I’m somewhat lucky to be stuffed up because the smells here are really something else.
I’ll spare you too many of the details, but needless to say it’s been a long trip. I’ve been ping-ponging in the zone somewhere between sleeping and consciousness for like the last 36 hours and though we arrived at our hotel almost five hours ago, I’ve been sleeping and just barely got up and started exploring these crazy markets.
I saw a rat scurry across the street and into a sewer grate, as well about 10 or so cockroaches running around on the sidewalk. It made me glad that I didn’t wear my sandals.
There are many street side restaurants / food vendors with aggressive hosts in the streets calling out and showing you their menus. There are CD’s, DVD’s, and VCD’s a plenty, not to mention the assortment of watches, shoes, and colognes for sale along this street. This Internet cafe is a nice sanctuary from the bustle outside.
Being so tired and sick it’s hard to give a true impression of the place but I’ll let you know (if you can keep a secret) seven weeks seems like it’s going to be an awful long time.
Malaysia Bound
Just under eight hours until my flight leaves for Malaysia. I have such mixed emotions about going on this trip. On the one hand I’ve never been to Southeast Asia, and it will create memories that last a lifetime, but on the other hand I’ve never been to Southeast Asia and what if the memories are not good ones!? Actually I’m just kidding. I’m really excited to get out and see the world. Also working at Gxmstudio will be great. I am totally a very lucky person.