Home :D

The Malaysia Work Study is over for me. I had a long trip back but I am home again. 

Ali and I were home alone on Friday and spent the majority of the day sorting belongings and packing our suitcase(s). It's incredible how much stuff we accumulated and that it all fit back in the bags again! We went to bed early Friday night as we had to get up at 5 the next morning. Unfortunately, we couldn't get to sleep quickly because some people were still packing and leaving for other places that night.

                           

The next morning, we packed up the last couple things and got in the taxi bus to go to the airport. Rob, Ali, Alisha, and I all travelled to the airport together because we were all taking the same flight to Hong Kong. We made it there with plenty of time to spare. Fires were burning in Indonesia so the air was very smoky Saturday morning. 

When we were checking in at the airport, we were given some bad news. The check in ladies told us that we were only able to take back one 50lb bag and 2 pieces of carry on. The girls were not happy with this because they both had two bags with more than 50lbs in one of their bags. Luckily, since I was going straight through to Calgary (and the other people were staying longer in Hong Kong), I got to take 2 50lb bags with me. One of my bags was almost 60lbs so I had to carry some stuff over to my other bag but that was not a big deal. We didn't have a scale at the apartment so had no idea how heavy the suitcases were. After talking to a few managers, the girls and Rob managed to  be able to take both their suitcases and they didn't have to pay extra for being over weight. They argued for just about 1 hour about this issue. The main reason why they did get to take these bags along now is because they checked to see if they were also allowed to take 2 bags to Malaysia when they came. It was a huge relief when this problem was solved. I got very warm and we were all quite stressed. Good thing we came early. We had less than an hour until boarding time so we found some breakfast and waited at the gate. 

The flight was quite smooth. The plane was not very full again. I had a window seat (35A) with an empty seat beside me! The flight left 30 minutes late though since one of the baggage belts was broken so all the baggage had to get to the planes on one belt which caused a significant delay. The captain kept apologizing and the situation was handled very professionally. I made it to Hong Kong in about 3.5 hours.

There I said goodbye to my good friends. I had to do the rest of the journey by myself. I already had my boarding pass so I just had to go through a quick security check and moved onto the next gate. I had just less than a 2 hour layover so I enjoyed a great lunch overlooking the rainy airport.

This would be my one and only real meal of the day. I slowly headed back to the gate and walked as much as I could before I had to sit for 12 hours. The Hong Kong Airport international wing is one long area with gates on both sides. It is huge but very easy to navigate. It also had free computers to use everywhere and was very clean.

The flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver was long but I didn't have a big problem with it. I slept for a bit, watched a movie and some tv. Munched on a little bit of food and we were in Vancouver. In the back of the plane, they offered a variety of snacks from cookies, crackers, and chocolate to noodles, and sandwiches. Everything was in place to make my journey very enjoyable.

I was told that my suitcases would go straight though to Calgary so when I got to Vancouver, I still had to go out to get my boarding pass. After asking a lot of people, it turned out that I did have to pick up my suitcases and check them in again since I just entered the country. The suitcases took an hour to come and then I had to find the Air Canada check in counter. This was not as easy as it sounds. I walked all the way from US flights, to international flights, to domestic flights, to Air Canada flights, way in the end in a small hidden corner of the airport. I had no idea what time my flight was so I was pretty much running through the airport at this point. Luckily when I got my boarding pass, I had about 1.5 hours before I had to board the plane to Calgary so I had some time to catch my breath. I walked around exploring the airport for most of that time too and got to the gate just as they were boarding. This flight was quite rough with turbulence almost the whole way. My sleeping pills that I took before finally kicked in so I slept most of the way and woke up when we were landing.

In calgary, I didn't have to go through customs. I just walked right out of the doors where I saw Marieke and Evert! We picked up my suitcases and went home.

So this whole journey left on Saturday morning and I was home before 8 Saturday night! I was awake for more than 30 hours though. 

I haven't had any signs of a jet lag since I've been home and I am writing this message on Monday. It's really nice to be back home but it won't be for long since I leave for Holland in less than 2 weeks!

Good Bye Malaysia

Well, my time here is up. Half of the room got the last day off of work while the other half enjoyed their last day at home here. I stayed home with Ali. We slept in and started packing when we woke up. Then we went to the get foot reflexology done. According to a few people now, we couldn't leave Malaysia without getting it done so we did. It was pretty good. I also bought another bag today to take all my stuff back home.

The rest of the afternoon was spent packing our bags. I really wanted to be outside today and soak up the sun but the air was really dirty today. There was a lot of smog in the air which one said is caused by fires burning in Indonesia.

Rob came home at 4 and joined us in the apartment. We hung out, ate supper together, watched a movie and are almost off to bed. I need my sleep before the big flight tomorrow. I leave here at 6am to go to the airport. Then it's off to Hong Kong, Vancouver, and Calgary. It is really weird that I leave here Saturday morning and I get to Calgary Saturday afternoon. Crazy 14 hour time difference.

I will not be blogging for the next couple days since I'll be in the air.

Good bye Malaysia and Hello Canada!

Pinch Me, I'm Dreaming...

**I'm writing this blog on Friday morning but I'm going to pretend that it is still Thursday.

Today was one of the best days of my life! I cannot stop smiling. It was my last day at work and unlike some of the students who could not wait to be done work, I was not looking forward to it being over. 

I started the day off right by taking a taxi to work instead of the train and our hot walk- no sweating! We had a staff meeting at 11:30 and sat in on that. In the meeting, we had to present our marketing ideas for the Seminars that Perfection puts on every year. We made up a list of 6 ideas so that they could pick and choose and only use one or two. Mr. Christopher was so impressed that directly after we explained one idea, he would tell the managers how they were going to implement it immediately. After introducing all the ideas, he loved them, said we did awesome, and all our ideas are being used at Perfection starting on Monday! I was so happy he liked them and really surprised at this direct outcome of our efforts. Following the meeting was a birthday party for one of my friends/coworkers Jasmin. Everyone shared in the cake which was really good! Chocolate spice with a sweet meringue on top, yum!

While in the office on our last day, Mr. Christopher got us to help with some grammer issues in their next publications and we got to see a number of our pictures of the UNSW workshop in the publications as well. Even though I was only there for 6 weeks, I got to see fast results of all the work I did which is really rare but very rewarding. Mr. Christopher really put me in a high position where I had the power to assign tasks to staff below me. This is another thing that I would have never dreamed of being able to do in such a short time.

At 4pm, we headed out in the Mercedes to have a quick cup of coffee. Coffee time in Malaysia is at 4pm and supper time is at 7pm- all a bit later because it is usually dark right after 7 all year round. We looked around a very nice kitchen store quickly and were then off to the SPA! He designed this spa so we got our services for free. I enjoyed a full body scrub and 1.5 hour Malaysian body massage. I got to pick my scrub and oil and chose a natural lemon grass for both to get the full authentic experience. It was very relaxing although they were quite hard on me. I felt really clean after.

When the treatments were over, the girls from the spa drove us to meet Mr. Christopher because it was rush hour and he could not get to us. We took a back way to Subang to South Sea Seafood, one of the staff's favourites. This is where we had our "last supper". Chez Skinner, Rhonda and Rob also joined us for this meal. All the seafood was live and as fresh as it gets. We ate for hours it felt like. Mr. Christopher also brought some of his wine that he collects which we didn't say no to. It was a little bit weird though since most of the staff does not drink due to their religion. Terrence, Dave, Jessica and I enjoyed it though!

Sharon, me, another coworker

A group of girls working at Perfection

After the meal, we had a "rewards ceremony". Mr. Christopher told us how awesome we did. I gave an acceptance speech and we received two huge bags of souvenirs. It was almost 11 so they got us a taxi and we drove off. It was so sad to leave because I loved my experience and got to know all these lovely people at Perfection. I truly hope to be back one day.

"It's hot in here", "I like it that way!"

Today was a great day! Other than the fact that I got some bad news from home, I accepted it and moved on. Work was aliight. We finished our handouts for the meeting tomorrow and spent the rest of the day having fun and playing games while the internet didn't work.

We went for lunch at our usual local Chinese place. The owner there knows us now and loves having us for lunch every day. The food is really good and sooo cheap. Today we had Prawn Mee, my favourite. It takes a long time to make this so they don't have it everyday. It was fantastic! (the internet is super slow right now so I will upload pictures tomorrow).

Iced Chinese Tea with lunch

Prawn Mee

Finished Prawn Mee

Delicious Lemon Green Tea with Nata de coco bits drink!

And some green pea snacks for an afternoon snack with Jessica

Tonight, we had our final presentations for Rhonda and we skyped Andrea in too. No one was really prepared but everyone did great! After this, we had a group swim in the pool with some beverages. When we got back and were all dripping wet and waiting to go in the shower. But then someone had a fantastic idea (ME) to just shower together in our bathing suits (us four girls). It was a ball, see the title of the blog today! Reminded me of sleepovers back in the day. It is so nice that we are still getting along after 6 weeks together.

Tomorrow is my last day of work. We have to present to the managers at the monthly staff meeting tomorrow and then our job is done! Therefore, Terrence gave us Friday off to see the last of KL and pack our suitcases... I'm going to miss it so much!

Dinner with MCBC

I woke up quite early this morning thanks to my new roomates who have to start work hours before me. I read my book in the sun for a bit, had some breakfast and headed off to work. There, I edited our paper for most of the day. After work, I had to hurry home. Unfortunately, we got off work a few minutes late and missed the early train. The next train came at 6:30 and I managed to make it home before supper. After a quick change, all 5 of us jumped in one cab (it was soo hot and squishy!) to Damansara Utama for supper at D' Tandoor. MCBC took us out for an appreciation dinner because we helped them for their annual golf tournament fundraiser. All the staff from MCBC and Vzone joined us and it was a lot of fun. We had northern indian food which was super delicious and not too spicy. For dessert, there was something like "griesmeel" but it had peanuts, cashews, and was much sweeter. Someone said that it was like tapioca pudding. It was a lovely dinner and the free flow wine wasn't bad either! Around 10, we were driven to the LRT station and had to travel 11 stops. There we had to take another LRT for a couple more stops and we were home!


Here are a couple pictures of the day...

My fresh fruit bubble tea at work

 The interesting cups and drinks at supper

Mmmm So good. I'm proud of myself that I did not go back for seconds.

The toilet at the LRT Station. We really had to go. There was a big metal bar above it so I didn't really know how to position myself. Also, there was no toilet paper again and it was soaking wet and smelled like the outhouses in the mountains.

 It's really funny that I am calling our apartment here in Kuala Lumpur home after 6 weeks. I have really found my place here and am not as excited about going home as the other students are. I have realized that I wouldn't mind settling in Asia for a couple years. It is not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Crunch time!

Yesterday, we went to the movie theatre at Suria KLCC to see Snow White and the Huntsman. We had to get tickets early and only the first two rows were available. We were already there so we just sat on the second row. The popcorn was delicious because it was a mix of caramel and salted popcorn. After the movie, we went to Central market to buy some last minute souvenirs and find some supper.






I went to the mall early this morning to do a bit of window shopping because I was up early. I couldn't sleep well because my room was way too hot. I'm also sharing with two other girls now so I can't really adjust the AC whenever I want. That's why I read 4 chapters of my book and got to level 21 of my phone game! haha :D


I had to work on my paper at work today. I have to write 4 pages about my experience in Malaysia and it didn't take too long to fill the pages. I also tried to finalize my accommodation for my exchange in Nederland in September. I put a reservation on one place and hope I hear back soon. Places are filling up fast so I need to be on top of this. It is also on campus and fully furnished so perfect for me. 


Mr Christopher came in to work today and brought me lunch and more books and brochures to take home. I was working hard all day so I skipped my lunch break. An apple satisfied for an afternoon snack.


When I got back from work, I had a nice chat with Ali and Rob about our last week of work. We bought supper from the pool for cheap because I don't want to be spending much more money this week. Fried rice it is! I'm going to read another chapter, shower and go to bed again since I'm behind on sleep now. 

Last Sunday in Malaysia!

It's bitter sweet to know that this is my last weekend in Malaysia. I am just getting adjusted and used to the people and the climate and it is time to go home :(.

Tristin, Ali and I got our eyebrows threaded and pedicures done. The treading was very interesting and super cheap. They use normal sewing thread and it doesn't even hurt. Now I'm sitting here catching you up on my blog and hopefully finishing my homework so I don't have to do it at work tomorrow. We are going to a movie this afternoon and then to Central Market tonight. Hopefully we will be home early and we won't buy too much stuff.

This whole week is planned out already so before I know it, I'll be on a plane on my way to Canada...

Lazy Saturday

I got to sleep in on Saturday. Then I had to work on my assignments and move my stuff to the other room. Tristin's boyfriend is comming next week so she wanted the single room. I tried to get everything in my suitcase and I think it will all fit, I'm just concerned about the weight. Maybe I'll have to buy an extra suitcase so that I don't have to pay extra for the weight.

Everyone else was gone in the afternoon so I enjoyed some nice alone time. When the girls got back, we went for a dip in the pool. Then I had an amazing nap and got ready for supper. I got a gift certificate for a free buffet dinner for two so I took Jessica out and we enjoyed some good food. After that, she wanted to go to Changkat Bukit Bintang to go out but I was not in to it. I just waited with her for all the other to get there and then I left. It was really cool to see all the Dutch people in their orange outfits because the soccer game was on! I loved it! If I would have known the game was on, I would have dressed in orange and joined my people. Maybe next time.

Melaka and Port Dickson Trip!

On Friday, my boss picked us (Jessica, Rhonda, and I) up from our apartment bright and early at 8:30 for a road trip along the coast of Malaysia. We started off with a quick Malaysian coffee break close to our apartment. Of course, the coffee couldn't be without food so we had a sample of a few Malaysian desserts. Then we headed southbound to Melaka. It was about a 1.5 hour drive but flew by.

Our road trip vehicle for the day!

 We started walking the streets of the city. This is one of the UNESCO historic cities. The Portugese settled here first, then the Dutch, then the British took over and now it is owned by Malaysia.

The streets of Meleka

 We tried a Chicken rice ball which was really good. This rice is cooked in rich chicken stock and is very fragrant. Then we took a quick look at the St. Francis Xavier Church.

Chicken Rice Ball

 We had lunch at Nancy's Kitchen. This was a very popular place and luckily we didn't have to wait too long for a table. We sat with another couple with two kids who were pretty fun because they enjoyed our food better than the food their parents ordered for them! We tried some typical Nyonya food which is a blend of Chinese and Malay cooking.

The Malaysian Truffle- Black nut

Lunch at Nancy's Kitchen in Melaka

 After a fantastic lunch, we had to walk again to digest our food. There were many pastry shops in the streets and it smelled awesome! Melaka is very close to the equator so it was VERY hot there. I loved it for the first hour but then we were trying to find places with AC for the rest of the day.

Lots of fresh baking throughout the streets

My boss and I in front of a house

An art place we went to to get out of the heat

Another Chinese Temple

Iced Cechung too cool off 

 We drove a little further and stopped by this tourist destination. We got to go into the church but weren't allowed to take pictures. It was very old and traditional but they replaced the organ with a sound system... :(

The very historic Christ Church in Malaka. This was all owned by the Dutch at one time

After this we drove to the Portugese settlement in Melaka. There are still Portugese people living there and there is a Portugese school. We stopped by the ocean and there were lots of people fishing for crabs.

The ocean in the portugese settlement in Melaka

 We got out of Melaka and drove 1 hour to Port Dickson. My boss has 2 condos there and we went swimming the the pool of one of this condos. This was all very exclusive but I was a bit dissapointed. I thought that these apartments would be very fancy but he furnished them with IKEA! Unfortunatly, he forgot his key so we couldn't go in to see it.

The bay in Port Dickson

 After swimming and watching the sunset through the clouds, we went to a seafood restaurant for supper. I was not impressed by the food and because Rhonda doesn't eat seafood, we had to eat chicken and a little bit of seafood :(. The calamari was good.

Seafood supper in Port Dickson. Very good calamari.

Throughout supper, we experienced another downpoor and thunderstorm. We drove to a grocery store to get some cheap groceries and to a fruitstand to buy fruit. Then we drove back for an hour and made it back home at 11:20.  It was a very long day but I loved seeing Melaka and learning about the Dutch history there!

Last lecture and Workshops

Yesterday was our last lecture. We listened to Chaz Skinner who used to be the dean of Fine Arts at the UofL. He went to Malaysia with his students on a work study similar to the one I am on and fell in love. He has been teaching at a university here for 3 years and absolutely loves it. He want's to go back to Canada again after this year though. It was really interesting to hear about the differences in education systems.

After that, we had cake to celebrate Ali's 22nd birthday. All 14 of us went out to Changkat Bukit Bintang to have some drinks and dance the night away. Luckily, it was ladies night so we had free drinks all night long. We didn't stay that long though since everyone had to work again in the morning. It was a lot of fun, and even some people from work came to join in the fun!

Today was our workshop day. In the first two weeks that I have been here, I had to promote programs at Perfection including the UNSW english course. This course would include a free workshop that Jessica and I were leading. It is nice to see the direct marketing results because the students in the classes came because we told them to come! We did 3 workshops in total today at 3 different locations: Kepong, Subang Jaya, and Rawang. There were 19, 33, and 17 students in the classes. Some of them were fun but I had a really hard time getting to some of the really shy students that did not want to participate or felt like they couldn't do it. It was also hard because we had a broad age range from 10-18 years old. Each workshop was one and a half hours long so it took us all day to do them.

After it was done, we treated ourselves to some delicious frozen yoghurt from Tutti Frutti! This is a self serve place. On one wall, there are all kinds of frozen yoghurt and sherbert flavors, then there are about 30 different toppings. You just choose a container, fill it up with whatever you want, they weigh it and it was RM5.30 per 100g. Fantastic!

Then we had to wait for the train to go home. We had to wait for over 30 minutes and then take another 40 minutes to get to our stop. Jessica really wanted a massage so I went with her to help her find a good place. We came upon a Thai massage place and decided to get one. Wow, Thai massages are something different. The massage lady stood on me and cracked almost every bone in my body it felt like. The worst was when she cracked my neck! Ouch!

On the way to the apartment, I grabbed some supper from the cafe that is very close. They had a chicken stuffed roti on special so that's what I had with some vegetables on the side.

Overall, it was a long but great day! I'm happy that the workshops are over which means that our work is almost done too. 9 more days and I am on a plane back to cold Canada again... I am not looking forward to going back but do want to see my family again. I'll have to soak in the sun tomorrow in sunny Malaka!

Another Food trip in Malaysia

Yesterday, we went on a food adventure after work. Rhonda, our second instructor came to join us. I had to pick her up form the commuter train since she had no idea where to go. Since it was very hot, I got the school bus driver to take me! We showed Rhonda around Perfection and then got in the boss' car and drove to Damansara Utama (one of the perfection locations is here). 


We started the food adventure with some shaved ice to cool down. This is very asian and I'm not a big fan of it. He ordered two kinds for us to try and scooped us a very big bowl. The closest is a coconut/soy shaved ice with pearl jelly, two kinds of sweet potato and squishy, slimy taro. The coconut was nice. The next one was a grass jelly with shaved ice with the taro, red beans and pearl jelly on top. This one was pretty gross but everyone else liked it. Mr. Christopher said that this was not going to make us full as it was all water but I definitely got full after just a little bit- water fills too!

Shaved ice treats at Snowflake

After snowflake, we walked around to start our digestion and looked at all the beautiful boutiques in the area. We came an local open foodcourt and looked around at all the food. Here we tried some Prawn Mee (Mee means noodle). It was fantastic! The best part and most expensive was the broth. This is signature and they have spent many years to perfect it. It was super fragrant and tasty with the right amount of spice. 

This was the guy making our Prawn Mee on the spot in the open food court

Mmmm! So good and quite healthy too but hard to eat with chopsticks. I made a big mess.

 After the prawn mee, we walked around the food court some more. I was surprised by how fresh everything was and the vendors were using very local ingredients. 

These are some of the fresh ingredients used. You can see the fresh ginger and the ginger flower, pretty cool!

 Then we tried some Muah Chee. As you can see on the picture below, it is boiled gooey rice dough cut into small pieces and coated with peanuts and sugar. The texture was that of raw bread dough and it was still warm. Very different but I liked it a lot!

Here are some more fresh ingredients. Fresh fish, clams, and stingray

Satay in different marinades using different kinds of meat

Also, everywhere around the city, in the most awkward locations, you see random sinks. This was a nicer one. Here people can wash their hands. Since the Muslim people eat with their right hand and clean themselves with their left hand, this is pretty handy. However, there are never towels anywhere, the air has to dry the hands.

We came across a grocery store and went inside to see what they offered. This one had a great variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. They were all very reasonably priced too.

 Rhonda had to be dropped off at the apartment at 8:30 which was only halfway though our adventure because she had to deal with some room issued due to a power outage. Our boss didn't like this because he had a whole route planned out and now he had to make a big detour to drop her off. Therefore, he was going to take us somewhere close to our apartment for more food but we mutually decided to go to the original place since it was much better according to him. This was another open food court in SS2 close to the One Utama mall. The drive there was long and winding so I obviously got car sick again. This sucked because I was really looking forward to this food. Mr. Christopher and Jessica went around to all the places and ordered different food everywhere. It got delivered to our table and I was in charge of paying all the people for the food. Luckily, I started feeling better near the end of the meal so I got to eat all their leftovers. It was all local and really delicious!

The last local, open food court

This was so good, especially the red sausage. It was very sweet.

Here's a photo of all the food their ordered. The first yellow plate was fresh mango with sweet sticky rice- a nice dessert. On the first red plate was a fresh fish, cooked in a curry sauce in a banana leaf. The red plate behind that had a grilled fish. Both the fish dishes had long beans and okra as garnishes on the side which I really enjoyed! The yellow plate in the back had a mango salad but it was way too spicy for me. The blue plate had prawns inside of rice stuff. I didn't like the texture, it was really gooey. The back green plate had the mee with sausage and prawns which was good too but a little greasy. 

When walking back to the car, we came across a fruit stand. Mr. Christopher bought us some rambutans (the far red, hairy fruit). They are really sweet, close to a lychee but a bit different with a big pit like an almond in the middle.

After all the food, we had to go for a walk again so we didn't feel that full. He was going to take us to a night market but it was very quiet there so he decided to show us the night life that he used to enjoy. We went to some bars but most were closed or very empty. He showed us the inside of a few bars but I wasn't that impressed. He then dropped us off at the apartment at 11pm. It was a good night but a long day so I went to bed soon after.