in Padang

Arrived a couple of days ago. This is the first time I have gotten internet in the country. Looks like the next 2 months will be very busy. Hope I'll get a chance to keep blogging. Not sure what the internet situation is like at our place yet.

Kuala Lumpur - Day 2

Yesterday morning I couldn't sleep and woke up at around 6am. This morning, I felt pretty tired waking up at 9am. My room doesn't have a window so it's hard to tell what time it is. So after getting myself out of bed this morning, I walked around the city again and ventured to the west. I got to the Central Market and realized I had been outside of it the day before. It's just a big warehouse like thing with lots of vendors inside. Not too many people actually buying stuff.

The city feels different on a weekday. There seems to be less people around in general. Yesterday was very lively. There were tons of people walking around. I walked to Merdeka Square (Independence Square), where Malaysia's independence from Britain was declared. There were a few tour buses at the square but not much else going on. I think the marathon yesterday either started or ended here (maybe both). Should have came then. That would have been more fun. I still don't understand how people manage to run a marathon in this heat though.
I rode the Monorail to Bukit Bintang, the shopping district. Mostly because I wanted to ride the monorail (never been on one) and to find food. There didn't seem like there were very many food options where I was. After I ate, I realized I was extremely tired. I sort of felt the same way yesterday (jetlagged) but I was more tired today because of all the walking yesterday. So I went back to my room and napped for a couple of hours.

I really didn't feel like getting out of my room again but I figured I should do more while I'm here. And because of the time difference, no one else was online. So I ventured to the jungle around the KL Tower. There's a pretty big rain forest around the Tower. It really feels like a rain forest, I'm not kidding. Again, I wish I had gone yesterday because there would've been more people around. I didn't mind having the place to myself but there really was no one around.

There were many flights of steep steps and a rope bridge. In the middle of all this is the KL Tower. They built the tower on a hill so that it's




In the middle of all this jungle is the KL Tower. They built the tower on a hill and I think it was the world's tallest tower when it was built.

After strolling around the tower, I backtracked down the rope bridge and decided to take another path back to the end of the jungle. I went down this path that has signs that tell you about different indigenous trees. This would have been more enjoyable if not for the bugs that kept biting me. I have not been bitten once since I got here and after this little walk, I got several bites. They're pretty minor though, no swelling or anything. I also walked through the bamboo forest where there were clumps of huge bamboo.

The walk lasted about an hour. I would have stayed longer if I hadn't been completely soaked in sweat after the first set of steps. I was sweating like crazy at the end. It was super humid because it hadn't rained in a few days (it rained in the late afternoon) and it was even more humid in the jungle. Anyway, now I'm waiting for Greg to arrive. Really hope he finds his way through the mess of merchants on this street.

Side note: got asked for directions twice. The first time I was actually trying to figure out the subway map and thought that that person was going to offer me help. Too bad.

Eat, Shop, Walk, Repeat

I went outside again at around 10:30am and attempted to walk somewhere. That was probably a mistake because it was possibly the hottest time of the day. Definitely more for chilling somewhere. I walked around the neighborhood for a while, got some food, and went back to the hotel to cool down. I showered and rested and then went back outside again at nearly 2pm.

I ventured out of the Chinatown neighborhood and walked a lot. I walked to the Bukit Bintang area where there were no shortage of huge malls. I ate curry noodles at a little cafe. I really like the abundance of food choices here. Any type of rice or noodles you ever want with sweet tea or coffee.
One of the malls is called Times Square. Times Square is a huge mall. It even has an amusement park with a pretty big roller coaster.


There was even a Borders inside here. I spent a lot of time in this bookstore and a Japanese bookstore at the Petronas towers. I really like the stationary section. Americans don't really have stationary stores, I think. It's not the same...
I basically went mall hopping the entire afternoon, from Bukit Bintang to KLCC (Petronas Towers). It would have been nice to walk around the rest of Bukit Bintang (more shopping) but it was so hot that you can only stay outside for so long. I swear you could get dehydrated just standing outside because you sweat so much!! I'm serious! So I had to go into these malls to cool down.

The nice malls here have a lot of international brands. Their stuff is not any cheaper here. I'm not sure the average family can afford shopping at these stores often. But it seems to be a trend, to have international brands everywhere.

For dinner, I had chicken clay pot (rice cooked in a clay pot). It was pretty good as well. Again, very greasy. My meals have been around RM10 ($3-$4) including a drink. So not too bad since I get really full afterward. Anyway, that's what I did this afternoon. Went from one food place to another. Half the time I wasn't exactly sure where I was going. I wanted to head towards the Petronas Towers the whole time but it was hard to find the towers, even though they are supposed to be the tallest things around here. There are just too many other tall things around!

Kuala Lumpur - Day 1

First full day in KL summarized in the title of this post. I walked around a lot of neighborhoods today and found that I mostly fit in. Unless I try to say something, I think most people just assume that I'm from the area. A group of Chinese tourists also asked me for directions today to Chinatown. I managed to help them with my not so great Mandarin, at which point, I totally felt like a native.

I started off the day with trying to go up to the bridge of this:
But I got there too late and there were already a ton of people in line for the tickets. The tickets are free but they only give out a limited number of tickets each day. It took me a while to find the place where you get tickets from the subway station.

This was unfortunate because even though I was too late for the tickets, I was too early for anything else. So I walked around the garden behind the towers. It's pretty nice. Even has a jogging track.


Also saw this thing on the floor:

I live in the middle of Jalan Petaling, in Hotel China Inn 2. The hotel is decent and the location is unbelievable. The day starts out with some stalls on the sides of the street. It then gets increasingly pedestrian after that. At around 7 or 8pm, it completely fills up with merchants. Can hardly walk down the street. Very lively.
I will write about the rest of my day in another post, with more pictures.

Arrival in Kuala Lumpur!

I'm finally in Southeast Asia! Really feeling the distance when you decide to take the long route to somewhere. I got picked up by a friend of a friend and got driven from the airport to my hotel. It was really nice. I think it would have been exhausting to do that trip by myself. We met up with Stella and a couple of her friends, had dinner, and then walked around a bit.

Food here is amazing. I swear I'm just going to go around eating all day. No kidding. There's all sorts of tropical foods that I love. Jackfruit, dragonfruit, durien, mangos, lichee, starfruit, etc. I had a mango juice today that was definitely very freshly made.

The flight was okay. I was sitting next to 2 big guys who were taking up a lot of room. They took up the armrests next to me and I had to fight them for space. Seriously, don't people know that it's courteous for the window and aisle seat people to let the middle seat person have the armrests? I was going to say something but decided against it. I slept most of the time. Glad I didn't buy the food on the plane. They were really small and didn't look all that great.

So backtracking to the night before I left Cambridge. After the graduation, I started walking back with a friend who was also at the ceremony. He was leaving the next day for Singapore. We were almost back at our residences when I was like, oh, I have to buy a shirt for my mom. So we walked all the way back to the city center and each got a shirt. They had some new arrivals of Cambridge pennants. I really should have bought one. I didn't need to take out any money from the bank at all. People that I met up with kept paying for my food so I really didn't use very much money in Cambridge.

After we bought a shirt, we were on our way back the second time, when my friend ran into a friend of his. This friend just happens to have a girlfriend who goes to Stanford and he's moving to Mountain View to work for Google. So crazy.

I had dinner with my host. After dinner, we went over to the friend who is leaving for Singapore to help him pack. Singapore Airlines gives Singaporeans who are moving back to Singapore permanently an extra 10kg allowance for their luggage. But it's pretty difficult to fit everything so he ended up leaving a bunch of stuff. My host now owns 4 duvets/comforters, several lamps, and a bunch of other random stuff.

We saw him off the next morning. He had so many loose pieces of luggage. I was worried that he would leave something behind when my host flips over a plastic bag and finds 3 books that belongs to him. We had to chase after him to give him the books.

Anyhow, seeing Cambridge again was good. Not much has changed. Kind of wish I wasn't so lazy and had walked around some more. But chatting with people took longer than I thought. Everyone seemed to have time to chat forever so we did. Oh wells, looking forward to a day of exploration tomorrow.

Last Day in Cambridge

written on June 25, 2010

Time here has gone by so fast! It's okay though. I think I'm ready to leave. As with NYC, I didn't feel the need to walk around again and see all the sights. Not much has changed in terms of how the city feels and such.

I really didn't do anything useful this morning. Woke up and mosey-ed around for a long time. I had a meeting with a friend for lunch, at noon. I didn't feel like going out for a walk or anything. But the lunch was good. We went to this new Chinese restaurant in Cambridge that has a lot of Chinese people as customers. The food was pretty good. We went to a museum inside a polar research institute that had exhibits on expeditions to both the north and south poles. It was pretty interesting.

After the museum, I went off to the Caius graduation ceremony. I was cutting through the Lion Yard when I realized that there must be a bathroom inside the mall. This mall had been under construction when I was there and there are now many more levels. I saw a sign that said that the toilets were on the 2nd floor so I promptly took the escalators up one level and walked around until I saw another sign. Then I realized that “2nd” floor in the UK is actually the “3rd” floor in the US. Such a dumb mistake! The bathroom was free, luckily. Someone was actually wondering out-loud in front of the bathroom so it really wasn't just me.

I headed to the ceremony and sat with Sophia's parents. They met a few of the other Chinese parents so they were pretty happy. Some of the other Chinese parents were working in the UK. It seems like they hadn't gotten the chance to talk to very many Cambridge students during their days here. I somehow ended up with a seat right opposite the doorway. It was kind of weird.

The ceremony itself was pretty painless. There were no speeches at all. Only some mutterings in Latin that no one could understand. And then the graduates came in groups of 4, by alphabetical order, held onto the fingers of this one guy while he presents them to the Master of the College. Then, one by one, they knelt before the Master, while the Master confers the degree upon them. It seemed a bit archaic, I have to say. But I guess it was pretty fast, compared to American style ones. I didn't like the fact that they didn't ask the graduates to submit phonetic cards with their names. But then again, the name calling was not very loud at all. More for the graduates to know when to walk up to the Master.

I saw a bunch of people afterward. I was surprised at how many people I still recognize and that they also remember me. Everyone I talked to seemed to have plans for after graduation. A few are doing more school and a couple of others have jobs. There were also tons of opportunities to buy various stuff, like frames, pictures, and even a better looking diploma... I took pictures with a few people and helped a few other people take photos with their families and friends. Didn't really get to chat with people all that much because they were all busy saying goodbyes to friends, tutors, etc. But it was really good. Definitely worth the effort of coming all the way back, I suppose.

Cambridge, revisited

Felt kind of strange walking around Cambridge again. The city hasn't changed very much. Maybe a few new stores here and there but everything seems very static.

I spent the day meeting up with a couple of friends. In the morning, I had coffee with my Chinese supervisor (kind of like a TA). I think that coffee sustained me through the day. Might have fallen asleep before lunch or something. But coffee here is more like espresso with lots of milk. She's graduating this year too. Just finished her PhD and post-doc studies. She's taken an associate professorship in Tsinghua, which means she has tenure there. That's really exciting. Next time we meet up will probably be in Beijing!

Then I had lunch with Sophia and her family. We went to a Japanese restaurant. My Chinese is really bad these days. After eating, we went for a walk along the river. The weather has been really nice here these past couple of days. People were saying that it was really cold until yesterday. We saw some a lot of ducks, black chickens swimming, and someone walking a cat. This all took a few hours and I got back to my friend's place at around 5pm.

Tomorrow, I'll be meeting up with another friend for lunch and then going to the Caius graduation in the afternoon. I guess that's really the reason why I'm here. The ceremony should be interesting since I've never seen one before.