First LC visit…

and a lot of adventures!

My first LC visit is in LC UUM (for non-AIESECers – Member Committee members sometimes have to visit local entities to meet with members, educate them, etc). It’s around 6h of travelling by bus.

You go to the station, buy the ticket, get into the bus, fall asleep, wake up after 6h, get out of the bus and you are there. It sounds surprisingly simple, doesn’t it it? :)

But of course nothing is as simple as you may think.

At the same evening, when I had to leave KL, one of the LCs located in the city had an induction evening for new AIESEC members. So whole MC team wanted to attend the event, share their experience, see what’s going on around, etc. And this is why I needed to go to the bus station on my own. But fortunately it’s not difficult to get there. As I entered the station I felt as I were in Chinatown – a lot of people, some of them approach you and screaming to your ear ask where do you want to travel, because their bus for sure goes in your direction. I was supposed to search for Mara Lines counter to buy the ticket (it’s a little bit different than in Poland: each travel agency has its own counter where it sells the ticket). When I finally found it I was told that there is no more tickets for my bus at 10:30 and next bus goes next day (I needed to be on Friday morning in Kedah and I was supposed to leave KL on Thursday evening). So with kind of resignation on my face I approached one girl, who asked me earlier about where I would to go. She was trying to find a ticket for me, she asked about it at three different countries, but at the end we realized that I will not get any ticket for a bus, which is going directly to UUMs campus.

But one of the nice guys offered me a trip to Changloon. I called one of the LC UUM members, who was supposed to pick me up, whether I should go to Changloon, when there is no other way to get to Kedah (Kedah is a state, Changloon is a city and UUMs campus is located few kilometers from it). She agreed to pick me up from the further place. The guy who sold me the ticket told me that the bus will come at 10:30 pm and will leave at 11 pm.

So I went to the place I was shown. The bus was supposed to be double-decked and this was the reason why it couldn’t park at a decked platform (it was too low). So I was waiting in a weird place wondering, whether it’s possible that he sold me a fake ticket.

And I was waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

And finally the guy appeared. Around 10mins later – bas came. So we left the bus station around 11:20 (not that bad, right? :p).

The Bus. THE BUS. It wasn’t just the bus, it was The Bus! I have never ever travelled by Bus like this! The seats were so huge that I felt as I were riding in a limousine! It was awesome ;)

Stupid me – I forgot to ask the driver or the guy, who sold me the ticket, when the bus will reach Changloon. So I set my alarm clock at 5 am, woke up and was waited for the first bus stop. So after a while the bus stopped, the driver shouted name of the city, people in a rush get off the bus and we moved on. At the third station (which also wasn’t the Changloon station) I realized that all passengers left. So I went down to ask the driver what’s going on. So he asked me: ‘Changloon? Follow me!’. He went upstairs, showed me my stuff – so I took it – and said: ‘Follow me, change the bus!’. I was really surprised, because nobody informed me before that I will have to change the bus. It was around 5 am, I had no idea what kind of city was that. And it was still dark. But I changed the bus and fortunately the second driver didn’t ask me to pay any ticket.

When I get off the second buss in Changloon I was still waiting for around 1h for the LC members to fetch me from kind-of-bus-station.

So we came to the campus. It’s huge. It’s really huge. I have never seen that kind of campus before (in Poland it looks a little bit different). Of course all the university buildings are here. But imagine, that all the students (around 22 k) live here! Obviously – boys and girls separately.

It’s awesome to have palms / coconut trees around the uni buildings. But I need to admit that standard of dorms is quite low :/ Despite this – those 22k of students here need to survive somehow, so probably it’s not that bad. They have swimming pool, go-kart track and many other show places! :)

I will upload few pictures on my picassa. You will see :>

Sightseeing again!

Wrote yesterday:

This time, together with Robin, we met with Marta. She came to KL around 1 week ago and will stay for 2 months. We saw the old railway station and wanted to visit the national mosque, but unfortunately it was closed for non-Muslim tourists. Isn’t it a discrimination? Have you seen, in any Christian church a sign ‘closed for non-Christian tourists’? It’s usually closed for tourists generally.

Pictures you can find here.

Tomorrow I am going to cook a Polish dinner. Tomato soup (pomidorówka), potato pancakes (placki ziemniaczane) and a salad with raw vegetables. The last one maybe not typical Polish, but with raw vegetables, which are here not eaten at all. They love to either cook or fry everything! The process of missing Polish food has already started.

Wrote today:
So I cooked the tomato soup (unfortunatelly the pot was too small and there were 8 of us, so not enough soup). The second dish included dumpling and salad, but dumplings (pierogi ruskie). Salad was ok (I miss raw vegetables!), but the dumplings.. well.. I think we even shouldn't call it dumplings :D Let's say that cooking dumplings is not my strenght :) Next time I will cook something better! I promise! :)

Sightseeing!

More pictures from sightseeing number one you can find on my picassa!

I’ve been here already for 3 weeks!

The time is passing so fast.. In few days I will celebrate my first month here, in KL.

Summing up those 3 weeks…

• I have officially started my work as Member Committee Vice President Outgoing Exchange of AIESEC in Malaysia for the term 2009/2010 (abbreviation: MCVP OGX)

• I decided to stay in the ‘MC flat’ and share the room with my team-mate, Khai Lun (united for exchange! ;))

• I have been getting to know my team mates. I would like to introduce them to all of you who haven’t met them yet (probably I have already mentioned and I will be mentioning their names in my posts, since I have been spending with them a lot of time!)
o Cafrey – the Boss! :D (MCP)
o Boey – my flat mate, loves cool stuff :D (MCVP ER)
o Kevin – our team ‘pussycat’ :D (MCVP FA)
o Khai Lun – my room mate, always innocent :D (MCVP ICX MT/TT)
o Rubi – my BBF – Best Friend Forever :D (MCVP ICX DT/ET)
o Serena – the one who is always smiling! (MCVP TM)
o Fadli – ‘PARKSON Forever!’ :DDD (MCVP IM)
o Alif – always making people smile - ‘the hand’ :D (MCVP Exp)
o Brandon – now brainstorming in Paris (MCVP Comm)
o Kar Fei - our ER manager, my CISCO-wing-man ;)

• There are also other people, I am staying in touch with:
o Robin – my party-brother :) (MC CEEDer from The Netherlands), almost 2m tall!
o Michelle – our lovely Hong Kong girl (CC team)

• I have met also a lot of interns, including around 8 people from Poland (and I thought it will be so unique to go to Malaysia and stay for one year – it’s not :P)

• I have tried a lot of food which was totally new for me and sometimes even exotic. Examples you can see on the pictures below.

Indian rice, I suppose that curry and mango lassi (kind of shake - yammy!)















On right - cat's eye (or dragon's eye) fruit juice - tasty but very sweet.













Great chinese tea drunk in Chinatown, KL :)

Apam balik - kind of sweet pan cake, but more crunchy. Good! :)

Foodasia

5^th of July

Haha I should change the name of the blog from ‘year in Malaysia’ to ‘food in Malaysia’ :D Yesterday was the first day of MC planning meeting. So together with my team mates we went to an original restaurant. Each of us had to pay 20RM for the dinner, but it was worth it!

There were two steam bowls on our table. And each of them had 2 different soups (or brewings) in which we could cook. At the side of the room there was a buffet with a lot of food, drinks and dishes. We could take as much as we can eat (we would be supposed to pay for each 100g of waste!). So most of the food was cooked in the bowl. Summing up we ate: vegetables, fishes, fish balls, tofu, seafood (I don’t know the names of the seafood even in Polish :P), noodles and other different things, which are hard to describe even in Polish ;))

Afterwards the time has come to eat the dessert: each of us ate minimum 4 ice cream balls (Fadli probably around 12), ate jelly and watermelon. Totally awesome, dude! :)

And I was really trying hard to teach my team words like dziękuję (thank you) or dzień dobry (good morning/afternoon). But they keep saying kurwa and pierdol się (which are words used to curse). But they taught me words (I don’t know how to write them properly, but try to write it as they were Polish ones) like babi (which means pig, they use it to curse sbd) and alamaa (which means ‘oh my God’ but you use it when something bad happens, not like OMG :) etc). And I know also ciapat lah, which means hurry up. In Polish I would say Ciupala babi! - doesn’t it sound funny? :)

Of course while eating we had a lot of fun, but it was nothing in comparison to what happened later on. We went to Arcades to play games. Arcades is a place where there is a lot of machines and simulators, where you can play and have fun (in Polish we would say: salon gier). So we spent there around 2h all the time laughing, because e.g. there was a dancing competition between Boey and Fadli, Cafrey and Rubi, Khai Lun and Kevin. It looked so funny that I even recorded few movies using my mobile! :D Then I won with Rubi and 2 guys in a car race! haha! :D

And guess what kind of shop was in the same mall? PARKSON yeaahhhh :D

I was so sleepy and tired that I took a nap in the car while coming back home.

Today’s planning we finished in a Malay food court. And you know what? Watermelon juice rox! Goodnight!

fifaramfa :)

Yeyeyeyee I ate my second meal with chopsticks and spoon! I am so proud of myself! :D (It was a soup with prawn, 2 types of noodles and an egg).

Now we are sitting in the office with few people and in 3 minutes going out for a surprise b-day party of one of our friends. To a bar. Have I written already that for a beer around 0,25-0,3l you can pay here around 15RM? It is a little bit less than 15PLN. Totally crazy! It’s so expensive to get drunk here :)

Concerning being drunk... haha! Have I already written that I brought Żołądkowa Gorzka with me? It was 0,5l and we organized the vodka-tasting-evening with 5 of my friends (and one of them is a Muslim so he doesn’t drink alcohol). You can check it on the pics below :)

The term has officially started!

Today (I started writing this post on 1st) was the first day of our official work. 8h of hard work at the office – I managed to do a lot, so afterwards I was really happy with my day. During those 8 hours that we spend in the office (5 out of 11 in the time is full time) we have a break for lunch (fortunately! :D).

So coming back to food. Have I already written that they do not use knifes in here? Malaysians usually eat with fork (left hand) and spoon (right hand). It is much easier to put rice on the spoon than eat it with a fork. Actually, when you’re eating roti (kind of an Indian pancake) you use spoon as a fork (to cut your roti into pieces). And when it comes to Chinese food it’s of course chopsticks and spoon (again, but in left hand). I have already had my first meal eaten by chopsticks and spoon and I am really proud of myself (I had to be very patient while putting the noodles on the spoon :p).

And what made me sad today/yesterday evening is that my friend left to his home country. Jai is an AIESECer from India who came here one year ago to work for Member Committee of AIESEC Malaysia (same as me now). When I came here he provided me the ‘basic guidance’ ;) especially focusing on introducing me to people I should know.
And this is how I have already met a lot of interns who stay here. But the truth is that those people who stay here for a long term MTs and TTs create small, hermetic groups . Especially EPs from one company, which hosts around 15 up to 20 AIESEC interns. So I think it might be difficult to get involved in one of them. We will see.