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Published: October 24th 2006
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So... Malaysia was interesting. But now I'm safe and sound in my little plot of land in Singapore, and I'm liking it a lot better than I have in the past. I don't by any means ever plan on moving here, but it'll do for the next couple months. My classes are turning out to be pretty interesting- well some of them- well one of them. I'm taking a Gender and Sexuality in Japan class which I actually really like. I'm pretty excited to stop in Tokyo for two or three days after the semester is over. What is Singapore like? Right now it has been hazy and grey for about two weeks because Indonesia is burning rainforests over in Java. I have absolutely no idea why they are doing that, but it sounds like a horrible idea to me, and they have all of these warnings about excercise, etc. in Singapore. I started swimming again, and reading books, and writing in my journal and for fun again, so those are all good developments, but I do need to start doing my school work more often. I am reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance right now and it is
an awesome book. It is really boring and hard to get through, but his ideas are amazing and fit my life right now perfectly. Which brings me to the point of this whole blog- the fact that I went to Malaysia for the weekend.
Despite the fact that I am probably going to be murdered by one of my groups for leaving the country (wait- I think there might be a caning punishment of some type for that) when we have a project due next week (hey, I always do things at the last minute anyways), we went to Taman Negara, which literally means 'National Park' in Malay. It sounds pretty simple, but we spent far more time going from place to place than being at the actual destination. So we took an overnight bus from JB to Kuala Lumpur by the time we finally got to JB. When we got to KL, we found out that we actually had to take a taxi from Kuala Lumpur to somewhere else because the next bus to that place left later in the evening and we didn't want to wait that long. So... we took a cab there. And got in
an accident on the way. It wasn't that bad. But that is number three in Asia (the other two were in China).
Once we got to Taman Negara, we dropped our bags and then went on to the bat caves, which were awesome. It was really hard to go through, considering the little light, the bat shit everywhere, the bats everywhere, pools of water that had leeches in them, and only a dirty rope for guidance, but it was cool. I got one leech- which means I have had leeches twice in my life now- the other time in Michigan when I was about eleven. So that was really cool and hard to do, and reminded me that my knee is really screwed up from China and I have to get it checked out by a real doctor when I get back to the states since all the doctor did here in Singapore was hit it and ask me how much it hurt. But back to Malaysia. We ate all of our meals on these little floating restaurants on the river which had really good food even if it did come out really slowly. Wow, I sound like I
complain a lot. No it was a great trip, I'm having fun here, and the next thing we did was go to the canopy walk- the highest or longest in the world- and it was, in fact, very scary. I'm scared of hights, and when I am forty feet above the ground on a wooden plank connected by ropes in Malaysia it does not make me any less scared of hights. And then we got on a boat for a couple hours ride down the river which was gourgeous. Then another bus. Then another bus. We were separated from the other four- and Jake and I just sat around Kuantan- or walked around Kuantan- until one in the morning. There was this really cool mosque there that looked like Excalibur in Las Vegas- it was gigantic. I continued reading my Zen and the Art book, and we both fell asleep before Mersing, where we were supposed to get off the bus and go to Tioman island to meet our friends, the Aussies Michael and Ayla who live in our dorm. But, alas, it was not meant to be, and we ended up going home to Singapore two and a half
days early. On the way back, the bus driver stopped to pray and I had to pee with everyone else in the mosque and everyone inside was staring at me.
We made it back to Singapore after getting McDonalds in JB (I know- we are awful Americans- or rather perfect Americans). I don't know about you, but I think it's pretty cool that I can go away to bat caves and rainforests and islands for my weekends- I guess that's a benefit to studying abroad. Being away has made me realize all of the positives to Arizona and the states in general though. My second time voting is coming up in a couple of weeks- and it is going to be an absentee ballot, and I have to vote in Utah this time since I no longer have an address in Arizona. Oh well. Well, I guess the next time I write I will either be in Malaysia or Indonesia again, or it will be when I got to Vietnam and Laos and the Phililppines at the end of November. By the way, damn Singapore. All of the girls can drink free on Wednesday nights- which means that guys
probably have to pay double what we should. Oh well.
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Michele
non-member comment
funny
hahaha "all the doctor did here in Singapore was hit it and ask me how much it hurt" hahahaha kenny, i miss you