Singapore - F1

Air-conditioning, one meter of legroom, extra soft and wide arm rests and head restraint for relaxed sitting and a massage function in the back. No, this is not a First-class-flight with Lufthansa, this is travelling by bus in Malaysia. It took us nearly 5 hours to get to Singapore, but in a very relaxed way without waiting at airports and at least for 15€ each roundtrip-ticket.

Travelling by bus is a great way to get an overview of the landscape and the beautiful and various flora of a country. But maybe we had bad luck with that on this journey, only driving on highways being straight as a die. The only thing we could see to our left and right was palm-oil plantations, palm-oil plantations and wait, yes, palm-oil plantations. As a total contrast to this agricultural scenery, Singapore was awaiting us with skyscrapers, port facilities and construction sites all over the place.

We found ourselves in front of our hostel, right in the middle between legal and illegal redlight district. You can differentiate between these two forms of prostitution by looking at the sidewalks. The illegal ones are all standing in front of their buildings on the sidewalk, the legal ones you can hardly catch sight of, you only see their pimp trying to arrest your attention.  But this only mentioned as a notice in the margin, because we were in Singapore, indeed, for other purposes.

After checked in our hostel, we didn’t get our booked rooms, instead we were put in some random rooms. I’d like to say that we didn’t expect European standard, but I rather think this wasn’t any standard. Non-cleaned bed linen, full of foreign hair, the air-con badly smelling of spoiling and mold all over the ceiling. So there’s no need to talk about the sanitary facility in detail, only one thing worth to mention, the shower was to be found over the very undersized toilet.

But our plans in Singapore weren’t to stay all day long in our hostel, so this happening even motivated us to spend our time in town.  Nevertheless we were in a good mood, expecting an amazing weekend.  And like a bright star once upon a time, we could immediately hear the werewolves howling through the high walls of glass and concrete, leading us downtown and reminding us of the real adventure we were expecting in Singapore. But this mentioned ‚howling‘ was just a harmless whisper through Singapore‘s warm and smoggy night instead of the screaming F1-engines trying to burst our eardrums at Marina bay the following days.

Singapore at all is a very busy and impersonal city. Even as Europeans you don’t get any special attention on these days. Almost 20% of the people walking around weren’t looking of asian origin, especially in front of the big hotels, in which areas the common bars and clubs can be found. After our first original german beer since weeks (see photo below), which maybe was little bit overprized (14 S$), but tasty, we finally found some clubbing place to survive the night with really fair prices.

 

Singapore at night is an amazing experience of itself, but attending a formula 1 race during night hours and within this stunning ambience is an unforgettable memory, branded in our minds. As expected, Sebastian Vettel won the race, only one point missing to celebrate his second world championship. After a great race, a two hours lasting Linkin Park concert for free and a long night in the streets of Singapore, we overwhelmed sank in the armchairs of our bus, fell in a deep and satisfied sleep to arrive KL and UiTM for our classes just in time.

 

Batu Caves

Today we made our first trip to one of Kuala Lumpur's main attractions: the Batu Caves. After having taken the Komuter train that leaves KL Sentral every 20 minutes, it was just a 5 minute walk till we reached the entrance of the caves, that are situated about 10 mi north of KL.

The first impression was compelling. Standing just next to the worlds tallest (42,7m) golden Lord Muruga statue, we became aware that this is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India. 

 

Walking up the 272 steps to the entrance of Temple Cave was a great experience as well because you had to watch out for the Macaques monkeys. They were funny at first sighting, but they love tourists, especially their food and scrap like Coca Cola cans. They came up very close to us and bared their teeth. Because of this some women became very frightened and cried out in panic.

Having entered Cathedral Cave, which is rising almost 100m above the ground, we had to discover the other side of the coin. Based on the quantity of tourists, there are lots of souvenir shops and cafes in the caves, just next to the Hindu fanes and the cave's base was covered with concrete. A vast amount of trash was lying around.

Nevertheless it was impressive to visit this 400 million year old place that was recorded by American naturalist William Hornaday in 1878.

First day at UiTM

Our first university day was a welcome event ot the International Office.

As we knew the importance of punctuality in Malaysia, we were almost an hour too early. In perfect weather we had to decide to stay outside at 35 ° C or in the air-conditioned room at felt 15°C.
We made the decision to stay outside for 10 minutes followed by a cooling down period on the fly.
At the beginning each of us got a little breakfast containing a croissant, some orange juice and an apple.
Having started, we found out that apart from us four, nine other students were present from Germany. Two guys from our college, three girls and four other guys from southern Germany. So we were the largest group of foreign students.
 

After lectures by Professor Kartini, Madame Azah and Mrs Nordin, there was a brief round of introductions. After two hours we were all so thoroughly frozen that we have a short warm-up interval. Men in suits and women in traditional Muslim clothing were clearly at an advantage here.

After the official welcome, there was a small lunch. As it turned out it was a traditional wedding meal: rice and chicken (what else) in a delicious spicy sauce with carrots. At the conclusion there was made a group photo.

The next day we were invited to a football game.
International Office Team vs. UiTM team collage
Jonas and Torben joined the international team. Unfortunately we lost 1:4 even though 90 minute miracle Torben played outstanding. The strikers could not used his precise passes and ran continuously in the offside trap. Jonas played on the right side of defense. By a rude foul he got respect. But which unfortunately also had a penalty results in which the enemy used successfully to 1:3.

 

Afterwards there was a big dinner for all with many Malaysian dishes.
Chicken and beef in several variations. For dessert we had chocolate cake.
Everything was very tasty.
Because we had another appointment, we left early. Nevertheless it was a very nice evening.



Bastian

Finding a place to live

Full of enthusiasm, we plunged into the adventure of finding an appartement.

Driven by the hotel fees we started to search all kinds of appartments in the Internet. Because of the cheap taxi fares, we decided also to search for appartements outside of Shah Alam. After a short time of research, only iproperty.com turned out to be a meaningful help. We were excited what kind of flats and houses you could get in our price range. Pool, sauna and gym were suddenly on our basic equipment. We started to excerpt lots of different broker’s numbers and called them. Already first problem appeared. For short termed contracts the rental price per month increases. Nevertheless, we had two appointments.

So let’s get out. Both appartments were located in Subang Jaya. 

 

The first appartement was in a building called Impian Meridian. All of us were excited about the entire building complex, but the price was too high. The second unit was not worth considering, especially not after what has been previously provided to us. So we went back to the Impian Meridian, this time without a broker, to gaze on the lookout for other proposals. Actually we could find an opportunity. We called the owner and agreed to a meeting two days later. The following day, we had a look at the hall of residence on the UiTM campus, which is called Chrystal College. Because of our previous impressions we decided not to stay at the college. For better understanding:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ads98twetY

The other tour date was a success and two days later we moved.

A week later we recognized that it was not such a good idea to drive by taxi because of the traffic jams and the high costs because of the criminal taxi drivers. That means they drive only with a fixed price which is usually doubled up the normal fare.

A journey into the unknown - First impressions

Once arrived at international airport in Kuala Lumpur, you realize immediately that this would no longer be just a holiday trip to the Balearic Islands or any other typical destination in Europe. This will become an unforgettable experience and a journey into the unknown. 

Although the air conditioning was countinuously running, you could smell the opressive heat and smog, you can expect in the whole city, through a far distanced but not visible door. In a long queue of people with uncountable different styles in clothing in front of you, waiting for the passport control, you can only start to imagine what melting pot of cultures you’ve been landing in. This caught glimpse got boosted by the coulors of the different passports, people were holding in their hands, which seemed to  cover the whole spectrum of a rainbow. 

A skeptical glance, then, after some hesitation and a short, proofing look at his boss, an unbelieving smile at the document he was holding in his hand. The customs officers interest seemed to be aroused by the university admission and he asked: ‘You are really here to study in Malaysia?‘ But the pensive mood caused by this question turned rapidly into a feeling of happiness when we realized that all of us passed through the passport control and our luggage survived the trip without getting lost.

We had no idea how to get to our hotel by bus or train, so we decided to ask at the taxi office straight in the airport entrance. As we had only one hour remaining for check-in at the hotel, we had to accept a completely over-expensive ticket priced with 59$. This should not be the last time taxi drivers tried to cheat us, but more of that later. After an hour of trying to get used to driving on the left, we realized that the taxi driver had no idea where our hotel could be. After a never-ending search for the hotel, our expectations were exceeded, the hotel was next to a little lake, the staff still awake and very friendly, the midnight check-in no problem and the rooms really clean. Welcome to ‚Hotel De Art‘. By the way, we occupied the Elvis Presley rock’n’roll temple, the New York City cabin and later on the Marylin Monroe lounge.

Elvis Presley is waiting for you

If Marilyn Monroe lived like this??? ehm...