'Tis the season to be jolly - Lah lah lah lah

To all my Malay friends, I'm sorry about the appalling use of "lah" in my title, I just couldn't resist the reference.


Peeling away the soft foil casing, satisfyingly scrunching it up into a little ball. Now the pastry is free. Sitting there gloriously, the fresh smell enticing you to just take a bite. Or maybe two. Heck, the whole thing, revision is going well, you've earned it. Lifting it up, you can feel just how soft it is, threatening to crumble if you apply any more pressure. Perfect. As it crumbles under your bite, the sweet spiced mince mixture inside gives way with it, adding a depth of flavour to the unassuming, and allover plain (but not to say boring!) taste of the pastry you're already enjoying. Mmmmmm. Delicious. Are you sure you want yours Jed? I seem to remember hearing you moan about how you're fed up of them, it's not a hassle, I'll have it for you. It's what brothers do for each other. Don't worry about it.

No, you're not reading Nigella Lawson's food-porn blog (I definitely haven't been doing cocaine for decades, or any amount of time for that matter). I miss mince pies.

Almighty Mince Pies, for those of you not in the know. If you're not, and in the UK next festive season, I'd love to introduce you to them over a coffee. I might even learn to bake them myself, if you're lucky. 

And real Christmas Trees.

Decorating Christmas Trees.

It really doesn't feel like Christmas here! We finished term yesterday, and aside from seeing Christmas decorations in the big shopping centres in KL, there's nothing to suggest of the impending seasonal festivities. Given that Malaysia is a Muslim country, I guess that's not hugely surprising. It's just weird, not having advertising like the John Lewis Christmas one, or radio channels permanently shoving Christmas songs down your throat, it becomes easy to forget that you've actually celebrated this holiday for the past 19 years. As of the time of writing, I'm listening to "We Three Kings," on somewhat of a Christmas Carol binge. I'll make myself realise that it is actually happening, one way or another. I'll be spending the day with Mother, Jed and Joshua in KL, and to say I'm excited about their imminent arrival (nearly 7days!!!) would be an understatement.

Being the massive party animal that I am, I've had two Christmas parties this past week. The first was PharmNotts' Party. Not a bunch to disappoint, it was a thoroughly enjoyable night. Not the standard party fare by any means. Nights event's included a quiz, SeniorsVSJuniorsVSLectures. Don't worry, us seniors one, couldn't have it going any other way... Various songs (christmasyy in nature of course,) which included Ollie dragging the rest of us UK lot in attendance to (attempt) to sing Santa Baby. We're sorry for the assault on your ear drums, and I'm hoping there's no recordings of said performance. The food was done by a local catering company who brought their van onsite, and although it wasn't Christmas dinner with all the trimmings,was good. It was another night that highlighted to me how just getting involved with events and their proceedings, even if it's something you wouldn't find yourself doing back home or is a little out of your comfort zone can be so rewarding and enjoyable. I really don't think I'll ever be running around a room in a large conga line singing Christmas carols again, but then again, I never envisioned I would do that in the first place.

Next on the social calendar, was the Cheerleading Christmas Social. The night was planned as a meal in KL, followed by clubbing, The club we intended to go to was on a helipad, but due to rain during the day, was closed. Ended up going to one in the same building, but not on the rooftop, the floor below. In KL, entry to clubs is done one of two ways typically - either by buying a ticket as is standard in the UK, or buying a bottle(1L, of some sort of spirit), which then gets you entry for X people. If you're going to be drinking, and there's a fair group of you, like we had, then the latter option ends up being far superior, as drinks out in KL are horrifically expensive - RM 25 for a pint (£5...) After leaving at about 3am, in true night out fashion, we went for another meal. In non-UK fashion however, it wasn't a kebab fan, nor McD's but a small restaurant/cafe thingy that served Malay food somewhere in KL. Got back to campus at about 5.30am. Somehow managed to drag myself to 9am lectures.

What a good looking bunch

 Rest of the day was spent in a semi-zombie state, as we went to "Big Bad Wolf," which is the worlds largest book sale, at a nearby exhibition centre. If you're a bibliophile, this place is your heaven. The convention hall is about 200m long, by 50m wide, and is just covered and filled with books. Fiction, Autobiography, Reference, Language, Images, Young Adult, Junior, Manga, Comics, Cooking, you name it, this place had it. AND ALL SOOO CHEAAAP. Most books were priced at RM8 - £1.30 if you're back home. New hardback? Yup, same price. In an alternate life, where I'm not doing Pharmacy, I'd like to imagine that I'd live my years out in a cave (with heating of course), surrounded by books, so so many books.

Today was Anna's Birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY IF YOU'RE READING), so we went to Mid-Valley in the afternoon to watch The Hobbit pt2. Well worth a watch, if you're reading my blog for film recommendations  (I've got it all pretty much, food, film reviews and travel writing.) If you're lucky Jed, perhaps I'll drop you and Joshua into a screening as your Christmas present <3

Hope everyone back home is feeling suitably festive, and not too worried about Jan exams.

Much love,

Jacob xx

Gold Rush, Pangkor, VLVN and the Travel Bug.

Hello!

Sorry for the rather uninspired title, I've got a fair few things to say today, so I couldn't come up with some all encompassing (and doubtlessly witty beyond all belief) title. Been a little over three weeks since my last blog, so bear with me.

First up, is the topic of "UNMC Nations Cup," which I mentioned in my last entry. This is campus' mini olympics, and a chance claim bragging rights in the name of Queen and Country. Although the UK didn't place for the overall cup, we got a few medals for 'Lizzie, hopefully to her approval. The swim team of Hector, Amy, Reema and I entered the 4x100 freestyle relay. With national pride at stake, we entered our heat all pumped up, visions of Phelps like domination in mind (excuse the poetic licence here, I'm having too much fun to stop,) as we saw off the competitors in our heat (Malaysia and India), comfortably. The overall winner was to be determined by time, so with our time already locked in, we had to wait by the side, and hope the next heat wasn't any faster than us. Sadly, it was, and we ended up taking the Silver, second to Sri-Lanka. Please don't exile me to the colonies your Majesty.



In true Olympic style, the Nations Cup had an opening and closing ceremony - with the closing ceremony featuring a performance by the Cheerleading team. We don't have a name yet, although votes are closely tied between "Storm All-Stars," and "Beast All-Stars." Here's hoping we get a stroke of genius and come up with something a little more catchy. I'm fairly sure neither of those two will actually be the team's name...  The practices leading up to our performance were a tad stressed, what's meant to be 2hrs turned into closer to 4hrs on more than one occasion. It's ok, Pharmacy can wait

. If you want to see the performance, it's here: http://youtu.be/lKdtLsqEZVc

Last weekend was our second island getaway of our time in Malaysia, this time we were headed to Pangkor, a smallish island to the north. Due to various timetabling issues, the main group (comprised of 5 people,) left on the Friday afternoon, and then Vicky and I left on the Saturday morning. However, things didn't go quite to plan - what we thought was a 4~ hr bus trip, ended up being a 6hr bus trip due to the stops the bus made on the way to the Port town of Lumut. This culminated on the two of us arriving on the island at about 4pm in the end, and by the time we found the others, it was closer to 5pm, and we were absolutely shattered. Didn't end up doing a whole lot other than chilling and eating by this point. Sunday, Vicky and I left the main group as we had less time on the island (our bus was leaving at 3pm, theres 9pm - by the time we booked it, that bus was full,) and went off to do a whistle-stop tour of various touristy attractions - Fu Ling Kong Chinese Temple, the Dutch Fort, and a spot of looking around Pangkor town. Whilst it wasn't perhaps the truely relaxing weekend we were looking for, it was good to get away and try forget about the mountain of work piling up behind our backs.  The weather wasn't complying either - most of the weekend was rather drizzly, as it has been of late. In a way I kinda like it - it's like being back home, only 20 degrees hotter! 

Travel Bug. Infection has now gained traction on the host's body. Not responding to conventional treatment methods. Long and intensive course of travelling recommended for treatment. Please counsel patient on travel destinations to try alleviate symptoms. So, the Friday before Pangkor, Vicky and I went to the computer labs to print some work off. All well and good there. Until we started to talk about travelling. Then I opened google maps. Then Vicky opened AirAsia. Twenty minutes later, we've now somehow booked flights to Australia next summer. A tadge spur of the moment for sure. Not sure what the plans are just yet, other than flying to Gold Coast Airport, and probably staying with my dad for a bit.  Fast forward a week - Yuenling from our course has invited Anna, Vicky and I to go to Bangkok for her birthday, so we figure whilst we're there, out and about, we might as well go somewhere else as well.. uh oh... We start trying to plan things out at 10pm after a Tesco trip in the kitchen on my floor, trying to contend with painfully slow internet. Bangkok gets booked relatively easily, and then we start to think about where else we want to go. Hong Kong? Cambodia? Laos? Vietnam? Indonesia? A fair few places, some get quickly crossed off, and we're left with potentially Cambodia and HK. By this point, it's probably about midnight, and I'm quickly flagging (not exactly a late night bird!) Then the next hurdle - flights between places, and how on earth to link up the various places. Cambodia isn't the biggest hub for flying in/out of, and Bangkok/KL are probably the two biggest places you can fly in/out of Cambodia from. By now, I've already given into the urge to lie down, half on the sofa, half on the coffee table... Let's just close my eyes for 5 seconds... Five seconds ends up being what was 30-40minutes, and upon waking up, Vicky and Anna inform me they've sorted it out - although it's complicated, and I can now go to bed. So I wasn't the biggest help... Shuffled off to my bed in a zombiefied state. Yet to manage to speak to either of them to see what they came up with, that's gonna be today's suprise. Looking forward to getting out of Malaysia now we have passports :) 

VLVN Viva La Vida Night, PharmNotts' annual performance fell this year on the 5th of December. I wasn't really sure what to expect from this - I'd heard it was one of the biggest events on campus every year, but beyond the theme of "Cowboy Town," and the "Fashion Show," Yasamine had roped many of us UK students into doing, I had no idea what was happening. It ended up running for over three hours, and was better than I ever would have guessed it would have been! Nearly all of the performances were put on by Pharmacy students, the only exceptions being a few bands. Our Fashion Show was first up - entailed walking down the middle of the crowd with your partner (in suitable cowboy attire of course,) onto the stage, posing, then off. What Yasamine didn't tell us when we signed up, was that the guys after the "catwalk," had to perform a small dance... ah... dancing.. Not my forte by any means. It was only 6 or 8 different steps, didn't involve moving our arms, and lasted about 90s - but for me, that's more than enough! 

All in all, it was an amazing night. The sheer amount of work and effort my colleagues had put into it was astounding. Many people did many different dances, songs and even a comedy sketch. I'm also super jealous of some of you guy's ability to dance - *cough* Eric, Darren and Sum *cough* Not to mention Eric dropping into the splits during a meaningful artistic dance show called "No Hands." So glad I was part of the night in a small way, and being able to watch everyone from the heights of the VIP balcony (reserved for performers :p) was great. 

That's my last few weeks about wrapped up. Hopefully off to Singapore next weekend, and there's only one more week of lectures before we've done 50% of year 2! Crazy! 

Hope everyone back home is well,

Love, Jacob xx

Week Off = Too much free time lah!

Hello! Figured as it's been three weeks since I wrote my last blog (already?! wow...), I should really get around to doing another quick update, and to let you all know I'm alive - Mum, that means please kindly tell Joshua to move out of my room.

What's happened since I last put fingers to keyboard? Not a whole lot, I'm sad to say. We've now finished our second (of 6) module, which culminated with an exam last Friday. Due to having to take exams at the same time as our UK counterparts, all our exams start at 5pm pretty much. Not ideal to say the least.

"Jacob! What did you do to go celebrate!" I hear you ask. Malaysia's very own "Ocean?" A fancy meal somewhere? A glass of wine and good company? Well, aside from good company, neither of those options. Anna, Vicky, Charlie, Sam and I celebrated in true student style, with a trip to Tescos for our shopping, followed by dinner at Pizza Hut. Yup. I'm sorry to say I feel like I've committed callus culinary crime of the highest order, by eating Pizza Hut when I'm surrounded by dishes that I could probably eat three meals a day, seven days a week. Please forgive me. The weekend? No crazy outings there either, bit of shopping on both days (I'm still trying to recover, it's horrifying), Saturday we visited the Central Market which was a more traditional style one, a nice change to the tourist filled tat markets we've visited thus far. Sunday we saw Thor pt2 - but that's not the best part. £3. A ticket. I don't think I'll be able to adjust to UK prices after this, for anything...

I feel like somewhat of a bore writing this, as I don't think I've done a whole lot... This week I've had largely "off" due it being a placement week, and my timetable only had one this week. Not a lot of opportunity to go "do" things off campus either, due to everyone being busy/free at different times.

Ooooooooh! Sports! That's what I wanted to mention before I end this poor excuse for a blog update (if you're reading Rosie, I'm sorry! Your message on my card saying "I shall be reading your blog, so keep it interesting!!!" Is just about eye-level, and I'm sure this isn't fullfilling that criteria :P) As of earlier this week, UNMC "Nation's Cup", started. It's basically our own little Olympics, across a number of events. Now, being the patriotic bunch we are, there's no way we(the UK students), were going to let a chance to earn some bragging rights and "one up" our fellow students pass. I'm taking part in the running race and swimming relay this Sunday, so I'll keep you up-to-date with how I do, unless they exile me for poor performance... Not like I have my passport anyways!

For my final update, please, take a seat. So, I'm all for trying something new at University (no, this isn't a closet based story), and two of the UK MechEngineers roped me into trying out a new sport. Hockey? Rugby? Frisbee? Basketball? Table Tennis? Tennis? Nope, none of the aforementioned. Cheerleading? How did you know! (I can see you shaking your head already Jonny, whilst Sharleen is there hitting you and telling me it's ok, that I'm not being judged <3) So far I've only had one training session, with another tomorrow, and am enjoying it so far. Yet to drop anyone either, so that's all well and good. The coach wants us to perform at the closing ceremony next tuesday... About that one... I'll have my "man card," ready for collection when they come looking for me, honest.


Hope everyone is well, missing you all.

Love, Jacob xxx

Let's go to the Beach (Beach!)

Hello!

I'm back, to detail my journeying and escapades of the weekend, spent at the most wonderful Penang. 

After what was rather a hectic and stressful week of finishing off some coursework, the damned thing was finally handed in Friday morning, and we sat in a lecture theatre all distracted, heads full of thoughts of going to the beach (beach!) For, handing in the essay heralded the start of the weekend, 12 noon on friday. We'd been given a strict deadline by Reema to be ready and out the front for the Taxi (or Texsi in Malay), to embark on a weekend of relaxation and recuperation

Our destination was the island of Penang, situated about 5~ hrs by road north of KL. It's a fairly large island, with a city on it, not sure how big, but there was a few sky-scrapers at least. It's connected to the mainland by a large bridge. Survived the bus journey without breaking down in tears, despite Faye's best efforts as she relentlessly reminded me of how her travel guide said Penang was no good for beaches, just for food. Now, I'm not one to be dissuaded by talk of food by any means, but I had purchased a bucket and spade, just for this weekend... 

Our hostel was on the north of the island, about 45min away by Taxi (in traffic,) in somewhere called Batu Ferrengi. The hostel was small, and like most hostels, basic, but there was nothing to complain about. The guys who owned it were really friendly, and it was clean. Us guys got thrown into the dorm-style room, so those of us who had already arrived grabbed our bunks of choice. We arrived at the hostel at about 10pm, so there wasn't any time to do much, so we grabbed food at a local food court, wandered up and down the night market briefly, and popped onto the beach (about 2min from hostel), to get our feet wet and get all excited about the fact we've finally made it away to a beach.

Saturday

The main activity for today, was to go find a nice little beach, maybe catch a wave or two. We met up with the engineers for a late breakfeast, and caught taxis to the entrance for the island's national park. The plan was to hike/trek to Turtle Beach, only accessible by foot or boat. The trek wasn't too arduous at all, and took just over the hour in all. The trek was actually through jungle, so we heard plenty of wildlife noises and the scenery was pretty beautiful, but the only wildlife we saw was a massive procession of ants. Just on the outskirts we saw Monkeys and a Water Monitor, but nothing within - probably something to do with 20 students traipsing through it. 

Turtle Beach itself, was a pretty nice beach! Sadly, the sand was no good for sandcastle making however... There was nothing on the beach in terms of facilities- no shops of any kind, so we didn't stay for too long.

Boat ride back to the park entrance.Not on pictured boat, obviously

Upon cleansing the sand from every single area it seems to creep into, Anna, Vicky and I decided to go for a brief wander around Batu Ferringi, to, as Vicky put it "find something spontaneous." Sadly, the extent of said spontaneity was only finding an art gallery, and walking across a group of local boys playing football. We walked back up the beach towards our hostel, and met up with the others, who had been on the jetskis. Shout out to Hector for managing to tip his! 

Now, saturday evening. Alice, Reema and Amy were going with the engineers to Georgetown (the main city/town of Penang,) to go find a bar there, whilst the rest of us were heading to the beach with a cooler of beers. A note to any parents/relatives over the age of 25 reading this: assume any amount of alcoholic bevarages consumed was one even if stated otherwise.

If this was a story, the next chapter would be labelled: Making friends on the beach. Original and exciting, I know.

After a bit, Hector, Jonn, Ollie and Joe left to go to the foodcourt as they hadn't grabbed dinner, leaving Anna, Faye, Charlie, Alice, Vicky and I on the beach. A guy with a strong English accent appears from behind us, beer in hand, cigarette in the other, and asks if he can sit down and join us (not like we could quite say no!) Despite the accent, he's obviously Malay somehow. Turns out, Chris, as he's called, is, erm... quite the character. Recent graduate from some UK university, the second thing he said to us is "want some vallium or speed." Erm... No thanks! Either he's a good story teller, or he's the real deal, but he talked a fair bit about himself, most of which involved various illegal hard drugs, and associated stories in South-East Asia. I was feeling pretty uneasy about the whole thing, as A) it's not the usual conversational topics, B) the stuff he's talking about is something none of us want to be involved in, and C) we're in Asia, this kind of a thing is something you'd trifle with even less so than you would back home. Add to that the fact I've had a few drinks, I wasn't feeling happy with the situation. Cue a phone call to none other than Hector, where I subtly manage to convey that it'd be good if he and the rest of the guys come back sooner rather than later. 

If you're worried about this story having a bad ending, don't worry, it doesn't! The guys arrived back soon after, and we were also joined by a few German guys, who were working in KL for some engineering firm, and were much much less worrying than our first acquaintance. Nothing much else happened of note Saturday night. I had a great time, and drinking on the beach was a fun experience for sure. Ended up crashing sometime in the early morning, whilst those who had gone to Georgetown played Ring of Fire with whoever else was still up. 

Sunday

As you can probably imagine, Sunday morning wasn't the earliest of starts... The previous night, Anna, Vicky and I had decided we wanted to do the Butterfly Sanctuary, Penang Hill, and Georgetown. The rest were going to Georgetown, but a bit later on, as they wanted sleep. Powered by enough water to drown an elephant, and trusty Paracetamol, I was feeling fairly decent, as we made our way by taxi (not before somehow managing to run into Chris again...) to the Butterfly Sanctuary. Now, I now it sounds a tadge on the lame side, and is the kind of thing you expect a primary school trip to be to, but it was really a good experience, if you're willing to engage with your butterfly side - I know it's there, somewhere!

The main swathe of the place, unsurprisingly, is a large greenhouse style space, full of butterflies just flying all over the place.There was also a few reptilian enclosures in the space (snapping turtles, lizards, none of the scary kind, it was ok), and outside of it, a few other animal exhibits (including the scary ones...) and various educational bits. 

Our taxi driver had waited for us, so we asked him to drive us to Penang Hill - there's a  funicular train up to the top of the 825m hill, which affords brilliant views of Penang, when you can see through the clouds. Along the way, our taxi driver stopped three times, once at a Chocolate shop, once at a Coffee shop, and once at a Tea shop. He explained to us that as a taxi driver, if he takes us there, we get free samples as they try ply us with freebies in hopes of buying things, and he gets points too that accumulate for bonuses he can collect. Sounded like a pretty good deal to us! After trying both a Durian flavoured coffee, and Durian flavoured chocolate, I've got to say it's not for me... thankfully there was enough other flavours to drown it out with, before we left each shop in turn on the hunt for more freebies - actually buying products from these places would be silly! Leaving our taxi driver at Penang hill - which is worth doing, I'd recomend it for sure, we took a bus to Little India, in central George town. Little India probably gives you a good indication of what was there. 

Spontaneous moment number something of the day, we ran into a procession that we learnt upon asking someone was for the Chief Minister of the Island, who was to be making a speach in Little India, after the procession was done. Seems like he was a pretty popular man, judging by people's reactions upon being blessed by him. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, we took a taxi to the bus station, meeting up with the rest of the group.

I had a great weekend, and getting away for a relax and going to the beach (beach), was something I think we were in desperate need of. Looking forward to our next getaway! Think I'm going to Batu Caves and doing the local Broga hill next weekend, with Anna and Vicky, maybe some of the locals if any want to tag along with us. We've got a 4day weekend, so a few half day trips, and then spending the rest of the time getting work done/revising for the exam/chilling is on the cards. 

Hope everyone is well, and surviving the tornadopocalypse. 

Much love,

Jacob xx

Uni is Uni Really - Not Sure Why I'm Surprised!

To preface: What I'm going to be rambling on about in the opening of this blog, isn't directly related to what I'm getting up to. To read what I've been getting up to, scroll down (it won't be for long, I promise) until you reach a dotted line (--) and I'll put that stuff down below there.


It's been five weeks since I left home, to go study ( a little bit, maybe..) in Malaysia. And I've got to say, even though I wasn't sure what to expect, it's different to whatever that was. Aside from the scenery of the jungle, the heat and humidity, it's an awful lot like going to Uni back home. You quickly get used to eating a diet revolving around noodles and rice (even for breakfast - my standard is scrambled eggs and noodles + cereal), the stray dogs become mundane, and the chirping of whatever insect is doubtlessly trying to eat gets zoned out.

Lecture theatres are like home - even moreso the fact that we're forever in the same one! Windowless boxes, the only difference being at home you pile on jumpers to try forget you're stuck in the depths of English Winter, here it's to avoid the bite of the over-eager A/C. Work is work, we still spend as much time moaning about how we should've done something like Film Studies (Sharleen, I put this in there just for you!) Or how we're studying a totally valid profession, that we're not just second rate doctors, glorified shop-keepers or only different to the dispensing techs in title. All mentions of inferiority complexes aside, eight hour lecture days are still eight hour lecture days, and coursework deadlines are still coursework deadlines, whether I'm situated in the jungle, or some terraced house in the midlands.

And that makes sense. Of course it does, five weeks is plenty of time to adapt, and yet I'm surprised that things have normalized so quickly. Once more, I'll repeat that I wasn't entirely sure what I came out here expecting - tigers on my doorsteps, lecture timetables changing as a band of local tribesman decided to have the latest human sacrifice outside our lecture room? Probably not, but things are eerily similar. Nottingham in Malaysia - they weren't wrong when they billed it as that - maybe minus the knife crime rates and students having their stomachs pumped after a particularly messy night at Crisis.

Pseudo-Philosophical ravings aside, I'll get on with my oh-so thrilling life these past few weeks since I last blogged.
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Three week long modules. Seven different topics within a module. Now, I'm no maths undergrad, but I can work out that that equals a pretty crazy timetable. Our first module, GIL did no part in laying those apprenhesive feelings about the workload of second year to rest. With a veritable metric-tonne of lectures every week, and deadlines here there and everywhere, perhaps we weren't going to get away every weekend to some exotic destination, we've come to realise. It's a tough life I tell you!

That said, not all of our course is doom and gloom. The class over here has been wonderful to us (except you, Eric!) They have taken us out twice so far for food - once to a world famous Satay Restaurant, and the other for a Chinese dish called Pan Mee. Photographic evidence for both these trips can be found on my facebook, October's Album. Both times we were driven there en masse in their own cars, and I'm super greatful for this, so if any of you are reading, thank you so much! The whole class has been so friendly, welcoming, eager to take us out places, and understanding when we forget yet another name... I'll get there soon, I promise!

We're off this next weekend to the island of Penang, for Alice's 21st and to have a bit of a relax. Looking forward to it, I'll make sure to take lots of pictures of what we get up to make you all jealous! Remember to wrap up warm this winter guys, wouldn't want any of you to get too cold.

I hope this blog is more manageable in terms of length (as we've done nothing of terrible note...), especially if you decided to skip my ramblings. Missing everyone a lot, yet doing fine out here. I should get back to finishing my coursework, procrastination is a wonderful thing...

Much love,

Jacob H xx

Moon, Markets, Mansion and Melaka - A Multitude of Ms

Second week in Malaysia over! Unsure if I'm actually a student or just a backpacker pretending to be one..

The start of this week wasn't anything exciting - a few lectures on odd bits and bobs before we start our first module next week. Tuesday was the weekly trip to Tesco, which is always a highlight.

Wednesday evening was the SA's (student association, as union's are illegal out here, that's our version of the S.U back home,) first organised event - a night at Luna (that's our first M, if anyone is counting,) Bar - a really posh bar up on the 34th floor of a hotel in central KL. Photos courtesy of a certain Hector Stanley and Faye Greenwood, thanks for both of you taking good pictures :P If you right click the images, you can open them in a new tab to see the full size if anyone was unsure of how to do it.

In light of it being a posh establishment, the price list was to match. Us guys had one free drink included in our ticket, the girls had two. A glass of beer (maybe half a pint?) cost £5. Uurrrk. Well, at least it keeps most of us well behaved and sober! We weren't allowed in the swimming pool, which probably was for the best. Sadly at one point during the evening they closed the stage, kicking us all off of it due to apparent concerns of it collapsing - you'd think that they would've thought about making it strong enough for a bunch of people...  All said and done, I had a great night. Music, atmosphere, the people (naw,) setting, cannot complain. When I'm back in Reading guys, the poacher may not be good enough anymore ;) 

Thursday was spent moping around, with a few lectures as we all complained about not getting enough sleep. Pretty standard. We had somewhat of a "meeting," in the girls kitchen area in the evening to decide our plans for the weekend - with no real workload just yet, and us finishing at 1pm on the Friday, it seemed an opportune time to go do something. Pangkor, Batu, Melaka and Zoo Negara were all places/ideas thrown around during what turned out to be a rather hectic session of ideas and plans changing like the direction of the wind every five minutes. The meeting was mainly just the 10 of us Pharmacists, with a few others.  Plans were eventually decided upon.

Friday. In the morning we had a workshop on taking Medication Histories, followed by having roughly 30minutes to eat lunch and get myself ready for the weekend, as we had a bus to catch to the train station in order to get to KL. Reema, taking on the role of tour guide for the afternoon, suggested we go to the KL Craft Complex and engage in our zen side by doing some painting. As it turns out, we all had a deep zen side to us, as we spent two hours honing our creations. We're applying to quit Pharmacy on Monday, hopefully starting an Arts degree. 

After catching taxis to the Night Market (that's our second M,) in China Town, we were met by more fake Manchester United Shirts, rolexes, and every fancy brand knockoff than you can imagine. Every street was just wall to wall of fake after fake after fake. Wasn't the most exciting in terms of looking at things, as after you'd been down one alley, you'd been down them all essentially.

Haggler of the week goes to Faye, for ruthless negotiations and willingness to fight over 3 RM even after knocking 40 RM off the price. No mercy from what I saw, was close to being describable as terrifying. Special mention goes to Ollie for as usual, providing some comedic relief - telling one lady that the few ringgit he was trying to save was so he could buy some Mango, to which she replied she needed it to buy her soft drinks. Another seller promptly told him where he could go without much room for interpretation, after receiving a very low ball offer. 

Dinner was at some shacks in a semi permanent area off to the side of one of the streets. I was assured by an old man who recommended to me the GongBoa Chicken that it was not only good, but very very spicy. It did indeed taste good, but sadly wasn't anywhere near as spicy as he made it out to be. Tears remained in my eyes.

Shortly after we parted ways with the main group, to find "Reggae Mansion," (that's the third M!) The website looked nice, although we had met a supposed employee of said hostel in the china town market, who seemed a tadge on the creepy side, and fate had decided we were to walk past him many many times. He offered to walk us there, but we flatly declined... Vicky promised us she knew the way to Reggae Mansion, the walk there was down a fair few dark alley ways, which introduced us to some local rats, which looked larger than any rat has the right to be!

The actual place is pretty damn cool. Very clean, huge building so I imagine there's loads of dorms. It was RM 42/head for our dorm rooms, so just over £8. Really cannot complain. The actual dorms were cool, little cubby holes kinda (but fairly big, larger than a single bed size,) stacked two high along one side of the room, the other was empty for people's bags and things. 

 Our "rooms," were on the top level,  everyone secretly is obsessed with sleeping on a top bunk, there's something about having to climb a ladder to get into bed...

Chilling in the cubby holes.
Making use of free wifi to tell everyone we're not sleeping rough.
Picture from Vicky Richmond.

Sadly, we didn't get the best night sleep, as on top of the building, as it was a Friday night, there was a bit of a party going on, and as much as I don't mind a bit of Sean Paul from time to time, I'm not so keen on him at 1am as I'm trying to sleep. 

Travelers Tip: Bring earplugs or at least earphones to a hostel.

No slacking for intrepid faux-backpackers, we had an alarm set for 8. Breakie was included in the room price, so a large plate of noodles with scrambled eggs was in order. I'm getting used to this noodles/rice all the time diet. Reggae Mansion is right next door to Masjid Jamek train station (where we were last Saturday as it happens,) so jumping on a train to TBS (the largest bus station in KL,) was easy enough. As was getting a bus ticket to Melaka, our first real "exploratory," trip of our stay in Malaysia. The two hour bus ride, cost about £2...  

First off once we arrived in Melaka, we decided it would be best to try find somewhere to stay for the night, instead of leaving that till 11pm and finding nowhere suitable... Anna and Vicky had done their homework, so it wasn't too troublesome at all, the third one we looked at we settled upon. A lot cheaper than the previous night (£3/head,) for a small room with two single beds in and a mattress thrown in between them. Ok, so perhaps you do get what you paid for... 

The main reason for visiting Melaka (oops, I forget to mention - the 4th M,) was to do a bit of sight seeing, and for the food. Foolishly, we tried to do as much of the sight seeing/walking around the day markets in the afternoon, so we spent most of it baking and sweating out every drop of water. Melaka was originally a Portuguese settlement, and at some time a Dutch one, so there was plenty of old buildings to look at, and hide from the afternoon rays of the sun. 

After dinner (a laksa, chicken satay and a pot of tea,) we had expertly planned our boat cruise to co-incide with the setting sun, being the pro tourists we are. The boat cruise wasn't anything amazing, but it was a nice way to see some parts of Melaka we hadn't made it to, and just sit back and enjoy the sunset, a nice change from what had been a busy afternoon of walking around and looking at things that way. 

Continuing on the trend of our well planned itinerary, after stepping off the boat we headed to the Night Market (again that M!) in Jonker street, which we had been informed was a more traditional one of foods and other things compared to fake central in China Town, KL. Surprisingly it was busier than the previous night's one, but it definitely had a more natural feel to it. Somehow, somewhy, we stumbled across a pub that was having an Oktoberfest night, complete with a band of Germans dressed up in the gear and even a group of girls in their Oktoberfest outfits. Malaysia keeps on surprising me. We sat down to enjoy some German traditional music. I can now say I now what the song "Ein Posig," sounds like. Not something I expected to find out here in my year abroad... Instead of listening to folksongs all night, we started to head back, as we had been told there was yet another Night Market near where we were staying. On our way back down, we ran into a demonstration of a supposed Guinness World Recorder, his records were presumably in stabbing hard things with his fingers, as he was somehow managing to do this with the rock hard coconuts. Malaysia, once gain, never fails to surprise. 

Once back in our hostel, instead of locking ourselves away into the rather small room, we chilled in the common room for a bit, talking to some of the people there, and then representing Puzzle Club by doing a quick 128 piece. #PuzzleClubOnTour. I'd like to point out the use of that hashtag was in fact satirical, and not serious. Journey back to campus took about 4.5hrs all told on the Sunday, and I'm now enjoying doing nothing serious but writing this and uploading pictures. Might try find a place on campus to hang my rings from tonight for some training, being using my pull-up bar recently, but it's not quite the same, I miss using the rings! Lectures start for serious tomorrow, so holiday period is over.

That said, perhaps I should quit uni and use my loan/grant money to go travelling for the year...

Much love,

Jacob xx

Where Do We Enlist?

So much has happened since I last wrote...

That was Wednesday I think? We had most Wednesday off. Thursday we were stuck in boring talks aimed at freshers/first year uni students. I'm loving the free sports centre, both using the pool for cardio workouts, and we all go down there some evenings to just mess about and put some music on. Friday, we had talks in the morning about studying science - it wasn't anything too interesting either... Managed to get the afternoon off, as we talked to the lecturer giving the Pharmacy talk, and he told us we were fine to skip it.

Oh, did I mention we had the inaugural meeting of both The Puzzle Club and The Breakfast Club? No? Well, us international students from the UK are a pretty cool bunch of people... Someone picked up a thousand piece puzzle in Kajang, that's mainly just various shades of brown, which prompted the creation of the Puzzle Club. We just sat around in the kitchen on the girls' kitchen, playing music and doing some serious puzzling...

Once again, Reema and Amy make an appearance somehow, this time concentrating on the fiendishly difficult puzzle. 

The Puzzle Box, with all the "middle," pieces laid out. We've started doing the edges on the main kitchen table, with a note (in Malay!) telling the cleaners to please leave it. 

The Breakfast Club, is the same group of us, but, as the name suggests, we all meet in the (same) kitchen, and eat breakfast together... I don't know what events lead to us all "creating," these clubs, but somehow we did. And we're all the much cooler for it. I think. Right?!

Vicky, Anna, Hector and I took a trip to Seminyeh to try do a few things - like Tesco, the bank and the clinic for a few odd things. Didn't get it all done, but oh well. Friday night was the first visit to the "local," JJs. JJs is basically a few tables laid out on a street corner near the off campus student accommodation. Us students make up 90% of his trade I'd imagine, and there's not much choice beyond a few beers/the odd spirit. That said, it's only a 15 minute walk, and he lets us put on our music.

The Tiger Beer we had at JJs. Not sure how he gets this.... 

Saturday! The KL trip! The international office organised a trip to KL for us, at RM 50. Includes transport there, lunch, a few stops on the coach trip, advertised as 9-6. We (pharmacy crew+some others,)  decided to stay in KL, and try go out to some bars in the evening, and perhaps crash at some hostel. As the day went on, we kinda went off that plan, as I'll detail later.

The trip firstly went through the local village (Seminyeh,) with a bit of a talk about it's history, some Malaysian facts. If I'm honest, most of us were shattered, so used this time to catch up on some winks. I'm sorry to the tour guide for this <3 The highlight of the organised tour was next up. 

In KL is a really really tall tower, called something starting with M. It's the fourth tallest in the word, at 431 m. We were to be having a buffet lunch at the revolving deck. It was great, good food, loads of it, and awesome views. As I said, it was revolving, so your view was constantly changing. Pretty disorientating. Tried the durian porridge for dessert, not a fan... There's plenty of pictures of the views going up on facebook, so I'm not going to post them here. 

Next stop was the "mega-mall," of Mid Valley, a huuuuuuuuuge shopping centre on the outskirts of KL. Upon arrival, the plan was stated that we would stay till 9pm, until at which point we'd head over to the strip for  bars/clubs whatever. Now, I'm not a sexist, nor would I like to negatively stereotype anyone... But us guys really really are not good at shopping. Even more so over a period of five hours. And most of the girls seemed to love the prospect. We tried to shop until about 6.30pm~ until at which point we(Anna, Vicky, Hector, Joe, Imran and Inul(I think that's right,)) decided we were going to ditch the bar idea, as there was no chance we were staying in the "megamall," and retaining sanity until 9pm. Instead, Inul who seems rather knowledgeable suggested we go to Masjid Jamek (spelling is tough,) which was about two train trips away, costing something like RM 2 per person in total. Once we crossed a few roads (which is the most dangerous thing I've done in a long time, the locals seem unperturbed by weaving through traffic moving at high speeds and just walking casually over. We resorted to running like maniacs to get to safety asap,) we serendipitously discovered this military fair/show thing. 

By now, it was about 7pm, so getting dark. All around a grassy square area where different tents with different Military equipment on display/for messing about with, and tanks lining it. I'm not sure what the occasion was, but it sounded like something we wanted to have a look at. All thoughts of hunger were immediately  gone when we found the guns and started re-living our boyhood fantasies of running around shooting people (no, we don't need mental help, it's ok!) Anna and Vicky seemed rather bemused by the large grins on our faces everytime we picked another one up and pretended to aim towards the facing cameras we all pulled out. Many many photos later, we moved on, the euphoria of pretending to be soldiers worn off, hunger came back. I'm embarrassed to say we resorted to burger king as it was the first thing we found, and near our train station that we needed to get on. 

The decision to not go out clubbing turned out to be a great one, and I had a brilliant evening exploring something I would not have seen otherwise. Only one downside...

Where were we meant to enlist?!

Looking forward to a day of finally doing nothing tomorrow, before lectures start on Monday.

Hope everyone is good and well, 

Much Love,

Jacob. 

Night Panic and a Mass Exodus

Hello! I've arrived safely! I'm alive! If I haven't yet messaged you it's not because I don't love you, it's because I've got a boat load of people to reply to.

Timeline of relevant events:

Landed in KL about 3pm Sunday local time.

Arrived on Campus at about 4.30pm - after a rather hair-raising bus drive in which our driver absolutely had to write what seemed to be a shopping list, whilst driving.

Checked into my room at Kapas Hall ~ 5.00pm. It's pretty close to the sports centre(which I've yet to have a look at,) and the canteen/foody place.

Two pictures of my room in Kapas Hall. It felt a lot worse in there than it looks - or perhaps I'm just a soft white boy.....

Ended up going to sleep at like 9.30pm, and slept until about midnight. Midnight, woke up, feeling pretty bad about the whole situation. A combination of not feeling comfortable in the room, lack of sleep and jet lag lead to me wandering about the halls in a dressing gown, trying to think when the next plane home would be, and what I was going to do back in England.... Yup. Great. 

Managed to calm down enough to go back to sleep at about 2am, and thankfully slept just fine until 7~

Met up with the other Pharmacists that morning at breakfeast, and I wasn't alone in not liking the halls at all. There's 8 of us in the Kapas Hall, and the other two are in the new halls the other side of campus. We had a few things to do in the morning like sort out our medical examination and other junk, so for the moment, it was kinda out of mind. Then soon after lunch (chicken curry+egg = £1.20 :O I can get used to this...) we discover that Amy and Reema have already moved out of Kapas, and are at the new halls waiting to be allocated a room. Now, to those of us at lunch, this sounded like a pretty good plan... It's a bit more expensive, around a tenner extra a week, but the rooms (we went to look at one,) are much nicer, and there's a mini fridge in them too. Yup, I'll take that please. Today too would be wonderful :P

Actually getting transfered over was super duper easy - we all re-packed our stuff in a mad dash, and there was even a bus to take us over, saving us walking with all our stuff. Next plan of event was get internet sorted, register, then we went to Tescos to buy supplies and things, followed by dinner in the foodcourt we found there - 70p for a Laksa... Getting a taxi back proved to be slightly harder than anticipated, but managed it in the end, getting back onto campus at about 9.

Since then, I've yet to start unpacking, had to send messages to you all/reply, figured that's more important ;) I'm happy with my situation now, and am no longer wanting to board the next flight home :P

Love you all,

Jacob

T-24. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Twenty Four. 2*12. 3*8. 48/2. sqrroot576. (3^3)-3. Also known as, way too soon :S

I probably wasn't feeling ready for starting Uni at Nottingham this time last year. However, then I wasn't moving abroad, so it doesn't quite feel the same in my mind. I'm sure (hope...) that I'm somewhat ready though.

7/8 injections down - starting a heroin habit would probably have involved less needles (and money!)

Flight booked - always a good start to any trip abroad

Anything applicable to the SEA climate - I have 3 pairs of shorts to my name. I'm guessing that means no. Come on end of summer sales.

Seeming as I'm actually going to be studying, I've started reading some of my notes from first year, in an attempt to get back into that study mind-set. It's semi working.

A bag to bring my things and the illegal immigrant who's paying me- er... A bag large enough for my stuff, I meant. Maybe? Need to see how much I'll actually be bringing, hard to visualize how much space that'll need.

Enough of the boring lists, for I could probably go on for at least another page with that stuff. I'm feeling ready to start studying again, that's for sure. I'm maybe feeling ready to undertake year two whilst living in Malaysia. I'm certainly not ready to say bye to everyone until next summer :(

So this is blogging?

Hello,

First blog post? Does that make me a "blogger," now? Or is there some kind of auspicious initiation I need to go through first. Hm. Either-way, this is going to be the main place where I attempt to chronicle whatever it is I end up getting up to during my year away in Malaysia.

I'm spending my second year of studying on the MPharm course at the University of Nottingham Malaysia campus, located about 45kms~ outside of KL. Picture is of the campus.
If you're reading this, then odds are you already knew that. Other than passing my second year with a good grade, I hope to spend time travelling around South East Asia, and experiencing new things, things that otherwise I probably wouldn't be able to do any time soon. So, if this blog at any time makes you feel jealous of me (attempting,) to get a tan on some exotic beach surrounded by empty GnT glasses, I'll try even it out. Perhaps by posting pics of me trying to memorize some section of the BNF on a beach, as the sun sets, casting long shadows from the tall palm trees  - er, that's probably not going to help either :P

My flight leaves Heathrow at 13.50, 15th of September. So, just over a month away from today. And frankly, it both can't come fast enough, nor slow enough. Suuuuuper excited for this to start (it's been my goal for probably about four years now..) yet I'm not looking forward to not going back to Nottingham in September, or seeing everyone down here in Reading during the Christmas/Easter breaks. Yeah, it's only 8~ months, but that sounds like a long time at the moment!  Given that departure is rather close, I'm really not all that prepared. Have had to fill out bucket loads of paper work, pay endless fees/charges, yet none of that actually feels like it's gotten me any closer - other than now having secured a room on campus to stay at. Visa stuff/official entry paperwork is meant to come soon, I think.... Yet to start packing, I don;'t really own a suitcase of my own either (that's large enough,) so that might have to come first. I've had 6 out of my 8 vaccination injections, so that's at least something that I've almost finished for my preparation! Can't speak a lick of Malaysian either, maybe I should try learn something before I go...

I doubt I'll be posting a whole lot on here before I go, but who knows. I'll try my hardest to keep it updated with how I'm finding life in Malaysia, and of my trips to various countries - I sat down with mum a few weeks ago and we poured over maps deciding where I should try visit, I'm honestly not sure if I'll be able to fit time in studying, could be tough! For now, thanks for reading, and I've got to try see as much of you all as I can before going!

Jacob