Langkawi!

One word to describe Langkawi: beeeeeaaaauuuuuutifulllll!

After a very hungover boat trip we arrived in Langkawi and got in a taxi to Penai Cenang to find our hostel. We were welcomed by the owner, Zul, a very nice Malaysian man. That evening he took us in his car to the night market with some others from the hostel.

The beach at Pentai Cenang is very nice with white sand and not too crowded. I managed to go swimming in the sea every day we were there. Another cool thing about Langkawi was that we by chance bumped in to most of our friends from Penang and Melaka so there was always lots of people to hang out with and drink beers with. We also got a car with Liam and Andy, a cool father-son travelling combo and we went to some cool waterfalls where you can bathe in the water. That day we had also planned to go on the Langkawi cable car, probably the island's most famous attraction. However when we arrived it was raining at the top and they had closed the tills. It's probably lucky that happened as we may not have had the best view. Sorry for that boring anecdote there...!

Another day we went island hopping. This involved being picked up from our hostel in a mini bus by Zul's friend, a very funny guy who laughs at everything. On the way we picked up more people then headed for the jetty to catch a speed boat. It took us to a number of islands. The first had a freshwater lake in the middle, another you could see eagles flying around happily at close range, amazing. After that we went to a final island where there was a nice beach and some cute monkeys.

On our final night in Langkawi we had one last reunion with all our friends on the beach, great fun.

Penang!

The journey to Penang was long and uneventful until we missed our stop on the coach. We had to go about 60km further north to the final destination, Alor Setar, and get a bus back. Eventually we arrived at our hostel at about midnight.

The next morning we got up and went downstairs. A funny old man called Charlie was there to tell us what to do in Penang. It was quite hard to understand what he was saying but he was one of those guys who everything they say is hilarious. On the first day we decided to wander around the town and see what we could find. Obviously we stumbled across the shopping mall where our Starbucks radar must have taken us. We had a coffee and continued into Chinatown. We stopped off at an Indian restaurant and had some amazing food... something involving chicken as we didn't understand the menu it was chef's suggestion, very tasty. On our wanderings we also stumbled across a fort, called Fort Cornwallis. It was 2 ringgit to get in so we went to have a look. It was quite interesting! Just outside the fort there was also a monument marking Queen Victoria's diamond Jubilee.

Fort Cornwallis

Eating some delicious Indian food!

A Buddhist temple opposite our hostel. There was a Chinese one next to it where Charlie went to get my fortune. Apparently I have people who will help me in North, South, East AND West. Good to know.

This is a nice litlle snap of all our friends we made at the hostel, including Lanee, a girl from the Philippines who works there. She is amazing, along with Jazz from Burma and Charlie, who has lived in Penang all his life. Top notch! They deffo made it worth staying at Reggae Hostel!

Melaka!

Melaka is a nice little place about two hours by coach from KL. We stayed in a nice hostel called Ringo's Foyer Guesthouse. When we arrived we were greeted by the owner, Howard, a very cool man
who owns lots of bikes. In the evening he took us and some other guests from the hostel out on the bikes. We cycled along the river where there were cool painted buildings and pretty lights and we ended up in a street where you could buy lots of different types of food. I tried a Chinese noodle soup. You have to pick the ingredients you want first, then they add the soup and noodles. It was very tasty.

On our first day we walked around the town a bit. We found a hill with an old church on top, some pirate ships and lots of cool shops and stuff in China town. There was a cool night market where you could buy souvinirs, lots of different types of food and clothes. We had a beer with the other English people from our hostel, two girls who had been teaching English in Thailand and a doctor carrying out malaria research, called Richard.

The next day we went up the Melaka tower with Richard where you could see all the sights from up high. We then went to have a drink by the riverside where we saw a cool monitor lizard or something, I'm not sure what it was because I wasn't aware that they could swim. Anyway, it was really cool!

On our final night in Melaka Howard took us for some nice Indian food. We then decided to have a Christmas party at the hostel so Howard called up his friend Charlie to get us some cheap beers and brandy. The Christmas party turned into about three games of ring of fire, after which point we decided to go out to the town. Unfortunately Melaka is not too rocking on a Monday night so we had some tequila then came back for more ring of fire on the roof! In the morning we had to get up early to take the coach to Penang.

Last Day At School

The last day of school was spent making paper snowflakes and decorating the school for a festival that was taking place that night called Sweet December.

We had the Christmas tunes blaring out and lots of fun was had by everyone. We took lots of pictures and said our goodbyes. The children were trying to persuade us to go to church later that day but we politely declined. After school we went home to pack our things. This took less time than expected but my massive rucksack was super heavy. Too many books! I had to leave my amazing birthday banner behind which was very sad. After that we went to Abe and Nu Cing's house to say our final goodbyes. We took some photos, exchanged addresses and headed over to Bruno's house. There, Simon was sent to buy beer and brandy and this was obviously mixed together into one surprisingly nice tasting drink, which seems to be the way here in Malaysia. Simon and Bibi gave both of us a beautiful Chin necklace for us to remember them by. We drank beer together, with King who was also there, and he persuaded us to go to the church to experience Sweet December.

When we got there it was already about 45 minutes into the ceremony. Esther and her sister Rebecca had just finished singing a song when we walked in. We were greeted by many shocked but happy faces due to the fact that no one really was expecting us to go. We listened to some more performances, all sung in Burmese! And then the pastor spoke for a while. After that we were all invited into Class E where some Burmese chicken porridge was being served. It was very delicious but we weren't that hungry as we'd already been fed at both our previous stops on the way to church. After that we took some final pictures with the children and were told things like "Don't go!" and "Teacher, we miss you already!" Very sweet but it made it even more sad to leave.

In the morning King took us to the bus stop and after a Super-King hug we said our final goodbyes and got on to the bus.

So Long, Farewell la la la

Good day, it's been a while!

As usual time has been a flying and it's now 3 days until we depart from this place and the wonderful Myanmar people. Today we have started the first of the goodbyes. We went to Neam's house to give her a German poster and a card along with a friendship bracelet. We stayed for a while and had a last helping of Burmese "tea salad" which I now think I am quite a fan of. We took some photos and then went along to Nu Cing and Abraham's class - two of our fave students from adult class. Nu Cing makes beautiful traditional Chin Tribe jewellery and sells it to the community, although for us she has given us a couple of things on the house! In return I made her one of my friendship bracelets. I hope she likes it.

At school we've been wrapping things up too. I'm trying to do fun things with my classes this week. Just time to watch the final installment of Harry Potter and do some more fun games and activities. I'm thinking maybe a Christmas themed lesson on Friday, and as it's our last day I'm sure lots of photo-taking will take place.

Since being in this town, which we have lovingly renamed "Chin-tosa", a play on words on the town "Sentosa" (get it? - I don't think the Myanmar people do). Oh we are so funny! Anyway, now I think I appreciate more what refugees go through and respect them a lot. They always welcome us into their homes like family even if the communication barrier is a bit of a problem and offer us food and drinks. I've had so many laughs with my adult class, such wonderful personalities! I hope they continue in their enthusiasm to learn English as many families here will be moved by the UN to the USA or Australia.

I will miss our housemates greatly, King is one of the funniest people I know. And Pastor Henry has been amazing, he may be one of the coolest dudes known to man.

Our travel plans for after we leave are coming along nicely. Can't wait to spend Christmas and New Year in Korea with Tombo! I'll keep on updating as we go. Hopefully we'll have lovely speedy wifi in our accommodations. Dongle - I will not miss you.

Stuff Update

Hello There. I think I'll just tell you about last weekend because it was quite cool. On Friday after school we got the bus and train to KL. We saw some other non-Malaysian people at the station at Rawang, which is a rarity to see so we were able to act as experts on the trains of Malaysia. It felt good! We had a coffee at the station in KL then managed to find a bus to take us to Central Market. From here we would try to find our hostel with our instinctive directional skills and vague memories of the road name. As we walked towards Chinatown it was the first turning we saw, what a stroke of luck. We booked our own room as the prices were cheap and that way we would not annoy people when we came home late at night/early morning! The hostel was connected to a bar called Reggae Bar, so we could receive discount on food and drinks there. So naturally after a quick lie down and becoming acquainted with the hostel we headed for this bar.

We arrived at about half seven and there were not many people there. The staff seemed nice and the menu offered various delights including Western food and pizza! A lot of restaurants in Malaysia offer "Western Food" which upon a second glance looks nothing like what we would eat and less than appealing. But never fear, this was proper Western food. I had a pepperoni pizza with nice cheese on and Jo had a chicken burger, which although very tasty did still have one of those Asian omlette things which are so popular here. After a couple of beers we decided to sample the cocktail menu. The music was a mixture of reggae and 90s classics. After about 11pm a DJ arrived and played some bangin' tunes. We met some new people at the bar, a girl from the Phillipines with her Australian boyfriend and a guy from the Netherlands. They were really cool and we hung out with them and danced and stuff. Till 3am. Accidentally. This was a slight mistake as we needed to get up at 8am the next day. But it was fun so it's all ok!

At eight in the morning the alarm sounded and we reluctantly got out of bed. We were going to a prize giving for a writing competition organised by the Soroptimists for a few schools including our one. The taxi driver got very lost trying to find where we had to go, he got out and asked about five different people. When we arrived we listened to the winning stories, then watched the children receive their prizes. Then we were asked to take to the stage while they explained about our school and what we are doing here. We received a certificate of thanks for our good work which was really nice.

In the afternoon after a delicious free lunch we were dropped off by Saradha at the post office. Yes, post office! I had almost given up hope on finding one open but now my dreams have been fulfilled. Many postcards are on their way to the UK as we speak and letters to Germany and Wales. After that we walked around Chinatown to try and find some bargains. I bought some flip flops amongst other things. Haggling is a hard skill to get the hang of, but I think we are improving. We then found a Hindu temple almost opposite our hostel. We decided to do something cultural and go in. It was so beautiful and colourful. A lady told us that something was happening at 4.30 so we waited for the ten minutes when lots of people came to one of the statues and stood with candles and two men were playing musical instruments. I'm not sure what it was for, I think it happens every day, but it was cool! That night we went back to the Reggae Bar and made friends with some cool people from Canada and Las Vegas. 

This week we've been finding out a lot more about what the refugees here have to go through. A big problem is they cannot afford to get proper medical treatment. Our flatmate Timwei has been ill for over a month now and has not been able to teach. He has kidney stones but can't get the operation to have them removed. For now he has to eat a very strict diet. The operation costs about £2000 to get, which is an unimaginable sum of money for anyone here. King was telling us that Timwei's wife, who still lives in Myanmar is also very ill. She has a brain tumour which can only be treated by an operation which would amount to £15,000. He asked us if we can think of any ways to help. So I pass this information on to the good ol' WWW and whoever is reading this. Maybe a comment with any charities or any ideas. I can't seem to find any that fit the needs, or indeed any idea how one would go about getting help from a charity, or even if that's possible to just ask a charity for help. Educate me! It's really sad to think that some people just have to live with such serious illnesses and come to terms with the fact that there's so little hope. A man from Jo's adult class was telling us about their son, who is paralysed and his brain does not function properly and they have to feed him which takes 2 hours. His only hope is stem cell research. And of course there's Bibi and Simon's family, who look after Bruno as they live on the first floor and he cannot ever leave the flat. But still it's amazing how positive people here are, always laughing and joking. With less than three weeks to go, I think I'll miss them!

So, serious stuff aside, this week is another normal week. Class A are still casually suggesting we watch Harry Potter at every opportunity and I'm constantly trying to think of new games to play with Class B. I'm able to teach my adult class without a translator now which is cool. At the weekend we think we might go to Batu Caves, a Hindu religious site set in natural caves in the hillsides. Should be cool. There's monkey there so Jo is obviously ecstatic about this. Bring it on!

Sunday the 4th of November!

Today we went to meet everyone at school at 1pm. We're going to a party! One of Pastor Henry's friends was having a birthday and he invited all the children from school. We all boarded a very rickety looking school bus and drove to the venue, a chinese restaurant not far away. The tables were laid out ready for us, one teacher per table. I sat with some children from Class B and a few of Jo's kiddies. On the menu was rice, chicken, a whole fish, a strange looking soup which upon closer inspection contained various questionable looking animal parts. This was only found out after eating something and realising it didn't taste like a vegetable. After this, more food was brought out including noodles and battered prawns. One proud skill that I have gained whilst being here is being able to take apart prawns with a fork and spoon. Useful for future life I think! We were all getting full up, some of the children hadn't even eaten that much... when yet more food was brought out. Pork which was still left intact as most of a pig, although it was delicious.

I met the birthday man, named Shiva I think. He was very chatty and seemingly intelligent, as most people do not tend to slip "as Bill Shakespeare once said......" into everyday conversation. I think what he was saying was something like "As Bill Shakespeare once said, a man tired of London is tired of life" or something. Very deep and poetic. When the cake was brought out everyone gathered round and sang Happy Birthday, with a mumble in the bit where you're supposed to say "Dear (and the person's name)." We all sat back round as the cake was cut and brought to our table. A delicious sponge cake with butter icing and normal icing. Shiva had bought all the children a little gift, which he gave out individually, after each table sang happy birthday to him again. Not sure if he was lovin' it a bit too much! The kids loved getting presents though and Jo and I even got one too!

After the cake everyone was just left to enjoy themselves for a while. I was shown some "magic" involving a balancing fork and spoon and played some clapping and singing games with Abigail, who was hilarious as always. We ran back to the bus through the torrential downpour that had started while we were in the restaurant and went home to rest our full stomachs.

The food spread! :D

The magician and the amazing fork-spoon balancing trick

Post Birthday More Than Half Way

G'day! I'll write about stuff that happened last week after we got back from Singapore.

On Thursday some children from a Malaysian school in KL came to visit with their teachers. They had prepared activities to do with the children including singing, dancing and arts and crafts. I think the younger children enjoyed it but the older ones thought it was a bit weird as they were pretty much the same age as the Malay kids. However it was nice to have a day off teaching and it was interesting talking to the Malaysian teachers. They were from a Christian school just outside KL, and one teacher thought it was necessary to ask Jo and me probing questions about our faith. He found it hard to believe that we are not religious, and this is where most people stop asking questions. He wanted to know why we did not believe in Jesus and then decided to show us what a Bible looks like. Little bit awkward. Hopefully another thing that we can show people here is you don't need to be religious to be a nice person, as I think Jo and I are pretty nice! Anyway, rant over, after that we had an amazing free lunch where Jo and I acted as dinner ladies. Fried chicken, vegetables and omlette thingy plus coke for those who like coke (everyone but me). Lovely! The Malaysian school also ran a service after lunch and all the groups performed a song or dance they had learnt in the morning. Very cute. There was also a section where Pastor Henry spoke to inform all our visitors about the school and highlight the fact that "we currently have two teachers from good old England!"... followed by turning heads to the back where we were seated and big cheers. Awkward but nice to receive the appreciation I guess. The Malaysian "this is a Bible" man then took the stage and invited all the teachers from our shool up to be blessed. A very weird experience. As Jo and I walked up to the front through all the children seated on the floor, we gave out multiple high fives. After the service there was ice cream for dessert and everyone went home after a busy day.

On Saturday we got up early to head into KL. For once we got the train from Rawang, which would take us to KL Sentral. We were very early as we always find it a good idea to leave plenty of time. We looked around the shops in the station and had a coffee. At 12 o clock we went outside to the meeting point, the bus stop opposite the Hilton, where we met Pete and Simon. Shortly after Saradha picked us up in her car. Saradha is from a group called the Soroptomists, who I have never heard of before, but they organise everything for the volunteers here and where Pete, Simon and Sarah teach. She was taking us to the house of one of the other club members where we had been invited for lunch. The house was massive! Like something out of that show, MTV Cribs... A big electronic gate entrance, marble floors inside, swimming pool, perfect interior and a wonderful "puppy" called Samson, who is actually six months old but bigger than most normal dogs. About ten ladies from the club turned up. We chatted and ate lots of delicious food. Someone had told them all that it was recently my birthday so I was given another cake and some little presents, a nice unexpected surprise! Saradha and her friends were very complimentary of the job we've been doing and said that all the children want us to be their teachers, so it's nice to know that what we're doing seems to be worthwhile. After lunch we were given stacks of leftovers to take home and we had a lift back to the station to get the train. What a lovely day out.

We had made plans for when we got back to take Bibi, a girl from Class A, to karaoke, as she loves singing and wants to be a singer. However, Jo had kept the destination a surprise and Bibi seemed very shocked and happy when she found out what we were doing. We spent a couple of hours there singing songs and Bibi was definitely the best singer, sorry Joyce! After that we went back to Bibi's house to see Bruno and Simon and we drank home made carrot and orange juice and played cards. It was one of those nights, Jo kept on losing at twenty one, and I was having a lucky streak. After a while of this going on we broke down into one of those laughing fits which I think everyone found very confusing as they didn't know what we were laughing at, but also funny because we couldn't stop. Bruno kindly filmed the shenanigans but I'm not sure I'd want to watch it back. New phrases coined, which one day I expect to be used by everyone in general conversation - "square and square" and "HOLD YOUR GOATS!"

Half way through this week already, time is still a flyin'. We booked our flights to Japan in January for the last leg of our journey where we will meet Hazel, my sister... who I believe is probably the main reader of this blog so, hello Hazel!

Surprise surprise!

Friday the 19th of October - got up and went to school like a normal day, apart from Jo was more worried than usual about being on time. When we got there I was invited to join the usual Scrabble festivities which take place on a Friday morning as Jo mysteriously disappeared with 4 of my class. Ten minutes later King told us all to gather at the football field where we all walked together to the community hall.... only to see upon entering the room balloons galore and a massive banner saying "Happy Birthday Megan!" with a cuddly teddy bear on! The children loved the balloons and being able to play in such a huge space. We played pass the parcel and other games, then started on the cake. I had 'Happy Birthday' sung to me by about 90 people, that was fun but a bit embarrassing! The day before some of the children had been busy making cakes and Pastor Henry's home and a grand total of 10 cakes were brought to the party. In addition to this there was also one special cake (I think shop bought) with extra decorations and that! What a start to the birthday festivities of the weekend to come!
 

This is me with some of the girls from Class B, infront of my banner!

My tasty cake (there were also 10 more cakes cooked by some of the children at Pastor's home, in a steamer! Never had so many cakes at a birthday ever!)

Here are some pictures from our adventures in Singapore!

This is our luxury coach we took to Singapore, after missing our original bus due to numerous setbacks. This one had massive reclining chairs and TV screens to watch films!

On our first day in Singapore we took a trip to Universal Studios, on Sentosa Island. The Transformers ride was AMAZING. There is a point to 3D technology after all! All the rides were based on films and TV shows, including Shrek, Battlestar Galactica and Madagascar.

This picture is from our wild night out in Singapore! Moments from this night include Jo being scared by a waiter and screaming when he asked her if she wanted another drink and lying on the kitchen floor of the hostel at 5 in the morning, much to the amusement of the rest of the residents. A birthday sambuca and free drink tokens adds up to a fun filled birthday night out!

Singapore Zoo! Today was my actual birthday and with proof of this I managed to get a badge and free entry to the zoo, result! It was pouring with rain today but we still managed to have fun. There were plenty of monkeys, much to Jo's delight. My favourites were the naked mole rats, manatees and this lovely pygmy hippo here!

 

Dongle related aggravation: I just wrote about 5 long paragraphs for you to read, then the internet crashed, so now I've decided on the photos and small captions approach. Maybe this is better that my boring ramblings, you decide! Anyway I had a fantastic birthday weekend, definitely one to remember.

Feeling in My Fingers

Currently it is bucketing down with rain, thunder and lightning thrown in for free! The weather is wet wet wet. Today's date: Tuesday the 16th October. I'll start from last week, haven't written anything in a while!

So last Monday was free hair cut day where a group of hairdressers come in to cut the children's hair. Jo and I also got in on the action which was a bit scary as it was hard to tell the hairdresser what we wanted. I think I managed to get the message across that I wanted to keep it quite long and I still have most of my hair so.... success!

On Friday we once again went to frequent our favourite beer spot where Mansu tried to get us to go to KL with him to his favourite cha cha cha club. We were very reluctant as getting into a car with a drunk man at the wheel was not appealing. We managed to decline although Malaysians on the whole do not like to take no for an answer. Mansu's gem of wisdom for the week: I have a baby face. I suppose it's good to look young. At about 1.30 we headed home where Jo decided a drunken skype session with friends would be a good idea. I'm not sure if she still felt that way in the morning.

The next day we got up early at 7.30 to get the bus and meet the fellow volunteers who are based more centrally in Kuala Lumpur. Weather verdict - torrential rain. We got off the bus and made our way to our suggested meeting place of Starbucks for a much needed coffee. We were the first there followed by Sarah, from Australia and Pete and Simon, of Bath, UK. We went for some lunch in Chinatown, swapped teaching and travelling stories and drank beer. Sunday was spent at the internet cafe planning lessons and being annoyed with STA Travel, So much hassle from them!

This week we are planning our trip to Singapore at the weekend, so exciting. Saturday Universal Studios and on Sunday a birthday at the zoo. This will be up there with the good birthdays, I lookforward to telling you how it goes.

Time Flies

They say time flies... well we're already a week into October!! Lots of small things have happened this week: an enormous beauty of a moth and some bats to add to the wildlife count, and Jo is now known as Joyce. I write this whilst drinking a cup of lemongrass tea in an attempt to keep the mosquitoes at bay, and try to upload my video for Gunnersbury so I can email it to Julie. This is no mean feat on our painfully slow dongle-net. Joyce and I usually end up wanting to cry after using it for about half an hour. What did we do before the days of technology eh?!

One of class A has been in hospital this week, Nu Nu. She lives at the home with Pastor Henry. One and a half years ago she was diagnosed with a kidney condition which they have now discovered is a disorder of the immune system. I decided it would be nice to make her some cards and pictures so we did this in class on Thursday, it definitely highlighted once more the loveliness of class A! Pretty cards with nice messages inside, colourful pictures, a wordsearch containing all our names in the class (genius!) and some fun maths problems. I'm sure Nu Nu will now be kept very occupied during her recovery. She's out of hospital now but it's sad to know that she'll be having treatment for the rest of her life.

Back to the slow internet issue, apologies for the lack of pictures, there's no point even trying to upload any! I hope that my writing is gripping enough to keep you interested! Or you just carry on reading because you are nice.

Yesterday there was no school because there was another funeral in the community, the second since we've been here. This time it was a small baby of one and a half months. Very sad.

In the evening we went to the pub and met up with our regulars there, although there are always new people to meet. On this occasion - Kelvin, a 40 something year old man who likes to spontaneously burst into dance or song, particularly to Gangnam Style. He also seems to find Joyce a lot easier to say than Jo, hence the name change. Also his workmate, who had numerous specific English related questions for Jo and me. Much of the evening was spent trying to explain the difference between demand and remand. It would also seem that Mansu the police officer enjoys analysing people. After a less than polite analysis of Jo last week, tonight he told me that I have a heart of stone... but am also very romantic. I wonder where he gets all this immense wisdom from.

Today King took us to Samuel's house, about 15 minutes walk away. He is a teacher at the school and father of Esther and Mary, two of my students. They live in a nice house with their baby brother Benjamin, currently suffering from chicken pox, Samuel's wife and sister. They cooked us an amazing lunch of rice, noodles, coconut curry, fish, beef and vegetables. I've decided that I need to learn how to cook fish properly because this was delicious. On the way home we borrowed some umbrellas to protect us from the blazing heat and entertained King with some old-lady Joyce jokes.

Later we are going to visit the house of one of my favourite adult students, Nu Cing. She has some traditional Myanmar costumes for us to look at.

The Zoo

On Friday being late for school, which we so usually are, was not an option. We set the alarm for 7.15 so we could press snooze multiple times and still be up in time. We left the house at 8.30 to go and meet the students by the big tree. Everyone was very excited, we're going to the zoo! We crossed the road to the Tescos car park where the coach was waiting. The children excitedly boarded the coach, unaware that up to a quarter of them would be suffering from travel sickness. Luckily Pastor Henry guided us to his van and we would make the trip to the zoo alongside the coach, every now and then waving when we found ourselves next to it. When we got to the zoo some of the children looked very queasy as they got off the coach.

After a quick drink of Milo for everyone we began our walk around the zoo. The first animals we came across were the giraffes. There was even a baby one, very cute. It was quite small, it must've been only a few weeks old. Next we saw some elephants, of the Asian variety. There is a lake in the middle of the zoo where many storks walk free. They remind me of the storks in Dumbo, bringing babies to all the animals. Well they must've been busy recently because we saw a lot of little ones! We then saw some birds, including a cassowary, hyenas and made our way to the ape centre. They had chimpanzees and orangutans, who seemed keen to play to the audience. Despite the playful orangutans messing around in their enclosure, the children had spotted something else in the ditch separating the enclosure from the visitors - a huuuuuuge fish. It must've been about two metres long. Other animals we saw - lions, sponsored by ING Direct, elephants, sponsored by Carlsberg, camels and tigers. We made our way back towards the entrance where lunch was waiting for us.

Someone had brought along a huge tub of rice, some chicken and vegetables in sauce and an egg omlette type dish. There was plenty to eat and everyone ate happily, already tired from the amount of walking we'd been doing in the morning. After lunch and a rest we continued our tour of the zoo. Saw the hippos, penguins, fish in the aquarium and reptiles. Lesson of the day - do not give your camera to a child to take pictures. My main worry of doing this was that he would drop my precious camera and it would smash into tiny pieces, but after a while I realised that he was ok at holding things and this was not really a risk. However, in his helpful nature he was trying to delete the bad pictures as he went along, not realising that he had been pressing delete then, "all from today." Devastation! I lost all my wonderful pictures from the morning's events!! After finally clocking on to what had happened I tried to keep my cool! (After all he was just trying to be helpful bless 'im!) I told him not to delete any more pictures and that I wanted to take some for a while.

We found ourselves back at the elephant enclosure. The elephant was standing by the ditch and could almost touch the children with his trunk. They were so excited and all crowded round reaching out to the beautiful beast! By this point everyone was tired and needed a rest so I took the opportunity to go round and re-take some pictures. We took four of the boys with us. This time round we found the honey tent where we could taste honey and see some bee specimens. The lady there gave us all a lolly as well, very nice. We also went on a bear hunt, and found them in an obscure corner of the zoo. After rejoining the others we had waffles and watched the animal show, consisting of many performances such as sea lion basketball and a cockatoo.

On the way home we got the coach with the children, who were all given a precautionary sick bag. It was a very bumpy ride, I understand why so many were sick on the way but this time I think most people were asleep after a day of excitement and lots of walking.

All in all a wonderful day! We went to bed early and slept for ages!

Karaoke Extraordinaire

Saturday day time was pretty uneventful. Come evening time we headed over to our favourite drinking place. The lady there is called Lily, she is a lovely Chinese lady who I can practise my Mandarin skills on. She knows my name now, yay. So after a few refills of Carlsberg for me, and a "delicious" mixture of Guinness and Tiger beer for Jo, everyone was pretty jolly (at 7.30 pm) and our friend the police officer suggested some karaoke. We answered with a puzzled look of slight worry and "is there actually karaoke in this village?!" Apparently yes. We politely said that we were unable to do karaoke because we were taking the children to watch the football on tv at 9.30, but Policeman tried his best to persuade us. In the end we agreed to go for an hour from 8 till 9. We went out of the pub and crossed the road and walked up the stairs. The karaoke place is split up into separate rooms, each with the tv, microphones etc. that you find in a karaoke. We all did a song each and then the others sang lots of Malaysian love songs. Maybe a few too many? The highlight was definitely belting out Robbie Williams's "Angels" with King on backing vocals.

After that we left the karaoke and went to meet the children from school, pretending that we had not been drinking beer and singing in the karaoke all before 9pm.The football was boring, I think I'm starting to like it less the more games I watch. Maybe I'll keep trying.

On Monday night we went to visit Simon and Bibiana again and their dad Bruno. Their cousins were also at the house, very busy! We managed to persuade some of them to become new recruits at adult class, go us. We sat and drank beer with Bruno and the others until quite late. We had lots of fun trying to pronounce lots of English words, especially those with the "th" sound - "THUUUURSDAY!" Lots of laughs! He then went on to tell us that he feels like we are his daughters, Simon and Bibi's older sisters, very nice! He also wanted to tell us a lot more but couldn't because of the language barrier, but we got the message. After a nice evening we went home at about 1am to plan our lessons for the next day, and sleep.

Today is Wednesday. With class A we started filming some videos that I'm going to put together and send to Gunnersbury. Hopefully they'll be able to make one to send back to us. The filming was very funny, some of them are naturals infront of the camera. We're now at the internet cafe because our dongle (internet stick) that we have at the flat is so mind numbingly slow that whenever we plug it into our laptops we lose the will to live. So now I'm watching some Neighbours online, and planning tonight's adult lesson and something for Class A tomorrow.

Adult Classes and Beers

Wildlife Count: Many wonderful lizards; a jolly frog; a giant cockroach; a threatening looking wasp thing; a beautiful and massive moth; many many many mosquitoes. I hate them! Only the mosquitoes, the rest of the animals are awesome in their own special ways, even the papa cockroach! Jo does not agree. She was the one to find it just chillin' in the bathroom, and alerted the rest of the flat with a scream. When King came to the rescue he attempted to chase it down but those things are fast. After a few attempts to stamp it to death and shouts of "Don't kill it!" from Jo it disappeared, never to be seen again... yet. But Jo is still living in the fear of when it might show its face again.

On Tuesday we started giving the adult lessons. We weren't sure how many people would come but there was a very goot turnout, so on Wednesday we split the class into two levels. Jo took the upper class, where they are able to talk about job interviews and CVs. My class is wonderful, we are learning "hello" and "goodbye" and making simple offers and requests. I spent much of the lesson teaching them how to say Thursday. They are all very enthusiastic and I hope my teaching skills are at least good enough for them to improve a little bit while we are here.

After class on Wednesday evening, King took us to meet some of the Malaysians of the community at a Chinese beer shop/bar thingy-ma-place. They were very welcoming and seemed very appreciative of what we are doing here. The people here are so warm hearted that they make us endless offers, such as "you are welcome to stay with my sister-in-law in Borneo" and "my wife and children will take you swimming".... "give me a tinkle if you ever need anything, I will sort it out for you." Definitely something we are not used to at home. After getting to know these people a little bit, King took us to visit the flat of some of the refugees. They run a little shop selling Burmese snacks and food from their flat. They laid out various things for us to try, such as a salad of dried nuts, lentils, sesame seeds and peas, with wet tea leaves. The bitter taste of the tea leaves is intended to balance out the saltiness of the salad. It was like nothing I've tasted but I think it was quite nice. Jo kindly said it was very tasty but I'm not sure they believed her on judging her facial expressions. We stayed in the flat talking to the girl there for a long time, and left at about 1.30 am, still needing to plan tomorrow's lesson at this point, oh dear! Late night ahead.

Yesterday (Friday) was yet again activity day, so naturally my morning consisted of playing three games of Scrabble. Lucky I like Scrabble. Jo's class had the pleasure of watching Toy Story 3 and then learning learning some fabulous songs. We about music class after school but the teacher didn't turn up this week. Nevertheless we stayed behind to have a practise, I'm starting to remember some of the songs I know on guitar and Jo's drumming skills are near expert. After that we came back to the flat to chill for a while. Later, we were excited to cook dinner because we have now been provided with a tin opener from Pastor Henry. We can open our tuna! But, unfortunately this proved to be harder than we expected. This is no normal can opener. After googling how to use it the tuna still refused to let us in. After half an hour of carving around the outside of the can and prising open with a fork, we finally made contact with the contents. And was it worth it? Oh yes. After a week of tofu, tuna is like the food of heaven.

After dinner we went for a walk to Tescos, to get some money, and then past the beer shop where we found King and our new friends from Wednesday evening. We joined them for a few beers and I discovered that I now have people to practise my Mandarin on. And discovered that my memory of languages comes to me more willingly after a beer or two. We then visited the flat of Simon and Bibiana, two children from my class A at school. We met their dad, Bruno, who is paralysed and has to stay in the flat all the time. He was such a nice man and seemed so happy to meet us. We promised that we would come and visit him often. We showed Simon and Bibi our houses on google maps, and some sights of London. They provided us with a dish of tomato, onion and beef, very delicious, then listened to some of their favourite music including One Direction, Katy Perry and Justin Bieber. Bruno was also a fan, such a cool dad! By 2am everyone was tired so we thanked them and went home to sleep.

Fun things! And serious things...

 Amongst some scandal of certain pictures being printed in a French magazine, Will and Kate had already continued on to the Solomon Islands and left Kuala Lumpur on Friday. We missed them! So instead, on Saturday we went back into KL to conduct a non-jetlagged tour around the city. We visited the Lake Gardens, home to many beautiful orchids, and the royal palace (from afar) amongst other sites. The bus journey home is very long and a changeover in Rawang is required. At this point a seemingly endless crowd of teenagers got on the bus. They decided that it would be fun to talk at us in the little English that they knew. Next thing we know the whole bus is staring in our direction. It was definitely a very awkward bus journey. Later that evening we took some of the children from Class A to meet
Pastor Henry and watch the football at 11pm. They were very excited. We all ordered food and drinks and most had a good time watching the match. I'm trying to like it but I have to admit that I think it should have been over in about fifty minutes rather than ninety. Maybe it will grow on me gradually.

We have also been learning a lot about Myanmar and the life of a refugee here. Myanmur, or Burma as some people know it, seems to be a very rural country where the people live a very primitive lifestyle. If they want to make food, they have to go outside and cut it from their crops. Their houses are made from wood and there is no electricity in most of the towns. We've heard stories of families being split up and the dangers of trying to cross borders into another country. Even here the refugees don't feel completely safe, with accounts of being robbed outside their flats and the police being less than helpful to deal with any conflicts.


On a lighter note, we have three school trips in the pipeline. The first will be a trip to the zoo, then a science centre in KL, and a waterpark just outside the city. Three very fun days ahead! Tonight we start teaching the adults. This will be a challenge but we are going to give it a good go! I have lots to do so I'll leave it for today's post. More to come in a few days!

One Week On...

We have been teaching the children for 4 days now. It took a few attempts to plan lessons to their level of English but we're getting there. Fridays (today) are activity day where we play games and stuff. There was also a TB vaccination drive going on so we had to have 2 classes each crowded into one room. Mine were happy playing an advanced version of catch and I was able to enjoy an intense game of Scrabble with the older kids, or, as it is know in Malay, 'Sahibba'. Very fun!

The Scrabble game was so gripping that we overran school time by half an hour. I then walked into another room to find Jo rocking out on the drums while three of the children were having a guitar lesson. The teacher said she had some kind of natural talent... for a first attempt at playing. He allowed us to come back next week for some drum and guitar tuition. Jo is "like beyond excited".

The other day we cooked for ourselves for the first time. In our flat we have a rice cooker and wok, so all meals must adapt to this equipment. I was in charge of the Chinese knife and Jo the wok. I expertly chopped the chicken and vegetables which Jo adeptly knocked together in the wok with some oil to create a culinary sensation. Success.

Yesterday after school we decided to go and sit on the field outside our flats. Promptly two Malay Indian boys came over to make friends. They seemed funny and we convinced them to stop smoking as they were only thirteen years old. Another guy got out of his car to come and take some pictures of us. We then played some games with them and races while the other guy who spoke no English sat next to me taking pictures of us on his phone. Who knew we'd be so famous! Running in the heat is hard. We came back to our flat and left them at the field. About five minutes later we heard a knock on the door. They found us! Not sure how. Timwei was very wary of the Indian children and we managed to persuade them to leave. A serious chat about the safety of Malaysia followed.

Tomorrow it's the weekend wehay! Plan A: operation Find Will and Kate. I believe they depart from KL tomorrow so this may involve a trip to the airport. Plan B: operation Stay Awake on the Tourist Bus. And take more photos. Should be good! Then Chelsea are playing at night, FACT. So we'll go and see our good friends at Restoran Salam.

Getting into the Swing

So the football wasn't even on, turns out it's next Saturday. But instead we got to watch wrestling for a few hours until 11pm only to discover that the restaurant were going to show Ice Age instead. Oh well! We've made friends with the Indian restaurant now, I think they find us very entertaining. On the way home the police decided to stop us while we were crossing the road. They seemed interested in what we were doing in the area, they probably thought we were lost. A lot of people find it weird that we're here, lots of stares and lots of hellos.

Sunday was mainly a sleeping day and then lesson planning for Monday when we would start school.

School is from 9-12, two one and a half hour periods. I have two classes, A and B! Class A is the oldest class, they range between the ages of 11 and 16. Their English is quite ok so they usually understand what to do. Class B are younger and a lot more shy to speak. I've learnt about half their names, but a lot of them are really hard to pronounce. When you walk into the class in the morning, all the students stand up and shout "GOOD MORNING TEACHER!" It's great! And at the end they shout "THANK YOU TEACHER!" If only children in the UK were this nice!

There's a lot of wildlife here, some very big beetles and moths fly in and out of the room. Also, lizards! I love them! Jo is not so much of a fan.There are also MANY MANY mosquitos. My "maximum plus" strength insect repellant does not seem to be doing the job. I'll just have to be itchy for these few months I suppose!

We'd been looking forward to going into KL again at the weekend to see William and Kate on their tour of Malaysia, but today we found out that they're leaving the area on Friday. Very sad, we'll have to think of a plan B!

We Made It!

We arrived safely in Kuala Lumpur after an 11 hour flight to Hong Kong, a two hour stopover and another flight which lasted 3hrs and 20 minutes. After Jo commenting loudly on how bad it would be if we were to star in the TV show 'Banged Up Abroad', we safely made it through immigration, no questions asked. We were picked up at KL Central train station by two ladies, Saradha and Kala. They took us to lunch. "You must be so hungry," they said. We replied with a yes, although we had had a total of three meals plus various other snacks on the plane. We went to a nice Chinese restaurant where we met Pastor Henry, who took us to our village, Bukit Sentosa where the school and our flat is located.

We arrived at the flat and our flatmate King, another teacher, was waiting. Some children from the school swiftly picked up our heavy bags with absolute ease and took them up to our flat. We chatted with King and our other flatmate Timwei for a while, then had a little tour of the village. We live right next to the big Tesco, very useful! Our block of flats is where a lot of the Myanmar refugees live and many of them go to the school that we will be teaching at. The next day we went to school to meet the children and so on. We also met Hannah, the previous volunteer. It was her last day at the Agape School and she gave us lots of tips for when we start on Monday.

In the evening Pastor Henry took us out for dinner with his wife Serena and a few of the children from the home. It was delicious, we had some Indian curry with a varity of breads. Also got to sample some traditional Malaysian tea, very tasty!

Today we've been into Kuala Lumpur, I think we are now experts at getting the bus. The city seems cool, we went up the Menara tower and then took a tourist bus around. I kept falling asleep, I don't think the jetlag has fully left me yet. Now we are just passing the time before we go out for dinner. I think we will go to the same restaurant as last night as they will be showing the Chelsea game. One of us is a big fan, and the other not so much... but I'm sure it will be fun anyway!

Bye Bye UK

Tomorrow I'll be leaving the country with my good friend Jo and jetting off to Malaysia. We'll be there for 3 months, then we're going to stay with our bestie Tombo in South Korea at Christmas time. The nervous/excited combo is going on, keep switching between the two. I think it'll be amazing once we get there. I've got plane activities planned such as colouring book fun and making friendship bracelets. The time should fly by!

Yesterday would have been my first day back at work after the summer holidays, so I'm going to take this opportunity to shout out to the Gunnersbury crowd. The most amazing group of people; Jay, Fem, Ben, Suzette, Sonje, Joan, Julie, Nick, Toyah and our super-boss Julian. I had a great 2 years working with these people but it's exciting to be doing something new. Maybe it will be a stepping stone to other cool things in life.

Obviously I'm writing this instead of packing, and Neighbours is on now. Ultimate procrastination. There's still time!

Back in a few days with the first impressions.

Far out man!

This weekend my sister Hazel and I drove down to Plymouth to visit my auntie. It's the furthest I've ever driven before and apart from a crazy lorry driver on the M3 it went largely ok. I now have a thing against all Co-Op lorry drivers though! Most of the journey was spent singing along at the top of our voices to some classic tunes.

The next day we got the train to Looe so that we could go swimming in the sea. It was wonderful! Sea swimming is one of my favourite things in the world. After the initial shock of the temparature it feels amazing! It was quite windy so it was hard to actually swim because of the massive waves but I loved it none the less. I think I got a little bit sunburnt as well, whoops. Here's a nice photo of the beach.

The main event of the trip happened that evening. Our auntie was holding a hippy themed birthday party so we got all dressed up and had a groovy time! I was able to practise my henna skills on a few people as well.

 

My hippy henna and clothes

This is a picture of Daz the dinosaur, purchased because he is awesome and to keep the passenger in the car comfy. The journey home was very rainy. It was hard to see things which was a little bit scary and annoying. We made it though and I think this trip has helped me to become less of a nervous driver and to tap into my inner hippy.

Photos - first attempt!

One of the things I like to do in my spare time is make things and be a little bit crafty! I've learnt how to make flowers out of felt, like these ones.

 

Last summer I went to my first wedding (not including as a child with my mum and dad!). It happened to be a Muslim wedding and it was amazingly beautiful. The wedding was made up of a few events over a few days. The first one I guess is the equivalent of a hen night, the girls all go and the bride gets really exquisite henna or mehndi painted on her arms and hands. Since then I've been practising, I love it! 

First Post!

Hello! I'm Megan. If you don't know me, I'm 23 and I'm from London. I've decided to keep a blog because I'm going to be living in Malaysia in a month from now and thought this would be a fun way to keep my friends and family updated on my travels! I hope it's not too boring to read!