Blue Mosque

On Saturday (after a long planning process) we finally visited a Blue Mosque in Shah Alam – about 45 min by train from Kuala Lumpur.

Our trip took about 3 hours & our crew consisted of 3 beautiful ladies – Tya(Indonesia), Rina(Kenya) & me (Czecho-Malaysia). This mosque has the talles Minaret in the whole Asia, 4th talles in the World, they say. It was built in 1985 and looks very pretty. All in blue. When we got there, we got to know, that unfortunately today we can not get in, since we are not Muslim and we will not pray. Tya was the only one who could enter to pray. She is Muslim. Saturday was the day, when all people, who are planning to go to Mecca rehearsed praying and going around Kaaba(the black holy stone). There was even artificial Kaaba in front of the main entrance and two big circles-to go around. Even though we couldn’t get in the Mosque, we took many nice pictures and had fun, chat & walk around.
The view was really impressive.

Deepavali - Indian "Christmas"

Deepavali or Divali is a major Indian festival that is very significant in Hinduism. Known as the "Festival of Lights," it symbolizes the victory of good over evil, and lamps are lit as a sign of celebration and hope for humankind.

I am grateful to experience this festival here in Malaysia, since Indian community here in Malaysia is vast. Plus I live in an Indian neighborhood - Brickfields.

On the streets there are many boots, stalls displaying clothes, flowers, food, Indian CDs, DVDs… During the night the main street is: Too loud (Indian music), Litten up with tons of little glitter-lights, full of people & Bustling with life!

Since I am working for an originally Indian company, we also wanted to remind this big festival here & with my colleagues we made a plan to decorate our office with “Rangoli”. This is an ornament made of colored rice. It took us about 4 hours (coloring the rice, putting it together into a nice ornament…) We did that after office hours on Friday & we had a lot of fun while doing that. My colleagues told me, that I would never imagine doing this when going to Malaysia to work in Marketing :)

Now - how did we do the rangoli:
Fist colour the rice:

Then put rice on the pre-painted ornament with a chalk:

And... done :)

AIESEC AWARDS NIGHT 2007

This night is worth blogging or at least worth sharing pictures. It was very nice event, the ones who deserved it were awarded, those who did not deserve it, had a lot of fun :P I had a lot of fun and a lot of delicious food!
One of the “cultural shocks” were the performances during awards – Like “grammar school group pop dancing” performed by Uni students, “two girls dressed in black&white, dancing on the stage on Chinese music”…. Nice but shocking at this kind of event.
After the event we got to the Zouk club, where the official Moto Grand Prix pre-party was in the full swing. DJs like Seb Fontaine were pumping up the place and with my friend Katalina we ended up jumping on the couches in the VIP area :P Very very nice evening.

Today

This is a special post about Today. Today, the 18th October 2007. Could be one of the normal days I have here in KL, but... same same but DIFFERENT...
The day started nice, I kissed my Sweetheart for good bye and went to work, slightly late, since we slept in, but not too late. I had my daily agenda, work work, chasing people to finish some stuff, exchanging some emails with my friend, roomie and co-worker Tya.
During lunch break we made plan with my other colleague for another trip (spontaniously we decided to go in a month for 3 days to a real Malaysian jungle). I love planning trips!
Lunch we had with two other colleagues - fun, smiling around, eating Indian food, pleasant atmosphere. Then - shopping spree - in the shopping center we all three bought an Indian dress - promotion :P Tomorrow we are all wearing it, since we are invited for an Indian occasion after work!

5:30 was quickly to come, the time was passing fast since we had somehow a lot of work & fun at work:) Random comments of different colleagues of mine!

The concern of the day - buying dress for Saturday occasion - AIESEC Award Night. With Tya we left rather tired office and travelled downtown, Bukit Bintang - neighbourhood full of shopping center. Our mission was not very successfull, regarding shopping, but we had a lot of fun, relaxed evening, during our shopping I broke my shoes' heel :P and Tya was also hunting for her new shoes, since the ones with a little hole are not cool anymore :P !
Glad coming home, relaxing shower... Nice to be "home" again after the whole day... But very nice, "ordinary" day!
Let's get a nice sleep now :)

My Perception of Malaysia after 4 months

Four months in Malaysia. This country is not that distant, foregin and exotic for me anymore. I feels like at home here nowadays. Second half of my stay is ahead. 3,5 months working in my company and half month of travelling over Cambodia and Thailand - than's the plan.

What in Malaysia doesn't bother me anymore?
*I dont get angry, when I am obviously ripped of in a cab.
*I dont get angry, when something doesn't work ("What to do" approach to things).
*I got used to the daily rain(rainy season&storms, that came now)
*I got used to the food.
*I got used to the style of working (but learning from my job!)
*Hygiene (I am more resistant towards dirt) However, Malaysia compared to Vietnam is superclean.
*I got used to EARNING my own money & keeping budget
*My new lifestyle - working time X free time X travelling X enjoying myself :)

Still matters for me
*Food - more cooking at home, European/Czech food is treat for me (obviously not for my stomach:S, strange, how it fights my delicious favourite food)
*Family & Friends back home (missed big AIESEC LTC Sec gathering:( )
*Keeping up good job - learning from things, my job is a big variety, challenging & satisfactory for me
*Facebooking :P i think i got addicted :)

Feels strange
*Back home is already snowing! (while here 26 degrees feels like cold!)
*Christmas ahead
*Normally I would be sitting at my university
*I am less resistant towards alcohol :S A beer and I am tipsy already... :)
*Fellow trainees/friends leaving Malaysia (that's life)

Smazak - Fried Cheese

After 4 months. Potatoes with butter, smazak v trojobalu/fried cheese-carefully greezy, tatar sauce, tomatoe salad, coke. What a feeling:)
BTW: Nasledujici den mi mily smazacek privodil pocity kolem zaludku pripominajici houpajici se lod... Vtipny, jak tu nejim tucna jidla.. a kdyz jedno prijde... :)))

My Cutlure Shocks in Vietnam

There are several things that surprised me in Vietnam (after 4 months in Malaysia). They are worth sharing, I am sure!

*Motorbikes EVERYWHERE! Adrenalin while crossing streets!!!

*Seeing Rice Fields & how rice is dried
*Graves & Thombs on rice fields (not a normal organized graveyard) Enjoy your Vietnamese rice...

*Cows crossing the streets. Let's wait, please:)

*Electricity on the streets of HaNoi. Thousands of cables, unsafe... (barbers on the streets just plug in their device and carry on with their "black" business)

*Girls from AIESEC we met are studying "World Economy". How can you study this in a Socialistic system? I guess different topics then we have back home in "International Trade" classes

*Littering on the streets - no trashbins (at night they clean the streets)I tried to seek a dustbin, but then I gave up. Strange feeling to throw away a plastic bottle just like that...

*Vietnamese people - blindly follow the system, hardly get any learning point from things. At the first sight very friendly...
*Noone really speaks English in Vietnam. I love Malaysia.
*They promise everything. Always say "YES" even they are not sure about things. And be sure 90% even dont know what are you talking about...
*When they want to travell somewhere, they have to deposit a huge sum of money to the bank, to make sure that they will come back

*Flexible business - when it starts to rain, each street shop sells and displays rain coats!

*Food in the "restaurants" rather good - a lot of beef - undercooked
*Hygiene. No comment. :P
*Menu in Restaurants-Meat: Pigeon, Turtle, Snake, Beef, Pork, Chicken, Cock, Frog... No vegetarian meals :P
*Maybe I even ate a cat.. (see a VIETNAM post)
*5 Beers for 1 USD - dream land:)

VIETNAM

Past week I spent in one of the South-East Asia Countires. Vietnam. I took a week off at work and on Sunday flew with Air Asia Low cost airlines. My travell buddies were my friend and colleague from work Jana from Germany and my boyfriend Eduardo from Peru joined us on Monday.

Vietnam is still a Socialistic Country, Communism in a full swing. My first challenges were with getting visa. I had to apply in KL, Malaysia and after the whole hassle (bringing chocolate, begging them...) they issued visa for me & I got them on Friday, while flying on Saturday night :S

We spent 5 days around Ha Noi, the capital located on the North.
Sunday we just hanged around in HaNoi, we met AIESEC girls (AIESEC, truly global network:)), they took us to a nice restaurant to eat some typical Vietnamese food. A lot of beef, spring rolls, rice. Btw. my chop sticks eating style is upper-intermediate now!
In the evening we were just hanging out in the "cosy" streets full of trees & bustling with life, ppl sitting on streets, eating, riding their motorbikes, which were EVERYWHERE, EVERYTIME, EVERY DIRECTION! In this city as a local i guess you never get bored.

Monday we set off for a very nice trip, South from HaNoi. Tam Coc natural reserve. Spectacular views, beautiful countryside. Seeing how the rural areas look like - a lot of rice fields, rice is being dried in front of the houses, on streets, while motorbikes are riding on it, chicken wonder around... Beautiful hills, rivers. We took a boat/canoe ride though caves... pretty interesting and nice. In the evening we met Edu and went for a dinner downtown. From now on there was 3 of us to survive in Vietnam:)
Tuesday we should have gone to UNESCO reserve Halong Bay - East from Ha Noi, but (as natural disasters follow me here in Asia) we couldnt go due to Typhoon (Tajfun), that just came to Vietnam. Strong wind and rain till the end of our stay in Vietnam. So we had to reconcider our plans. It was kinda dissapointment, but what to do. :)
So the master plan was: Parfume Pagoda Trip - we went with a bus about an hour out of HaNoi, to the "middle of nowhere village" there we got off the bus and in rather strong rain we were seated in a canoe, a Vietnamese lady with a typical Vietnamese hat was rowing and 4 of us (one Dutch/Iranian guy) were sitting and "admiring" beauties of the countryside in a downpour. After 2 hours of freezing on a boat we reached our aim - place from where we could walk to Parfume Pagoda. We took a cable car, though, to get there. The view there was AMAZING! Pagoda was OK, buddhistic place of sacrifice, carved in a cave. It's called "Parfume" due to some legend... :)
Way back on the boat was a way better, since it was not raining anymore, we were chatting with our new friend from Holland, who was in Vietnam on holidays. We talked through Dutch politics, issues... interesting:P
Wednesday we were hoping that the Typhoon is gone and we could go to Halong Bay, but not really, all the cruises were cancled. A day in HaNoi was rather nice, eventhough it was raining. Ho Chi Minh Museum was okay. A highlight was a Water Puppet Theatre in the eveining - a typical Vietnamese cultural thingy. Viet music is played on typical intstruments, and wooden puppets are showing different typical scenes. Very nice.
The Experience of the day: Restaurant we went to for a lunch. We ordered a food and I decided to go to the bathroom. Cutlure shock. SUPER DIRTY. When I wanted to wash my hands, i had to overlook all the used and not washed dishes from the "restaurant" guests. But OK. On the way out of the restaurant we saw a bag which was full of CATS- miauing!!! Well, maybe my lunch was not beef...

Thursday we were still hoping... waking up early for the possible curise... but we were not ment to see Halong Bay. One more day in "chaotic" HaNoi. After sleep in we dicided to have a lunch in one of the restaurants. Infront of the place was a funeral preparations in a full swing. We ordered the food and watched the scene. After 15 minutes of hungry waiting for our lunch a waiter came: "Sorry, but we dont have any food" :S well, noting surprises us anymore:) We changed a pub. The other one seemed to be ok, so we ordered. When waiting for the food, i spotted that at the grill table is a cage full of pigeons. And right at the moment i saw the cage, one of the pigeons was ment to be a lunch of somebody. In a sec it was on a grill... Nothing surprises me in Vietnam anymore. It was a tough noon for all 3 of us. Disappointment from Halong Bay, restaurant hunting, rain...

Later on we went to the Museum of Ethnology. That was our mood turning point and pretty interesting experience.
I had the opportunity to talk to a guy who was a guide there. He shared with me the whole communistic situation. My eyes opened. People are threatened. Noone steands up against the regime. 70% out of 82 mil. of inhabitants are working in agriculture industry -rice- and have no idea about the Western world-> they support the communistic party... And I could really see, how my country (Czechoslovakia) suffered 20 years ago as well. Many questions and thoughts raised in my head...
Evening was very nice too. We had kinda BBQ on one of the busy street. Beer, meat, bread!!! We met Australian guys, who we spent the evening later on drinking beer and going to a local pub. Cool!
Friday was absolutely "holidays" relaxing - sleep in till 11, lunch, souvenirs shopping, coffee in a Cafe (oh, how much I miss Cafes in Kuala Lumpur!!) and then just saying good bye to HaNoi and taxi took us to the airport...