Relatives, Moving, Australians, Malaysians

It's been quite a while since i last made a post. Anyway, I'm just taking a break from my form 6 story for the time being. Sorry to one of my kids, coz i haven't written the section of the story down yet. Well, in the meantime, let me just tell you'll about my past few days in Australia.

First of all, on Saturday, i went to my Granduncle & Grandaunty's house. It was very very nice of them, they came all the way across Brisbane to fetch me to their place, which by car, took about half an hour (it was a weekend, the traffic was wonderful, i can't imagine on a working day =S)

Well, their house is, how do i put it? Very beautiful. Especially the garden. I also regretted not taking any photographs, damn it la... The next time i visit their place i am definitely going to take some photos of their place.

Their house is near a forest reserve also. In the immediate area there are a lot and i mean A LOT of birds. More than what i get on campus. They also have birds such as cockatoos and many other birds from the same family in addition to all the common birds. They have a creek flowing nearby which according to the locals have platypuses in the waters, very very rare though. According to my granduncle, there have also been sightings of kangaroos in the area once but have since stopped.

They treated me very well there. Most of the meals i had were Malaysian (yay!). They also had a dog, a white one and i can't remember the breed thought. It was cute, furry, bouncy, and spoiled. Haha... She was fun to play with, by the way, her name is Whisky. She's very old though, 12 years and getting slightly blind.

They also brought me sight-seeing a bit at nearby Mount Cootha. Spectacular sight of Brisbane. I was also taken on a tour to my "rival" university, the one which i couldn't go due to my results, University of Queensland which is colossal. I thought my university was already huge. Here was just... You really need a bicycle to travel around.

On Sunday, they sent me all the way back to the campus again... They're so nice i feel very paiseh leh... They also gave me some food for me to keep, a can of peanuts, a box of muesli bars and a bottle of acar(there's more about the bottle of acar).

On Sunday itself, i had to move over to my permanent accommodation in the neighbouring campus. Here, the rooms are bigger and there are a lot more closets. So far, the neighbours here are more civic minded, not to mention quite a few of them are a lot friendlier than in the previous campus.

Well, I've pretty much unpacked already if you are wondering. If there's one thing i like about this place, it is the fact that it is quieter than the previous college (like i said, more civic conscious). My room is on the 5th floor facing away from the university. I get a pretty good view of some of the Brisbane suburbs as well as the distant mountains. Too bad my windows are so damn dirty that i can't take a photo to show you'll.

Another annoying thing about this place, is there is no place for you to hang out your clothes. Yes, they have dryers, but frankly, i don't like the smell of the clothes after they come out of the dryers. This is the time i was happy i packed along one of my scout strings. I'm going to pull up a clothes line in my room. XD

Like i was saying, the people here are much friendlier. Well, yesterday i was asked out to join some of the current students to go for a movie. I accepted, and went to watch Batman. We left the college at about 5pm and took a bus down to South Bank where there was a cinema. We haven't had our dinner when we left, so after we arrived and got our tickets, one of them said, "I'm hungry, lets go get something to eat".

We then walked over to one of the local convenience shops and i got my first true case of "damn I'm away from Malaysia". I was walking around the shop looking for those Gardenia Sambal Ikan Bilis Buns. I was walking in circles and just when i was about to ask the shop attendant where they were, I suddenly remembered "shit la, this is Australia" and sighed. I was also looking around in the cooler for a Justea and realized that it wasn't just there isn't this drink but a lot our local Malaysian soft drinks.... Haih... Come on Malaysia, do your business internationally, export our yummy food!!!

In the end, i bought myself a packet of chips and a bottle of Ribena. That was my dinner mind you, and i tell you this for experience. No matter how good it may look on TV, it is not fun having potato chips as your dinner, trust me. It is also not as tasty as you may have hoped.

After the movie, which was good by the way, they started looking for dinner. It was 9 something already, for me it was more like supper. We searched around the immediate area but most of the shops were closed with the exception of the pubs and some of the specialty shops. No wonder a lot of people told me there isn't much night life here in Brisbane. In fact, most shops will close by 5.30pm. We took a bus then straight into town center.

There we had Subway for dinner(supper in my case). Quite nice, i think when i eat out, this place will become one of my staple restaurants also. They serve sandwiches, healthy and rather cheap also. We took a bus back to campus after that.

Did you'll know, there is something we all Malaysians have which i like to call Kebangaan Malaysia? Once you reach a foreign country, you really start noticing how remarkable Malaysians are in this aspect.

All Malaysians, please do this now, count how many languages can you speak? Including dialects of each major branch of language. Well? How many did you get?

I for one, got :-
1. English
2. Malay
3. Mandarin
4. Cantonese
5. Hakka
6. A slight comprehension of Hokkien

Are you'll seeing the direction we are heading yet? Haha... I have met countless other people that have already said "Cool man... Damn cool..."

Then there's the second part to this.
Try this, think of a really long sentence. REALLY LONG. Then quickly say the sentence and in between just switch between the languages you know.

Notice how quickly we can change the languages? In fact for me, i don't need too much of an effort to do it. I can change almost instantly. What? I'm pretty sure you're thinking "Hey, this is no big deal". Let me give you an example. There was this Hongkie to challenged me to this. She can speak Mandarin, Cantonese and English. Let's just say she can't switch languages as fast.

Another worthy mention is the standard of English we Malaysians have. I think many of us have been brain washed to believe that in comparison to most of the world, Malaysians have lousy English. It is true to a certain extent. We certainly pale in comparison to the West. But as i have seen so far, our English is certainly much much better than a lot of the Far East and Middle East Asians. No, I'm not talking based on my standards. =P I'm talking based on my friends in Malaysia. Most of the Band 3s in my form 6 class can easily beat about a third of those people in terms of standards of English. Some of the people i have met, can barely even speak a proper sentence with accurate pronunciation. Whereas, even though our vocabulary may be weak, we at least speak in relative accuracy.

Coming back to the acar mentioned earlier, do you know how valuable it is having just a little bottle of Malaysian food?

Me and 3 others (2 Malaysians and 1 Indonesian) are all new students here at the university. Generally, me and one of the Malaysians are faring much better off due to the fact we can still get Asian cooking in the dining hall. The other 2 however, stay off campus and are desperately missing South East Asian cooking (Malaysian cooking in other words la, but got one Indon ma....)

Yesterday, they visited my room. I was actually going to bring the acar out to share with them later. Anyway, they paid a visit to my room as they wanted to have a look at the condition of the hostel. So i took out the bottle and offered some of it to them. I can see the expression of the Indon girl's face when she saw it, "Ooo... Is that Acar?"

Anyway, they all enjoyed it very much. The Korean couple that came with them also liked it.

Me? I still have some left. I was just eating some of it before i started on this blog. It is nice i tell you. ALL Malaysian food is nice when most of the time you just have roast or baked stuff to eat.... Lol...

Enjoy your Malaysian food, =P

5.17pm
23 July 2008