Thursday, March 28, 2013

CNY, Indonesia, Borneo- February & March

February-

This was one of the most hectic months of my life! On February 10th Chinese New Year began. To celebrate I invited fellow YES abroad student Hannah Foster to stay with my family. In addition to her several AISEC students from Indonesia, China, Taiwan, Hungary, New Zealand, and Czech Republic ended up at our house. We celebrated with firecrackers, lots of food, a wishing lantern, and a midnight trip to the temple to receive our blessings for the year. The next morning I received a blessing and red packet from my host parents and spent the following days traveling to Singapore and a small Chinese village exchanging oranges and collecting MONEY!


Cutting the festivities short me and the AFS Perak chapter jetted off to Jogjakarta, Indonesia. There we explored ancient Buddhist and Hindu temples, got hot stone massages and even got a chance to met up with two of the YES Abroad Indonesia exchange students. I love the beautiful architecture and street art that is famous in Jogjakarta, and the local people were extremely friendly. It was interesting to see the differences between Indonesia and Malaysia and get a glance of what life what might have been like if I had gone on exchange to Indonesia. 


Shortly after our return to Kuala Lumpur we shortly jetted off AGAIN to East  Malaysia, also known as Borneo. Our destination was Mabul Island, Sabah. After a bumpy stormy boat ride to the island we arrived and were amazed by the natural beauty and clear blue waters. While most of my pictures of the island are from the resort side, we in fact had the opportunity to stay on the village side of the island. This gave us the chance to witness the local culture, sea gypsies, and the influence of their neighbor The Philippines. 

March-
March was a pretty normal month for me consisting of school, volunteering and eating- a lot. 
- Attended my first Malay wedding/first Muslim wedding.
- Met with a local food blogger to learn more about Johor food, as well as share some of my favorites with him. Blog post can be found here:




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