Malaysia

We arrived in Penang, Malaysia at 0800, on Wednesday, the 19^th of March. I had a semester at sea temples and mosques trip that I signed up for. I was with a group of about 40 students and we were all tendered onto the land by the lifeboats. As we got to land, we hopped on the tourist buses and started our adventure. Our first stop was an old Chinese Temple, called the “Goddess of Mercy Temple.” It was beautiful and looked very…uh I don’t know Chinese? As we entered we were surrounded by a cloud of incense. The tiled walls depicted different types of colorful Buddha’s all representing a different aspect, such as wealth, success, health etc (much like Hinduism). It was just really neat to hear the prayers to Buddha and see how dedicated the Malaysians are to their religion. After the Goddess of Mercy Temple, we were off to the Chor-su Kong Temple, better known as the snake temple, because of it’s dedication to the snakes. It was another Chinese shrine, similar to the Goddess of Mercy Temple, except with snakes. And I got a picture with me holding two snakes!

After the Snake Temple, we then went to visit a mosque used by the Malay Muslim majority. It was really cool to go inside a mosque. You had to cover up from head to toe in order to get in, and I did. Women were draped in black, white, yellow, and pink fabric, where you could only see their eyes. There was also a large piece of rock inside the mosque, which is directed towards Mecca. Each Muslim was praying on their personal carpet, on their knees towards the rock. The mosque was circular and very simplistic inside, and yes, extremely silent; much different from the Chinese temples. We then went to a Hindu temple, which was quite similar to the Hindu temples in India, where you walk around and have shrines to each god which represent a different aspect of life. The door was my favorite, as it was covered in bells, which is to keep away the evil spirits. Then finally, after the Hindu temple, we ended up at a large Buddhist temple which was awesome! The architecture was so authentic, colorful, and detailed, and home of the reclining Buddha. I saw the Buddha and he was MASSIVE! It was pretty cool…and the rest of the temple, seemed much like a small town with hidden shrines for the Buddhists to pray too.

The second day me and a few other semester at sea students were off to Kuala Lumpur, after a morning at the chocolate factory, where you sample ALL of the chocolate that they sell. I’m not kidding, I was definitely in heaven, and a little sick to my stomach…haha. Anyways, Kuala Lumpur is a large busy, robust city in Malaysia. We took a 5 hour bus ride, a total of 8 dollars with really really nice seats to the city. It was the nicest bus I have ever been on. However, it was a long bus ride there, especially since we were sitting next to a guy from India who kept pouring out his feelings about his ex-girlfriend and how he was so depressed. He wouldn’t stop talking. I guess that’s what you get for an 8 dollar bus ride…haha. After that, one girl in our group had the luck of him pouring his feelings out to her…it was really funny haha.

Once we got to Kuala Lumpur, we didn’t do too much except explore the busy city, eat AMERICAN food (because the Indian food killed our stomach in India) and go up the KL Tower. It looks much like the space needle and is the 4^th highest tower in the world. It was nice to finally see a real, busy city. I felt like I was kind of in America. It was a nice feeling, especially eating at Outback Steakhouse and Hard Rock Café…haha.

We got back to Penang on Saturday after a day of travel. Once we got back I went to the botanical gardens with Paige and our friend Caroline. The gardens were pretty, but it did downpour on us there. Paige was soaking wet, to the point where a Malaysian man gave Paige his umbrella because she needed it so bad. Luckily I had a scarf that I wrapped draped on my head to protect me from the rain. Once the downpour stopped, the monkeys appeared. We pretty much just hung out with the monkeys all that day, went into a couple of other temples, and got a really really good, healthy, Malaysian meal. That night, Caroline, Paige and I were off to the night market, where I got a whole season of one of my favorite television shows, Greys Anatomy for only 6 dollars! The episodes work too! Although, they aren’t too great of quality. I then got some Ralf Lauren Perfume for only about 5 dollars, but once I opened it, it smelt like watered down perfume, filled with dirty water. I’m still a little unhappy about that. Besides that, the night market was awesome, and everything was so so cheap!

The final day, Ryan and I went out for Easter. We couldn’t find an Easter Service though which was a bummer. So we went to this fish market restaurant where we had lobster and prawns and got to choose our lobster! It was so much fun and so good! We then didn’t have any plans so we headed to the ship early that day. They had a service on the ship that night though which was nice. It was a different Easter, especially not being able to celebrate it with my family, but it was fun. I hope that all of you had a fantastic Easter, and I’m just letting you all know that I miss you so much! I hope that everyone is doing well, and thank you Mom, Dad, Scott, Stephen, Erin and Corey for your sweet emails/ letters on my birthday. Thanks for thinking about me and I love you all! J

Now I’ll be in Vietnam in a couple of days!