Singapore!

That's where I am right now!

Got to use my brand new passport, woo! \o/

My brother works in Singapore at the moment. He has this amazing flat - with a swimming pool! - so I decided to crash :)

Well, hello there.

Singapore's great - it's clean, it has a wonderful mix of cultures, the buildings and structures are out of this world, and it has an amazing MRT subway system that reminds me so much of London :)

The domes *snigger* and the giant supertrees in Gardens by the Bay.

The MRT subways remind me of London.. only it's a lot more clean, orderly and punctual!

Central Business District at night, viewed from Marina Bay Sands Skypark.

Singapore Flyer and the darkened corner of their F1 circuit.

Things have been weighing me down a lot lately, but my travels and photography have cheered me up somewhat. I need to figure out another cheaper way to get myself out of the doldrums once I get back home..

Quest for a Licence - Pt 1 : Malaysian driving theory test

There are several stages to get through in order to get a Malaysian driver's licence. First, you have to attend a six-hour(!) Kursus Pendidikan Pemandu (Drivers Education Course). Second, you do a computerized theory test, which consists of multiple-choice questions across three parts: colour blindness, vision and finally the road rules. The first two parts are the preliminary checks which would allow you to proceed to the final and main part of the assessment. In this last part, you're given 45 minutes to answer 50 questions, where the pass mark is 42, or 84%.

If you happen to fail the colour blindness test - like get *any* of the answers wrong - then you're barred from continuing with your driving course! You have to go to a certified eye specialist, who would then have to release a letter certifying that you're fit to drive. Once this letter's produced, you're then allowed to retake the colour blindness test again.

So imagine my panic when I tried one of the model questions in the booklets they gave us and I couldn't make out what it was!

What's the number? Can you see it?*

:-|

So in a state of panic, I practised my way through all 500 model questions and their answers last night. I ended up sleeping at 2am when I was due to be picked up at 7:30am this morning.

:P

So I got to the official test centre in some random shoplot area in the middle of nowhere. After a short wait, I was allocated a computer workstation to begin my test. With a pounding heart, I keyed in my details and clicked 'Start' - only to be greeted by the first question of the road rules part, with a timer commencing the countdown.

o_O

Eh? What happened to the colour blindness test?

I thought the wrong program must've been executed - maybe there was a different program that I needed to run. I clicked 'End test' and the screen asked, "Are you sure you'd like to end your test and submit your answers now?"

It was only then that my sanity intervened and said, "HOLY SHIT DON'T PRESS THAT BUTTON, ARE YOU CRAZY?"

So I hastily stepped away from my computer and went back to the reception lady. I told her that my computer had bypassed the colour blindness test and went straight to the road rules part.

She just shrugged and said, "It's OK, it's all in one go, just carry on."

Err, what?

I went back to my computer and proceeded with the test. The whole time, my mind was thinking did she really say what I think she said? Nevermind.

So once I *actually* finished the test, I ended the test *correctly* and the screen immediately showed me my score: 47/50.

:D :D :D *cartwheels* \o/

I went back out to the waiting area feeling absolutely smug about myself.

Until the reception lady started calling out our names..

Reception lady: Aminah! Ooo Aminah.. Sangat bagus (very good)! 50! Full marks! Boleh dapat hadiah ni (you can get a reward)..

-_-"

When I got called up, she acknowledged that I've passed, despite my queries a second time about the missing colour blindness test. The funniest thing is that my certificate actually says I have passed my colour blindness test!!

Guess I've been spared. Only in Malaysia :P

* The number is 5 ;)

Renewing passport

Two weeks ago I went to get my passport renewed, but apparently on the day I went, the computer system was down for the whole of Malaysia, so I went back again just last week.

I arrived at about 8:15am and I was already 107th in line. I didn't get seen until 9am, at which point I handed in my old passport, two new passport photos (with a white background instead of blue) and the RM300 (£60) renewal fee. After another 2-hour wait, I was given my brand new passport!

Old passport (L) and new passport (R). I look a bit different..

I'm slowly getting the hang of living here in the country again.. But just in case I need to leave, my passport's all ready..

Fibre broadband

My mom and I agreed that we'd install fibre optic broadband at home, since my house came with pre-installed fibre optic wiring - I guess there's *some* perks to living in the middle of nowhere.

We also agreed that fast internet is needed so that I could go on Facebook and VPN into BBC iPlayer all day continue working on my thesis, especially since I needed to remote into my work PC and virtual machine in Southampton, plus I was about to start Skype meetings with my supervisor.

Really, Mom!

So after consulting friends in the know, it seemed that there were only two fibre broadband providers available in our area. Out of the two, Maxis Fibre Internet came out on top for being roughly 25% cheaper than the competition.

For the price and service provided, Maxis's package offers quite impressive value for money - it's probably one of the most competitive in Malaysia - but once you compare this to UK prices, you might think slightly differently..

Comparing Malaysian and UK broadband packages. *Source: MoneySavingExpert.

-_-"

But when in Rome Setia Alam...

So after a fairly swift registration process, their customer service department contacted me and within a week, the whole thing was installed! Three engineers came round to the house, drilled some holes into the walls, placed some wiring from the nearest fibre optic splitter into the house, then 1.5 hours later - voila! - fast internet came to be! They even cleaned up the debris afterwards - amazing :)

So now my internet looks like this:

Whoosh!

:D

So happy :)

It has begun!

.. my Malaysian life, that is :)

For the past several days, I've been cooped up in my room to the point of getting cabin fever, so it's been a relief to get a few of my errands out of the way:

• I've reactivated my Malaysian bank account, got myself a new debit card, and it now has *some* (albeit not lots of) money on it, so I can stop carrying my UK bank cards with me.
• I've got some passport photos done so I can now go on to renew my passport.
• I met my BFF today and we had a long overdue catchup girl talk :D
• I've signed up for driving classes and my first (6-hour theory) class is tomorrow!

There's still loads of things on my to-do list, but it feels like I'm finally getting some headway.

The thing that bugged me the most is how remote my house is and how helplessly immobile I feel. My house isn't exactly cut off from civilization - it's reasonably accessible to everywhere, provided you have *a car* which you CAN DRIVE. Both of which I don't currently have/can do. So my driving lessons will hopefully help me solve the driving problem. I have a rich brother whom I can hopefully persuade to solve the car problem.

But yeah, if you can't drive for any reason, then it fairly sucks to live around my area. The nearest bus stop is a good 40 mins' walk away, and even then you still need to change buses, so you'd probably look at 1 hour minimum to get to the centre of town. I haven't tried taxis yet, but I'm apprehensive about how much it would cost to get one called up to my part of the woods.

So at the moment, I'm heavily relying on my mom to drive me around everywhere. It's a bit stifling to be so reliant on somebody else, especially when I've always been pretty independent about going places when I was in the UK.

I MISS UNI-LINK SO MUCH.

The drivers and the service in particular. Not the bosses nor the scary office lady :P

What I don't miss are the prices though. For example, a 5-min single trip on a Uni-link bus would cost me £2 (RM10.20). My 47-mile round trip to the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, using two types of rail services, cost me RM9 (£1.80). However, it did take me just over an hour each way to get from the first rail station to the last, and I haven't included the 16-mile round trip my mom drove to send me from home to the station and back. So yeah, getting anywhere in here is cheap but exhausting and time-consuming - if you rely on public transport (+ parents).

I really need to get myself a car! And a driving license!

Out in the wild

My house is in this really nice township called Setia Alam. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the best public transport links, and it's quite far away from the centre of town.

I did some digging, and I found out that there were two commercial areas close to my house - one's 5 mins' walk away, and the other takes 30. Unfortunately the further one has more amenities I wanted, like loads of bank branches and KFC(!) plus Pizza Hut :P

So I decided to be brave and walk it all the way there!

The long walk itself was pretty intense - the whole time, I was on high alert. After feeding off of the media's constant portrayal of crime and snatch thefts in Malaysia, I've grown paranoid myself about walking on my own. So I took the quickest route from home to the commercial area. I kept thinking people must have looked at me weird - why is there a single female lady walking on her own along streets of whizzing cars? It just seemed like the whole time, I was the only one walking! I then started to get paranoid of seeing any other non-vehicled human being, for fear of being robbed/raped/grabbed from behind..

But finally, after 30 mins of constant vigilance, I got there! I went to two bank branches, had my second KFC meal in the space of 3 days, and I walked the whole length and breadth of the commercial area. The population of this housing area seems to be predominantly Chinese, and it shows through the vast amounts of Chinese restaurants and shops throughout the area.

I really like the commercial area. Too bad it takes me 1 hour just to walk back and forth.

That said, the walk back was decidedly more pleasurable. I decided to take the longer route, so I walked across two community parks - one of which had a huge lake with people fishing around it, and the other had lots of sports stuff, like basketball courts, football fields and joggers' paths. It was a pretty pleasant walk back - once I stopped being so paranoid :)

Broadband and bubbles

When my family moved home, they didn't setup any fixed internet at the new place(!) so last month when I asked my mom about it, she said that she'll sort it out for me.

When I got home, there was still no fixed internet :P

So the very next day we went to the mall to get my mobile broadband and Malaysian phone working.

I went for Celcom's Postpaid Lite mobile broadband, costing RM48 (£9.50) per month, giving me 1.5Mbps speeds for up to 1.5GB of data.

Celcom's postpaid's data plans, taken from this page.

 In comparison, when I was back in the UK, I was using pay-as-you-go mobile broadband from T-Mobile and then giffgaff.

Comparison between Celcom (Malaysia), T-Mobile (UK) and giffgaff (UK) mobile broadband packages.

So in general, I'm getting roughly 60% slower speeds compared to the UK, but the £/GB is alright - only £2 more than the cheapest giffgaff, so I suppose it's not bad. I've already prepped myself for slower speeds here, so I'll cope.

For now. Until I restart my supervision meetings - over Skype calls(!)

There was talk that I could possibly opt for a viva over Skype, meaning I won't need to fly back to the UK for it. I was wondering if it would be acceptable to kill my viva Skype call during the difficult bits and then blame it on the choppy Internet..

Ooh, on my quest to get wirelessly wired (see what I did there? *ba-dam-dush*) I saw my favourite bubble/pearl milk tea!

Mmm bubbles. Pic (c) Gong Cha.

This little beauty only set me back RM5.90 (£1.20)! I could buy almost three pearl teas here for the price of one back at Soton uni!!

So yeah, nice things - like KFC and bubble tea - are cheap here in Malaysia :P

Update 8 Nov: I seemed to have used up my 1.5GB quota already - over just 4 days! So I bought a 5GB data booster for RM50 (£10). So my total expenditure has now crept up to RM98 (£19.50), but that has dropped the £/GB to just £3! Go figure!

Touch down!

The flight itself was pretty impressive. I was on MH0001, the 12-hour premier route by Malaysia Airlines, servicing London - Kuala Lumpur on its new Airbus A380 - the double decker! I love my bus terms.

The food was OK, and the on-demand entertainment system was fairly decent - I managed to catch Argo, Before Sunset, Kick Ass and the first 100 mins of Pacific Rim. I'm assuming the apocalypse did get cancelled in the end. Before I knew it I was in sunny Malaysia! Well OK that's a lie, I was watching the live flight tracker every time I wasn't watching a movie, but the movies helped!

On arrival, I breezed straight through immigration using the fancy hi-tech autogate passport readers - in and out in 10 secs! - and I was one of the first few to arrive at the luggage carousel! Unfortunately it took almost 20 mins for my bags to show up, so I guess the advantage was nullified.

As soon as I saw my mom and my family, I said, "I want KFC."

:P

So we all went straight to the airport KFC, where the four of us ate 7 pieces of chicken, 4 sets of mashed potatoes + coleslaw, 3 soft drinks and 3 small portions of Cheezy Wedges.

This heavenly dish alone is worth the monstrous flight fares. Pic (c) KFC

All for the princely sum of RM67 (£13)!

When I got home, I was given a grand tour of the house - I hadn't seen it before because my family moved since the last time I was home. I was pretty shattered by then - I tried not to sleep too much on the flight so I only managed 3 hours. I was looking forward to getting some sleep on what I've been told was my brand new bed. Until I saw my headboard.

POOH BEAR! RAINBOWS!! BUTTERFLIES!!!

o_O

Yup.

It even has colourful underbed drawers.

-_-"

I think my mom forgot that I'm nearing 30 now...

But at least it's pink!

Here we go..

At the gate now.

The immigration guy even confiscated my visa card coz he said it's expiring tomorrow so it's "his" now. B******.

I'm leaving the country now Britain. Hope you're happy now.

:-'(

Balik kampung - Returning home..

In about 48 hours, I will be returning back home to Malaysia after spending more than 8 years studying and living in the UK.

This experience has changed me in more ways than one. I've always felt that I'm not the same person that left Malaysia all those years ago.

I've gone through my fair share of laughs and tears and I'm eternally grateful to God for letting me have all of this, however fleeting(!)

But all good things must come to an end - in my case, that end was explicitly written down on my visa, and that end happens to be this Monday :P

Coming back home feels a bit like a shock to the system. My adult life has been spent largely amongst an abundance of kebab and chip shops, efficient(!) public transport and Internet so fast I can only vaguely recall the sound of my old dial-up modem.

This is a major move - but I just feel that it's time. I wouldn't say it's the *right* time, but I feel OK about it. I could've extended my visa if I put more effort into it, but I made the conscious decision not to. On some levels, I'm gonna miss a million things like mad. Yet at the same time, there have been several developments which made me realize that I'm due a big change in my life - things aren't exactly working out the way that I'm entirely happy with right now.

But as much as I'm craving a change in my life, I'm equally scared shitless.

This blog is my way of helping me deal with all this change. I'm hoping it'll be an outlet for me to address my inevitable heavy sadness that would shroud my life over the next few weeks, whilst all the upheaval is going on. At the same time, I'd like to show my friends back in the UK how life's like back home in the land of roti canai and maggi goreng (fried instant noodles) and halal KFC and (mostly) halal Chilli's..

So here's to new beginnings!