On 25 June a group will be departing Brisbane to go to Malaysia. In the group, being a total of 26, there are 16 students from year 10 to 12, 3 staff and several parents and other participants.
We will be leaving Brisbane at around midnight and arrive in Kuala Lumpur early Tuesday morning.
The purpose of the trip is to expose students to one form of Indonesian. Indonesian is actually based on Malay and has around an 85-90% similarity with Indonesian. The students will be able to use their language skills in an authentic environment. During our time in Malaysia and Singapore we will see modern and colonial KL and also some of the village areas. We will also have a day trip to historic Malacca where from some points in the city you can actually see the Indonesian of Sumatra.
One experience that may be indescribable will be the trip to the duplicate Changi chapel in Singapore used by many POWs during World War Two.
The group are expected back on 4 July.
I apologise that there has not been an update before this due to a server upgrade. More information will happen over the next few days.
After a delay with our flight, we finally left Brisbane and were on our way to Malaysia. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur (KL) at 6.30 in the morning and as you can imagine there was a lot of excitement. We left the plane and had to stop to complete arrival documents. Then we began the trek to Immigration, walking through the airport to the aerotrain and a walk to the desk.
Once out of the door we were greeted by Mary, our tour guide for the time we are here. As we watched the bus being loaded with our luggage, there were many wide eyes trying to absorb the sounds and look at all around us. We began the one hour trip to the hotel.
We were very lucky to have all of our rooms available, especially at 9am. It was then time for a shower, a change of clothes and remembering to bring our card to get money.
A walk of about 20 minutes brought us to a shopping mall called Times Square. Now to give you a picture. The are two buildings of about 20 floors. The whole shopping complex is about 7.5 square feet. Only the first 8 were set aside for shops and stores. We organised money and a time to return, then the groups went off to explore. The walk back to the hotel was also interesting as we had to cross roads with traffic in what seemed like every direction. Back to our rooms and a rest.
Day two saw us on our first day tour. We drove around KL and saw many of the buildings. We were dropped off at another shopping centre this time at 1pm. We decided to meet back in two hours to decide if we wanted to stay or go somewhere else. The consensus was to stay for a while longer. The groups returned about 8.30pm. And yes it was all shopping time.
One day we had a very long tour to Malacca. Malacca is a very historic city as it plays a pivotal point in the history of the area. The port was originally taken by the Portuguese, then the Dutch and finally in a deal by the British. We were able to see the Church of Christ with graves from the 1600s and the buildings that made up the centre of Dutch Malacca. A trip across the river to the Baba-Nyonya house where we were able to see how the original Peranakan (a mix of Chinese and Malay) culture developed and then to lunch with traditional Peranakan food. A stroll through the Buddhist temple and to see a shop that made shoes for those women in China who had their feet bound. The shoes were so small they could fit in the palm of the hand.
A quick bus trip to St Paul’s Church and the Portuguese fort. Up the many stairs and we were able to see the original grave of St Francis Xavier. He was buried here for nine months before his body was moved to Goa in India.
It was then a two hour trip back to KL.
Probably the best tour for the students was the trip to Sunway. Sunway is a water park and amusement park. They spent all day on the rides and slides.
We were able to see the main Mosque in KL, a beautiful orchid garden and the oldest mosque in KL and the starting point of the city. We also had an interesting road crossing experience. Try to imagine an eight lane road and 10 seconds to cross. How do we know we had 10 seconds? There was a timer and a little man running to cross and it was one of the funniest sights to see.