11 Stories Up in KL

This morning, one of the Petronas Towers is hanging out inside of a cloud. It’s rainy and muggy, though still cooler than it has been. Last night, when it started to rain, it was around 36 C (very hot) and the city just felt like a giant steam bath. Now that it’s had some time to cool down over night, it’s kind of nice.

So here I am, day 6 in Malaysia. I now have an address and a phone number in KL, and will start my classes on Monday. Friday I went to visit my school where I will be doing my language study for the next three months or so. 10 minutes on the monorail, 30 minutes on the kareta api komuter and I’m there. The campus is set up on a hillside that is green and lush, surrounded by fields and palm trees.

When I first stepped foot on campus, two things immediately caught my attention. The first was a car with an Eastern Michigan University sticker in the back window, and the second was the man handing out parking tickets. Apparently, the meter maids here are every bit as rabid as they are back home. J Finding my class took some work, as it was secreted away in the middle of the Islamic Studies center. Upon first meeting my teacher, after saying hello, her first words to me were ‘The Germans are waiting for you.’ Indeed they were, and I found the only other two females I saw on campus that day who did not have their heads covered. So Annina and Anja are my two classmates, 21 and 22 respectively. They too have been studying Bahasa Indonesia to this point, and our teacher bemoaned the fact that she would need to rid us all of our ‘Indonesian accents.’ ;-) There are two other students in the program who are somewhat more advanced than the three of us, a Singaporean man in his 40’s and a Japanese guy who is my age.

Back up here in KL, I moved into my apartment on Saturday. My architect friend, Shawn, asked if I got to live in the Petronas towers. While the answer is of course no, I do have a stunning view of them from my apartment on the 11th floor, particularly at night. That was in fact the number one selling point for me. I now live in KL Plaza, a rather old condominium located above a 5 storey shopping mall in the center of town. My fellow residents are a mix of locals and Asian expats. The apartment came fully furnished, complete with what is arguably the ugliest bathroom in all of Asia (okay I seriously doubt that, but it is pretty ugly). Very green, very square toilet, and water that gets lukewarm when it feels like it. Warm water isn’t really a necessity here though, most of the time, you want a cold shower anyway, after a few minutes outside.