From the city of the 1001 skyscrapers to finding a home in Melbourne

Dear all
Everyday, in my thoughts, I started this blog in another way because everyday looked so different! But today the headliner is: I FOUND A ROOM!!! And not just a room, it is a room in a cute neighborhood, near Sterre, near the center, near a train station and affordable! Thereby it was the first room I reacted on, the first one I went to see :) I’m still not really believing it, but maybe tomorrow, after I have signed the contract I will! Right now I am in the hostel where I had thought I would be for a few weeks but tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I will sleep in my new room, and I am very happy about that!
But let me start where I left you: Kuala Lumpur. After another hot day of Kuala Lumpur we took the bus to Singapore, the city of the 1001 skyscrapers. Men, what a skyline…We slept in a very cute and quite hostel in the Muslim quarters of the city, near to the big and beautiful Sultan Mosque. The first day (after the first well slept night) Kwok showed us around, took us to the University and to the Chinese gardens, and of course to one of the many malls (malls, cell phones and wifi seem to be a crucial part of Asian life). It was very nice to have a guide to show you around in the city and also very cool to see the (enormous) university. Kwok left to Hong Kong so Friday we were on our own. We chilled, went to Little India where we visited the temple, looked around in nice shops, and ate in a little Indian restaurant where the waiter was keen to tell us where in India he came from and how it was to live in Singapore. Then we exchanged Little India for an overloaded Chinatown, where the preparations for the lunar new year had achieved massive proportions coloring the whole town in orange, pink and yellow. It was incredible. Luckily we were pretty much out of Singapore dollars, and we had no room in our bags, otherwise we might have spent a lot of money there :)
Saturday was a travel day: 6 hours bus from Singapore to KL and then one hour bus to the airport, then all the checking in and waiting until we could finally board our plain which would take us down under over the night. We had arranged the free pickup service from the university and expected an old van that would drive all through the city, dropping of students but we were wrong. I kind driver received us, took over our baggage and led us to a pseudo-limousine type car, installed us comfortably in the back seats with to ice cold bottles of water and drove us right to the front door of Sterre’s new home…impressive. Sterre lives in a BMW/Jaguar/Porche neighborhood. Still things are never as you expected them. For example the announced pool turned out to be a pool(table) in stead of a (swimming)pool :) Also I turned out to be less welcome there than we expected so I installed myself in this hostel. At the end of the afternoon we found our way to the beach, where we chilled and waited for an incredibly beautiful sunset (sadly enough I was stupid enough to erase the pictures of yesterday by mistake, so pictures of Melbourne will come soon…).
Today we did the stuff that needed to be done: opening a bank account, getting a prepaid card, shopping and finding a room! I never thought I would find a room in one day but it happened! That makes this coming week much more like a holiday as Uni only starts next Tuesday.
Melbourne is incredibly beautiful and big…from the hostel I walk almost an hour to Sterre’s house and that’s more or less in the same part of the city, so imagine :) It is also much more expensive than we thought. But the people are extremely friendly: the first time the girl behind the counter in the supermarket greeted me with a ‘Hello, how are you today?’ But with a real interest, not just some empty formality, I was to astonished to answer. It’s getting normal now though :)
I will not bother you any longer with words. I'll try to upload some pictures!




View from Hotel in KL


The Petronas towers


China town KL


The mosque in Singapore

Ok...sorry my internet time is up, with more time I'll put the rest on!
Cheers to you all!

Sara