Playing Catch Up

The story of my life! Since we have not had the opportunity to post pictures for some weeks here is a random assortment to help you to get fully caught up on our rather low key adventures of late.

A few weeks ago me, Sven, and two other students attended the Malaysian Floral Parade. Heralded as the twin parade of the Pasadena Rose Parade and considering the natural beauty of Malaysia's floral surroundings, we decided that it was an activity well worth getting up at 6:30 on a Saturday for.

We were wrong. Not completely, but we should have at least known that if the parade was set to start at 8AM it was not really going to begin until 9AM at the earliest. We arrived way too early but it provided us with time enough to find a good uncrowded spot along the parade route. Unfortunately, by the time the parade began we discovered why our spot was so uncrowded - the blazing hot sun. Man it was hot. The four of us actually took turns hiding in the shady spots we could find.

Once the parade began we learned something else of Malaysian time not only do things start late they move real slow. Now this all makes sense in regards to the extreme heat and we do truly suffer and sweat more than the rest for our purposeless hurrying but on this day it was the snail's pace of the parade that caused the most suffering in the heat. Seriously, between the first and second float's there was about a 10 minute lull and we thought okay off to a slow start but than it was another fifteen for the third float and so on. Needless to say, we all decided after about five floats that we had had enough and made our way for the shade and food of the many food tents along the route. The floats were definitely pretty though, as you can see and if we had not gone we would have missed our very favorite float ever!!

Have you ever seen anything so shameless and wonderful in your life!

Anyway, the parade did accord us the opportunity to see Putrajaya for the first time, which is really one of the most beautiful 'cities'/planned developments I have ever seen. Putrajaya is imagined as being Malaysia's Washington D.C.. It houses all the government offices, the PM's expansive residence and a diplomatic corner set aside for all foreign embassies (though many have yet to move here). It is a clean, well-landscaped, well-designed, and beautiful area. And actually it is only set to be completed in 2010, at which time like it or not all national government and foreign government operations are to be moved to Putrajaya.

The Prime Minister's Offices

The Main Street

Not sure who lives or works here.

The National Mosque

Unique Bridge into the City

Okay, and I thought I would throw in a few pictures to demonstrate that though Ben and I are doing a lot of griping about all the hours we spend in class it really is not all dedicated to serious study. In fact, I think last week we went to Starbucks twice, shopping for an air cooler once, and dinner another time. Yes, we are jabbering in Malay the whole time and it is not our free time but really there is not much to pity here. These pictures are from a recent workshop we had on Malay culture, where we all got to try on Malay traditional dress - baju kurang for women and baju Melayu for men.

It is worth noting that this style of dress is still very common among Malays, especially in the area we live. While the outfit for men is usually only worn on Friday to the Mosque, the oufit I am wearing (or more like the outfit the girl to the left of me is wearing in the picture above) is an everyday dress.
I think they are all the pictures I have time for now. Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to take lots of interesting ones tonight at the Chinese New Year celebration.