The roads here are other odd. At every junction without traffic lights (and there are lot of them), either there are no markings at all, or there are white strips across the road at every branch of the junction. I wondered how the drivers here determine who has right of way. Now, it seems to me that there is no right of way. All drivers stop at junctions and look around before driving on. In the case that two cars come to a junction together, they will hesitate for a few seconds before one takes the initiative to go first. That’s very inefficient. I won’t have the patience to drive like that. Heh, I’m also sure a Canadian would find Malaysian roads terrifying to drive on.

The tap water here also has quite a lot of chemicals, I think. I have been here for more than a week already, and I still find the taste of the water odd.

I have visited downtown (means the town center) a few times already. There’s quite a lot of people, but it lacks the “re4 nao4” atmosphere of Toronto or KL. There is a fountain, some monuments and small parks, but the place is not very clean. The shops are rather dull and small also.

My room’s still not ready yet. The landlord has yet to get me a table/desk. The carpet’s dirty, but there’s nothing I can do but wear shoes inside the room. Stuff here is really expensive, so I have to find other ways to get them. Fortunately, there are some useful items that are left behind by previous exchange/international students in the international students’ advisors storeroom. From there, I got a deep saucepan, a duvet (spelled doo-vey; a thick, feather filled blanket), pillow, small mat, string, and some cutlery. The landlord let me have the bicycle left by a previous tenant, which I brought for repairs. I bought an air heater at a garage sale for $1.50 (no tax required, yay!). A housemate lent me his extra rice cooker; so now the only thing missing is a non-stick pan for cooking. Maybe I can borrow it from a housemate also.

Yesterday, Saturday, I went to a big mall quite far away. Luckily, I reached the place (I have a tendency to get to the wrong place here). Unluckily, I reached there at 5.55pm. The door sign says it closes at 6pm! Duh, I wonder how the people here do business.

Today, the orientation week has started, and orientation’s here rather different from that of NTU. There’s only one week of orientation, and it’s the same week for all societies and residences, and the programs for different organizations often overlap. That also means you can only join one society’s orientation. Besides, the fee’s $135 for the orientation for whichever society you wish to join, and you’ll get a goodie bag from the respective society and a wristband (MACPASS) to indicate that you have paid up. That’s way too expensive for me (RM400). Anyway, I don’t care, and joined the Society of off-campus students(SOCS) (society fees = $25) and sneakily joined in the orientation. Hopefully, they won’t notice I don’t have the wristband.

Today, the first day of orientation, they have a lot of crazy cheers (they didn’t distribute the lyrics to us though, so still blur about them), crazy actions (one group walked around the room with each person waving one of his/her socks and chanting ‘dirty socks (SOCS), dirty socks) and free lunch (plain burgers; little nutrition; no fibre :( ). Then there are games stalls and performances in the field, which is available for all MACPASS holders. Too bad, can’t join the games, which seems fun (they check for MACPASS, I think). Since everybody’s on the field, the orientation reps wear big baggy clothes of different colors to distinguish themselves. E.g. the SOCS reps wear orange, and engineering reps wear red. Lets see what they have in the evening..