On the 1st of January 2008, My brother and Junko went to the Soka Gakai International [SGI] centre to celebrate new year.

For those who don't know, initially the Japanese celebrated their New Year, at the same time we Chinese celebrate our new year, which is at the coming of spring..

But around the Meiji period, I think, when the Japanese Government adopted the Gregorian Calander, they followed the Westerners as in 1st January is the new year, and thus they will send out New year cards [by a certain date set by the post office], go to the temple eat buck wheat noodles etc, on this date/ the night before..

So the closest we could get for Junko to having this celebrations, I guess would be the Japan foundation.. which we have no links.. or the SGI.. :p Thus those two headed for SGI. they asked me to go along.. but unfortunately, I slept really late and couldn't wake up..

And I don't know why, but my brother decided to come home, pick me up and go with Junko's friends for lunch at ss2....

Junko's friend Haruka [From high school I think... ], is studying at University Malaya [UM, where I had my bloody CLP exams.. sigh] as an exchange student, so they met up with her... and well Haruka's friend Shizuka was studying [Maybe is still..] in Bangkok, studying economics, and has a dog..

Yes, we got a long :) maybe it's because of the dog.. or maybe because I'm just sociable.. [envy me muahahah.. okay.. self praise gets you no where... ]

Anyway, after lunch, we dropped Shizuka and Haruka back at the Dorms of UM. They wanted to take a picture to commemorate their meeting in Malaysia.. but didn't know who to ask to take it as everyone wanted to be in the picture..

So little evil me merely called out to a guy who was passing by...[much to the other girls surprise that I'm aggressive? But hey... it's sort of training from the UK :p] he looked like a student who wouldn't abscond with the camera... So I caught the nice little fella, and got him to take a picture for us... of course we thanked him after :)

Here we have brother, me, Shizuka, Haruka & Junko...

I recall after that.. on a separate date, Junko, brother & I went down to Petaling Street [no pictures for this outing.. I think...] and Junko met up with Haruka for tea, whilst brother and I shopped for videos and shows.... We had beef noodles... As I'm not sure for the dates for that one.. that will be a separate entry... together with the other random pictures, in which the dates I'm not sure.. Keep and eye out for that one :p

With that done, we headed home to rest and freshen up, before dinner...

Honestly speaking, in Malaysia there isn't really much to see, unless you do a Malaysian tour stint, where you go up North to Penang, to see the Penang bridge & Kek Lok Si temple, the snake temple etc..

Jump over to Langkawi for some local legends? and the Under water world?

Or head to Terrenganu, to see the leather back turtles, provided they are in season, or go jungle trekking in Pahang or Sabah/Sarawak. OR climb mount Kinabalu... [All this require a lot of time and money unfortunately.. and well VERY GOOD stamina.. plus with petrol prices now...]

Anyway, as I was saying, unless you do all those... Hence we were localised in KL and the furthest we went is Melaka and Pahang...

There's nothing to do here, but eat and shop. Eating is a much better option, because till date.. I believe that we are the only country in which you can get almost anything to eat [not including dog meat.. I think.. but if you want bear meat, crocodile meat etc.. if you know where to go, you can get it.. ] if you have the cash, and know where to go.... our food is really diverse due to the mixed culture, and the amount we urbanites travel. Maybe sushi here isn't as nice as in Japan, but we can get it here at affordable prices.. :p so that's good I guess.. But I digress.. back to the topic..

So since one of the main criteria is to eat.. eat we did.. we brought Junko to Uptown to the food court there, to try among the various types of food this country offers.. :p

My dad looks the happiest at the amount of the food?

It's a lot isn't it? and this isn't even the handful of the foods Malaysia has to offer....

Me enjoying the food.. honestly, if you don't watch what you eat.. you can easily get fat here...

See the steam emitting from the noodles? Aah... Heavenly :p

Well, that's all for this post...

-Oracl3-