Kuala Lumpur:day 1

Welcome to Malaysia!

I am writing from the center of Kuala Lumpur. I have been packing all night, basically because I was not psychologically prepared to leave China, so I kept postponing the packing procedure. I finished with the luggage when it was already dawn. Like in previous experiences (and even a bit more this time), it has been an unpleasant moment to leave everything, that we so intensively lived for the last 4 months, behind like that. One would say that I would start getting used to it and being less emotional reacting, but no....I am exactly as immature and unprepared for the "goodbye" moment, as the first time!

Well anyway, Chapter China has closed. Flight was great, Air Asia was unexpectedly very comfortable. As soon as we stepped off the airplane we felt a humid heat surrounding us, exactly like a sauna!We have been laughing and enjoying the new reality. I will certainly not miss waking up in the morning and trying to convince myself to enter the frozen bathroom!We have taken the bus to the city center and the first impression was the size of space left between the seats!I mean in China everything is so small!And this one was even bigger than European!It is funny that we are now constantly making all the comparisons twice. Once with our countries and once with China. Finally we have "Chinesfied" a bit!

The hostel sucks!The room is as small as it can get, there is no window(!) and the bedsheets don't seem so clean. But we will survive for a while here, and dream of the next days when we will be enjoying the seaside. The first impressions from Kuala Lumpur, after a short walk are mixed. We came with no expectations at all (except for the beaches for the next days) and we didn't have time and means to prepare for the journey. It was impossible to find a guide in English in Hangzhou. They said they had to order it from France(!) and this combined with the fact that it was Chinese New Year and heavy winter was....OK...let it be. And me I have been too busy with the thesis, so when I arrived here I didn't know what to expect at all. I hadn't realised that Malaysia has such a strong muslim element and I never knew that there is such a thing as contemporary muslim architecture. The city has a lot of big modern buildings and even sky scrapers that are designed with the muslim aestethics. The people speak English fluently (though with a funny accent) and after China it seems just too easy to wonder around and to communicate for everything. And another thing is that they are for the moment very very helpfull and friendly. In a walk of 2 hours there 2 persons who stopped just to ask if we need help!

Apart from that the city is quite dirty but seems to be small enough for us to walk around from place to place, the food is tastier than Chinese and more user-friendly (Boneless-Chicken), the language spoken seems a bit like Indian to me and being again in a place where alphabet is used, instead of characters like in China feels again too easy!

I have no pictures to upload because I forgot my camera tonight and I am sorry to the greeks for not writing in Greek, I have no greek keyboard at the moment. No big adventures for the moment, and we hope to go on like that and spend some calm days here. The truth is that if I keep on writing this post and not search for some information on what to do and more importantly HOW to do it, I do see some adventures coming.So long then...