The Power of Prayers...

As you have all been able to guess from reading our blog we have been having an amazing time in Malaysia. We do however have some sad news to report. Last Thursday morning we woke up only to read our worst fear about leaving has actually happened. Meghan got an email from her mom saying that her Grandma Betty (Jenny’s mom) had a stoke that morning and was in the hospital. Half of her body was paralyzed; but she was showing a few responsive signs. We have been keeping in contact with Keith, Jenny, and Jonas as much as possible but it has been hard since we are literally half a world away. After being able to run a few tests they were able to determine that she has suffered from a massive stroke and that her body is slowly shutting down. This last weekend she was moved into hospice. Keith and Jenny are flying out to be with her and with Meghan’s aunt and uncle. After a lot of consideration and looking at every possible angle it has been decided that Meghan will stay in Malaysia. Betty has always been big on seeing the world, education, and making the most out of life. This has all been extremely hard to cope with so if you could please keep the Rediske’s and Meghan’s grandma in your thoughts and prayers that would great. We love you all and please be safe!

French Village

Okay, so I know we have taken a long time to put this blog up, but life gets busy! On Sunday the 14th took a journey up through the mountains of Malaysia to the French Village. We were invited by Nasim, a friend we met from Iran. So, we left INTI at about 11:30 with Casey (the only other American on campus). However, we should tell you that he really is only like 1/4th American, because he lived in the UK for two years before coming here and has now lived in Malaysia for a year. Turns out he is from Wisconsin, but doesn’t talk like a mid-western and he doesn’t like beer. So, we don’t really believe him. Casey rented a car, and we began our journey to the French Village. Little did we know that we would be in the car for four hours. We decided on a destination to meet Nasim and her friends at, but we got lost on the way and ended up doing a couple circles. The first time around Shannon was like, “Holy cow there is a dead cow entangled in the side rail.” Then a half hour later she was like, “Holy cow there is a dead cow entangled in the side rail.” That’s when we knew we weren’t going anywhere fast. To make a long story short; between taking lots of wrong turns, having to coast down the side of the mountain, almost running out of gas, and trying to figure out where the Iranians were saying they were located, we finally made it to the French Village! It was absolutely beautiful! We had a great time talking with Nasim and all of her friends, and we even got to have some Italian food! After the French Village we headed to KL to meet up with some of Casey’s friends to see a movie. We finally arrived home after many hours in a car around 2 am… and got up at 8 on Monday for 6 straight hours of class.

Genting

One of our most recent adventures was to a Theme Park at Genting Highland. It is known as the “Las Vegas” of Malaysia. That is not so much how we would describe it, well besides the fact that it has a Casino.

But anyway, on Saturday the 13th we headed out to the bus stop at about 6:30 am to take a 2 hour bus ride with about 40 other INTI students to the city in the mountains! The drive was absolutely beautiful, and we got to enjoy the scenery with no problem because I am pretty sure the bus didn’t go over 20 mph the whole way there! To get to Genting we rode a sky rail that took us hundreds of feet above the jungle to the peak of the mountain where the two theme parks are located. The ride up was amazingly beautiful. We should however mention that before getting onto the sky rail we had to take a few group pictures and we would like to fill you in on our experience with that. One of the “professors” came with on the trip. I put quotes around professor because she told us that she was in fact a teacher but giggled hysterically after saying this, which lead us to believe that it was a joke. We never found out for sure. She felt the need to grab Shannon’s hand and drag here all around everywhere she went before the group photo. During the actual group photo session she put her arm around Shannon and held her hand. As you can all imagine Shannon reaction, she was crying she was laughing so hard from being not only being uncomfortable but just downright confused. Shannon turned to Meghan as to say “what the hell is going on?” but was stopped when Meghan just shook her head saying we will talk about it later. Right after the group photo when Meghan was thinking she was out of the clear the lady moved onto her, clinging to her side telling her that she as coming back to the US with us! We spent the next half hour hiding behind brochures until we were able to go our own ways. Other than that the day was very good.

Genting has two theme parks; an outdoor and an indoor. The rides can’t really hold a candle to Valleyfair but we still enjoyed ourselves. The weather was more Wisconsin like which was a good change from the usual 80 degree humid days we have in Nilai. The indoor theme park even has a “snow world” that was pretty cool. We didn’t actually go in because you have to pay extra and we figured we would see enough snow when we get back. We spent most of the day walking around the theme parks usually going on the rides that gave you a tour/ overview of both parks. It was an overall great day, as all of our days are. Great adventures full of laughter!

A day at the beach!

Last Tuesday the 9th we only had class until 10 in the morning so we decided to pack up and head to the beach! The closest beach is in Port Dickson, called 8 mile which is about an hour drive from INTI. We took a cab both ways, and were for sure overcharged but for the day we had it was well worth it! It was only the two of us so as most of you can imagine we spent the whole day giggling and taking pictures. Meghan kept the day interesting by working on her impression and Shannon almost busted a gut from laughing so hard. Since it was a Tuesday we pretty much had the beach to ourselves well besides the creepers that would randomly pop out of the buildings that lined the beach. At which point Meghan would sprint out of the water glaring as to guard our bags. After soaking up far too much sun and feeling like we had gone days without showering from swimming in the salt water we decided to take a break and “study.” We were only sitting for about 10 minutes when a supposed lifeguard and his friends started talking to us in a language we didn’t quite understand; then when we looked up one of them was climbing a coconut tree and chucking a couple down. They came over and broke one open for us to try and to our surprise it was actually pretty enjoyable. A few hours later we decided it was time to find some sort of dinner. Moms it might be best that you omit the next couple lines out of your reading pleasures. We walked quite a ways almost being run over and scared to death by a dead cat only to find a “convenient store” which was literally a whole in the wall. Here we bought the only prepackaged item they had. Chocolate powder cookies!! They turned out to be thoroughly delicious. We sat on the beach until sunset rehashing the day, eating our cookies, and just enjoying how overwhelmingly happy the day had made us!!

A little taste of life here...

First of all we live in a jungle. The weather is always warm, and somewhat unpredictable. You can walk into class believing it is going to be a beautiful sunny day, only to realize minutes later that there are rain drops streaming down the windows. Instead of pine trees, there are palm trees everywhere. However, Palm trees aren’t the only constant scenery around here. There is something else that we have found in every corner of Malaysia as well… cats!! Now, we are not just talking about a couple stray cats here and there. You will see cats outside of classrooms… or we even got to witness a classroom that had 4 kittens in it, and at food stalls right at your feet while your eat. On one occasion we were walking down a busy road trying to watch out for cars when Shannon yelled some sort of profanity and jumped five feet in the air. I’m going to let you guess what was laying dead right at her feet. So, the insane amount of cats EVERYWHERE is something we are trying to get used to.

Another difference is that people don’t tip here. I guess that they figure it into your bill for you, which is nice. However, the places we eat around campus never give you a check. Around campus you can find a plethora of food stalls selling any kind of ethnic food your heart desires, except western. We call them food stalls, because they are not restaurants. Most of the seating is outside on pavement, and a majority of them don’t even have names or menus. We have tried many different kinds of foods at these places. We usually try to at least go by the policy ‘one bite to be polite’ as we have tried Chinese, Arabic, and Indian. However, we found a place that makes food from Pakistan that we LOVE! This adorable man makes us our chicken wings, wraps, and Nan. The stall next to this place makes the most unbelievable apple juice in the world!! Whenever, we walk in they just giggle and start making it for us. It is absolutely delicious and we have been plotting about how we are either going to bring the man who makes this back to the US with us, or steal his stuff. Either way we know we will never be able to live life again to the fullest without it! Thankfully, we have found some other comfort food as well. There is a little café that we frequently visit for garlic toast and mash potatoes. The mash potatoes come from something that looks like a smoothie machine, but we really can’t complain because it tastes good. Also, Shannon probably eats somewhere between 4 to 5 packages of Mentos a day. Seriously, she is hardly ever seen without a pack in her hand!

Okay so onto classes… yes we are actually going to school here as well. Classes are two hours long, and twice a week we have class for 6 hours straight! Our notebooks are already filled with notes to each other that read… “I am so bored I could poke my eyes out” or “seriously what has been happening for the past hour?” We have American History and Malay together. Shannon is taking Accounting as well, and Meghan is taking moral education. We are the only two people in our Malay class. Our teacher doesn’t really speak English and we don’t really speak Malay. So, communication can be hard, but we all get some pretty good laughs out of it. Are favorite thing to say of now are jumpa lagi or selamat jalan!

A couple of other things about the culture here are that people don’t have TV’s in their dorm rooms or even in the buildings! Also as far as we can tell people don’t hang out in each other’s rooms… very different from American dorms. Sadly, there is no One Tree Hill here. Oh and the driving. There are lines on the roads, but the taxi drivers appear to believe that they are optional. The cars are a lot smaller, and they drive a lot faster!

Now, for the MOST IMPORTANT aspect of life here, the people! We have meet people from all over the world! We know people from Pakistan, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, India, Iran, Yemen, Italy, China, Indonesia, and Thailand just to name a few. We have learned more about different cultures in the past two weeks, then our past twenty years! A majority of the student population around us is fasting for Ramadan. From what we understand this means that people can’t listen to music, smoke, drink, or eat until the sun goes down. So, as you can imagine the energy level around here increases drastically around 7:30. We have had many conversations about Islam, and a friend is even going to take us through the parts of the Koran. It is refreshing to hear about this religion directly instead of the skewed media perception. We have also met several people who have parents working for the governments around the world. With their help we now have an inside view into the political workings of places like Yemen and Pakistan. Malaysia has some interesting things happening within its government as well, but that is harder to get opinions on because you can get in trouble here for speaking poorly of the government. There are three main ethnic groups that make up the population of Malaysia; Indian, Chinese, and native Malay people. From our experiences we have gathered that there is a lot of animosity towards the native Malay people. For instance, they have to take an exam before attending college and even if the Malay people get lower scores they are still more likely to get into colleges and receive financial help. They also don’t like to intermix too much. Most people stick to their own ethnic group. However, most people aren’t very shy about meeting us. For the first time in our lives we are the minority. There are 5,000 students on this campus and only one other American. We could be at a gas station, eating dinner, on the beach, or just sitting outside and people will randomly come up to us and ask us where we are from. It is a little weird when people ask us if they can take pictures with us as if we are some kind of freak show. Honestly, we think that some of the locals and even some of the college students have never even seen Americans. Needless to say we aren’t in Kansas anymore. This experience is definitely culturally enriching, and we are gaining so much from being submersed in the variety of cultures happening around us!

We hope this has given you some insight into life in Malaysia! Don’t forget to keep in touch! Lots of Love!

Just a few pictures!!

Hey all things have been going great but we don't have a whole lot of new things to report since we just started classes and are just trying to get used to their college environment. But we did want to add a few more pictures. However you can only add 5 at a time so don't get too stoked. The pictures that we are adding are of us trying to eat with chopsticks...well we are certainly learning. The other night we went out to an Irish Pub with a few people and yes if you look closely there is another American...we will let you guess which one. There is also one with us and a pair of jeans but take note that they are not just an ordinary pair of pants, their brand is PEPSI. Yes that is right the pop. We miss you all and hope all is WONDRAful.

And the adventures continue

Even though we have only been here 5 days, we have gotten to travel to some pretty cool places! The second day we were here we went to Putrajaya…(Where the prime minister of Malaysia lives for all you Zoolander fans!) This city is only about 20 minutes away from where we live. However, getting there could have been the longest 20 minutes of our lives. INTI organized this trip for all of the new students. However, there wasn’t room for all of us to ride on the coach buses they provided. So, we got put in a van with sixteen other students. Meghan’s knees were at her chin, and Shannon almost passed out from the heat. At one point Shan leaned over to say, “I always thought we would die together, I just didn’t think we would be this young.” Putrajaya is the place we talked about in the last blog were we went to a very nice mall, and then later that night we went out to eat with some friends and to see a movie here. We have included pictures from Putrajaya of the Prime minister’s office and a couple with our friends Daniel and Serene.
On Sunday we got invited to go to Kuala Lumpur, also known as KL early in the morning, but we were just too tired to go. We spent most of Sunday sleeping and unpacking. Of course when someone offered to take us to KL, on Monday we jumped on the idea. Omar and Faisal took us into the city on Monday. The Petronas towers were beautiful during the day, but absolutely breath taking after the sun went down. They took us to a mall that was located at the foot of the towers. The mall was six floors of amazingness. There were name brand stores everywhere! Right outside of the mall was a really cool walking path, with fountains and waterfalls. We took several pictures here too, so we will include a few of those. Take note that we did get in a little fight during the walk and for the first time it actually seemed that Meghan might actually take down Shannon. After the mall we drove around KL for awhile and just kind of got a feel for it. We hope to do a lot more exploring in KL, and from the sound of it people go there a lot from INTI. So, we don’t think it will be hard to find people to go there with frequently.

Tuesday night we went out to eat with a group of people to a Chinese restaurant. Thankfully they all spoke Chinese and helped us order. We tried using chop sticks for the first time. Pretty sure we gave everyone at the table a pretty good laugh.

Classes have started and they are going well. We have American history together, and when the teacher learned that we were from the US she made everyone clap for us. It was a little weird, but nice I guess that people are excited to have us here.

We already have a trip to Bali and Penang planned so we are pretty stoked about life! Hope all is well back in the US! We miss all of you!!!

We made it...Barely

After traveling for 26 hours, taking 3 different airplanes, 2 layovers, getting yelled at 1 time for neglecting to read a sign that was clearly written in English, 1 lost bag, and 0 showers, we have finally reached Malaysia! The weather we have been told can be very unpredictable but from what we have experienced thus far it is on average in the mid 80s during the day and is rather humid which for Meghan has been paradise. We are studying at an international university called INTI University College, but most of the international students are from China, Africa, and Indonesia. So as you can imagine we are the only two Caucasians which gives the song ‘Stop and Stare’ a completely new meaning. Besides the very nonchalant staring I have never felt so welcome and popular in my life. We have more dinner plans than we know what to with, now we just need to get used to the food. All of the menus are written in either Malaya or Chinese and for those of you who know us you know that we aren’t always the best at reading things when written in English so you can imagine the difficulty we are having with the menus.


Our first day here we got settled into our room which happens to be on the fourth floor with no elevator so watching us try to get our 50 pound suitcases to our room was nothing short of a good laugh. Our room is a little more than twice the size of a US dorm room; we have an air conditioner, and even a bathroom! But before you think we are living in paradise, I am pretty sure we are sleeping on old hospital sheets that barely fit the beds that give us the comfort of sleeping on a slab of concrete with springs poking in to our backs. And the bathroom, well it is hard to find right words to describe the room that we have gotten so many giggles from. So, we will be posting a picture because in this case the saying is true; a picture literally is worth a thousand words. Most of the students at our college stay up anywhere from 3 to 5 in the morning so between that and being jet leg we tend to take a 4 to 5 hour “nap” starting at 3 in the afternoon waking up around 10 some nights to go out and some just enough time for us to decide we can’t drag ourselves out of bed. We were so tired last night that when we woke up at 10 we decided to just go back to sleep. However, this meant that we woke up wide-eyed and bushy tailed at 4 am. So, we still have to make some adjustments in our sleeping patterns.
On Saturday we went with a group of new students from INTI to a nearby mall. The mall was super nice, but shockingly enough we didn’t do much shopping. We spent most of the day walking around with people getting to know them. We seriously can’t stress enough how nice everyone has been, and they are all willing to help us in any way possible. After the mall we came back and passed out until we got an invite to go back to the city we had been in that day to get some dinner and see a movie. Oh we should mention that we got to see the prime minister’s office! Kok Hoe and Vigal took us to dinner and a movie and then we ended up just talking on a bridge until 3 am.


The two of us have already shared some pretty good laughs and cries. We like it here, but as you can imagine it is nothing like anything we have ever experienced, and we are having a really hard time adjusting to the food. Hope everything back at home is swell! Please keep us updating on what is going on in your lives as well!

We can't get the pictures to upload so we will try again later!