Welcome to KLIA and now have fun to find your pick-up service. The first fun thing after arriving at the airport was the sky train you have to take, to get to the baggage claim and immigration.
Welcome to KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) and now have fun to find your pick-up service. The first fun thing after arriving at the airport was the sky train you have to take, to get to the baggage claim and immigration. Nobody informed us about this strange thing but all of the german students were able to manage this first step into their semester abroad.
“Bersekutu Bertambah Mutu” = “Unitiy is Strength”
The motto of Malaysia.
25 students are located in South East Asia, strictly speaking in Cyberjaya, near Kuala Lumpur the capital of Malaysia. The country is multi-ethnical and multi-cultural. Malaysia is the 67th largest country by total land area in the world. The former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir bin Mohamad, outlined his ideal in Vision 2020, in which Malaysia would become a self sufficient industrialized nation. Kuala Lumpur (short KL) is a very futuristic and modern city and it is separated into different areas; e.g. China Town, Little India, KL CC and Merdeka Square. It’s totally interesting to visit the different parts, it’s like entering a different world with new cultures in each area.
Although you have a lot of different cultures and also a lot of tourists you shouldn’t wonder if the inhabitants look at you, as if you would be an alien. They don’t know a lot of European so it’s very special for them to see us in this part of the world.
The climate is equatorial and is (unfortunately) characterized by the annual and northeast monsoons. Our abidance is directly seated in the northeast monsoons, they start in October and end in February, we’re in the middle of the rainy season. Until now we’re in the beginning of the season, you realize it through fulminating rains. The humidity is usually high but you get used to it after a while. The sun is very powerful and a few of us already had the nickname “Lobster”.
The country contains 20 per cent of the world’s animal species.
“Driving Innovation for Education”
The motto of Limkokwing University of Creative Technology
Founder and president of Limkokwing University of Creative Technology is ‘Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dato’ Dr. Lim Kok Wing’. The university is located in Cyberjaya, Selangor. Limkokwing has a lot of campuses located all around the world. The university has six different faculties: Design Innovation, Multimedia Creativity, Communication, Media & Broadcasting, Information Technology & Computing and Business Management & Globalization and Architecture & Built Environment. Through the German exchange program we’re allowed to see a few of this faculties.
Through the presence across three continents, you have students from everywhere. This is very interesting, because you make friends with people from all over the world. The university cares a lot of their students and they also have student ambassadors. Ambassadors (4 of our German MHMK students represent their countries here at Limkokwing) help students to get along with the system of the university and they also represent the university at special events. For example at the presentation of the theme song for the Paralympic Youth Games in Kuala Lumpur and it was also possible to see the show of motivation speaker Nick Vujicic, the man without limbs, at Sunway Pyramide in KL.
The university is also very present in the Malaysian politics and is supporting also a lot of this events. Furthermore the president Tan Sri Dato Dr. Lim Kok Wing established the Award for Global Peace to encourage the world to work towards peace and harmony. This award was given to Nelson Mandela for his action bringing peace to the world.
At the same day, 27th August, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa the esteemed honorary rolls as one of the world leaders to be bestowed with an Honorary Doctore of Leadership by Malaysia’s University of Transformation. All of the students of the university, around 8000, were able to be a part of this special event. Every country had to wear their traditional outfit – it was an amazing event for everyone!
It is very interesting to see the special Malaysian way of teaching. The first weeks had been a little bit chaotic but after a while everything got a routine. Good to know is also the Malaysian time, people in this part of the world are not punctual and sometimes it’s very difficult for us Germans to understand this behavior of being late. Furthermore is food very important for the Malaysian culture. It seems like it would be always lunch time and after entering a class or a meeting you’ll always hear the question “I hope you had lunch?”
The dining hall is the plaza and the plaza is the center of everything.
Most of the events are happening here and every Thursday you’ll see a fashion show at lunchtime.
Limkokwing is totally into branding. The university has a own shop with Limkokwing writing pads and an own cafeteria called “Wings Coffee”. If you’re not feeling well you can go to the doctor at the Wellness Center and if you want to do your daily workout you just go to “Fit to Fly” the fitness studio. The campus also has a little convenience store, called “10Ten”, a laundry, a print, maxis (phone company) and apple store.
We are divided into two groups. 6 students live on campus and 17 live off campus, in Desaria Villa. The hostels are just for Limkokwing students and for Desaria Villa there is a bus shuttle provided, that takes and brings the students to university or even to shopping malls near by.
The food is very cheap. For one dish (not in a restaurant, where you have to pay taxes and the service charge) you pay around 5-10 RM (~1 – 2 Euro). If you eat in a restaurant it will be around 20 RM (~ 5 Euro) .
Through the multicultural system you have a huge variety of food. You can choose between indian, chinese, malay or even western food. Very important to know is that you don’t use knifes, you’ll eat your soup with chopsticks and everything is very spicy (even if you didn’t ordered spicy). Besides that if you’re eating in a restaurant you’ll see a lot of nice pictures on the menu, but most of the time you get something different as seen on this photos – No risk, no fun! 😉
At Desaria the students have the opportunity to have their dinner at the street food area, you just have to cross a street to get there.
I hope everyone is fine and happy… We are happy! 🙂
I just wanted to introduce you to Malaysia and Limkokwing University and in the next Post you’ll see a lot of pictures of our trips and adventures.
