This morning we woke up pretty early, had some sandwiches in the room, morning worship with the group, and then took the MRT to the bus station. Luckily we had some time before the bus departure, so we stopped and had some breakfast at the station. I had a McDonalds breakfast McMuffin, and it tasted delicious because I was still very hungry. I accompanied this with a drink from starbucks.
We then boarded the bus, and then stopped and walked through customs for both Singapore and Malaysia, which was a very interesting experience. I've never walked out of a country, gone across a road, and walked into another country before, it was definitely a first for me. We then got some lunch, and finally got to our hotel and dropped our bags off at the hotel.
My first impression of JB was that it is extremely dirty and ugly compared to Singapore. Not only that, but the smell of the trash on the sidewalk was horrible and made me feel sick. I immediately missed Singapore and got a bad first impression of Malaysia.
After dropping our bags off, we walked over to a Sikh Temple. A man who goes by Uncle Purri gave us a tour of the temple while explaining the religion and answering questions that we had. I found it interesting how we were never supposed to give our backs to the holy book that was upstairs. The temple was extremely hot inside, and we could not wait to leave and breathe again. Before leaving, we were served some delicious (extremely hot) tea that seemed very similar to Chai tea.
We then walked down the street and ended up at a Hindu temple. Dr. Perumal dropped us off here and gave us some time to explore the temple. I walked around for a bit, enjoyed some amazing Hindu music, and then walked out and found a very cool little coffee shop tucked away in the middle of an ugly street.
After coffee, we met back up with the group and had a traditional southern indian meal on a banana leaf. This was definitely a first for all of us, and it was hilarious watching everybody hesitantly grabbing food with their right hand and trying to put it in their mouth gracefully. I absolutely loved the food and am glad I was able to have the full eating experience.
After resting a bit after dinner, we walked to the Glass temple which is also Hindu. This temple was very interesting because of all the different kinds of glass (6 types) used to make the place. Here we were led by a tour guide who taught us about the different Hindu gods, the purpose of the Hindi(dot on forehead), and also typical customs of Hindus. Although it was very interesting, we were all extremely exhausted by then and wanted to sit and rest.
After the glass temple, I tried going back to the coffee shop with the guys because the sign had said it was open 24 hours, but unfortunately it was closed so we just came back to the hotel to sleep. I'm honestly a bit glad that we are leaving JB, I hope the next city gives me a better perspective of Malaysia.
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