Arrival and first experience

Hello Everybody!

I arrived here last Thursday morning without any delay or problems and I can tell you that flying with Singapore airlines is a really great thing. Endless movies and CD's as well as video games and really good food.

I was picked up here at the airport from the two trainees (Anna, Pam) who work at B.Braun already. They brought me to my apartment in Sunnyville where I live all by myself at the moment. But possibly a Spanish guy will move in here on Wednesday. I will have to wait and see.
But now I want to tell you from my first weekend here. As there was the 50th anniversary of independence from England on the 31st of August the night before was a big party with fireworks where I went with Dominik a trainee at Schott. Wasn’t that great but it was also my first time in Georgetown.
The next day I settled from jetlag and slept until 2pm. After that we went to go out with some other people who live either in Sunnyville or in E-Park an apartment complex nearby. We went into a Karaoke Bar first and afterwards into Georgetown. It was quite alright but Beer here is as expensive as in Germany in the bars. So being a good “Schwabe” I only had one/two beer(s)!
The next day I went with Dominik to the Kek Lok Si Temple which is the biggest Buddhist Temple in Malaysia. It was really impressive. There is a big tower and also a statue which shows the “Goddess of Mercy” (I think) and it is 36m high. I was very sad though that they are building a roof for her at the moment so she wasn’t that pretty ;-) They also have all the Chinese zodiac signs as little stone figures as well as a little pond with Koi fish.
At night we went to Batu Ferringhi which is a town near the only beach here in Penang. But it is still supposed to be rather dirty there. The reason we went there was a NightMarket which takes places there every night. You can buy clothes and DVD’s/Cd’s and “brand clothes” for little money! Oh I almost forgot, we went there with a cab and it took as about 45 minutes to get there, guess what it cost us 8€!!!
Sunday Dominik and I went into Georgetown to do some sightseeing there. We visited Kongsi’s which are clan houses from Chinese families living here. They came here as traders and those families are of course very rich and so their houses are very exquisite. A lot of gold and beautiful wood carving and there are some kind of figures on top of the roof that are supposed to weight some tons!! The only sad thing about the whole tout which we started at the Khoo Kongsi ( clanhouse of the Khoo family) was that we didn’t understand any of the symbolism of either the Chinese, Indian or Muslim temples/mosques.
Since it is some kind of Chinese religious fest right now, if we understood it right the one of the “Hungry Ghost” there were many people in the Chinese temple burning joss stick (some are as thick as an arm) and giving food etc. Some also bought birds which were in small boxes and freed them. But the same here… We don’t know!!
That’s it for the sightseeing for right now!! I hope to see some more next weekend! I would like to go on Top of Penang Hill and see for example the Spice Garden and the Butterfly Park.