--------- CHAPTER I ---------
THE WAYFARER'S DESTINATION: MALAYSIA
Voices: the sound produced by living creatures, the faculty of utterance. A vibration, an intangible reverberation, meant to be aurally perceived. But how perceptive are we as human beings? We focus on elements in the foreground, and often filter out the innumerable murmurs in the background.
A Warm Welcome
ARRIVING AT KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA
"The food market's just around the corner - can you smell the mee goreng mamak from here?"
. . .
On the first day of the Field Trip, we were warmly welcomed by the members of UM with a hearty buffet breakfast. We recognized some of the faces as those who received us at the airport the night before. They were introduced to us as our fellow UM buddies who would be accompanying us throughout the trip.
"Do you want a cup of teh tarik? That'll kickstart the day for sure," said our buddies with smile.
Following the lead of our UM buddies, we were separated into two groups as we went on what turned out to be a City Hunt. We slipped through the crevices of Kuala Lumpur's city centre, absorbing every ounce of stunning architecture laid before our eyes (and obsessing over the multilingual signs and advertisements as well, because we are linguists).
CHAPTER 1.1
FROM OUR WAYFARERS...
"There’s a Chinese proverb which says: 'Walking ten thousand miles of roads is better than reading ten thousand scrolls of books.' I used to think that the only place to learn is classrooms built with four walls, but after this field trip I finally realised that everywhere can be a classroom." - Fayne, HKU coursemate.
A Feast for the Eyes
SIGHTSEEING IN KUALA LUMPUR
Everywhere they went, voices speaking their own languages weaved in between one another. The vibrant colours of the visual relics became all the more accentuated under the radiant sunlight.
. . .
On the next day, we were taken to another set of tourist attractions that appeared to be even more awe-inducing than the places we visited on day one. We put on the crimson robes at the Masjid Putra (Putra Mosque), awed at the gold-white cladded guards at the Istana Negara (King's Palace), and clambered up the rainbow steps of the breathtakingly variegated Batu Caves. (The stairs were breathtaking indeed in a very literal sense -- "Come on guys you're supposed to be young and energetic, why are you all out of breath already" groaned Kofi with a facepalm).
