One week in...

Well over one week in to be exact but hey ho. Here's a brief update of where we've been and what's been happening in the world of Project Connect:

Ghost Tour - Second night in and everyone dressed up as ghosts and ghouls to do our very own ghost tour of York. I think Spoon stole the show with his spectacular Roman soldier outfit and Fairuz in his Lycra skeleton suit. We did get some funny looks from the people at the bus stop opposite the theatre though!

Y Live - It rained. And it rained. And to make it a little different it drizzled. Y Live was almost rained off. We had to edit some of the highlights to accommodate the weather but we still managed to experience the freakin' awful smell of Jorvik.

Bradford - Media Museum and true Bradford curry. mmm.

Whitby - Luckily it was sunny and we got to be proper seaside tourists. Fish and chips, the Dracula experience and Captain Cook's boat. Not to mention the angriest and greediest birds on the planet, seagulls. I still think crows are terrifying but seagulls are a worthy second place.

The Malaysian Invasion - we performed on Saturday night - thank you to everyone who came to show their support! It went really well and we had some interesting suggestions of things to put in a box to another country!

We'll put up some photos soon. Here's to week numero deux!

x

Arrivals!

Just a quick post to let friends and family know that everyone has arrived safe and sound. Their rooms at the uni look out over a lake which is very pretty and they are loving their en-suites! After drinks tonight jet lag kicked in and we had a few people asleep on sofas so home to bed and a lie in-in the morning before another (hopefully) sunny day in York.

x

Malaysians on a plane!!!

So we've made it to d day or d day eve for us, because while the Malaysians relax and enjoy the in-flight entertainment and three course meals we enjoyed about a month ago while flying for 20 hours we are now frantically doing the final preparations. Final preparations which have involved a costume fitting. I'll leave you guessing. I don't want to give away any surprises. So here we go, let the York tourist experience commence!!!!

Hannah x

A-Z and poems about HATE

"I wrote this" said Henry

So we're doing an A-Z of York, I have Rowntrees, Wit-Ma-What-Mah Gate (or however its spelled) or Whippets, Eee Bah Gum and The Queen. This turns out quite nice because my whole family seems to have worked at Rowntrees at one point in their lives, for the Queen I plan to quote The Sex Pistols, one of my favourite bands, and for Ee Bah Gum we all scribbled down Yorkshire dialect, like LASS and BY 'ECK. We fully intend to not only force English on forgein countries, but also strange idolects!

I'm also helping write some poems for an Anthology we plan to collect and print to raise a spot of cash. Probably about how grey the world seems, how grey England is etc. That's my style ;) a young Larkin in the making...angry!!!

At OMG (OH MY GOD its an open mic!) I did a poem about a particular lil lady and there's been some outcry for it so here is the full version of the 'I Hate Anna' poem:

Soft spoken shrill red-haired dyer
DIY custom dress punk palavar
Yet beneath this nicity exteriror
Anna is evil and I hate her

Anna is a sinister mink planner
Known alarmer mess with my manner
Winding me up too much I trust
Anna is a deciever hate hate hate her

Too much to say why I loathe
Hate piles up in droves
But what I hate most about this scamer
Is my hate is dwarfed by my love for Anna

One week on...

Like Henry, I realised today that we have been back in the UK now for exactly a week (pretty much to the hour!) so I figured it would be a good time to reflect on Malaysia.

On the epic 25 hour journey home we were all trying to figure out how to tell our friends and family about our experiences. How do you describe a trip where you met 15 or so amazing, creative friendly people who took you into their hearts and homes and gave you the trip of a lifetime? Well we didn't really come up with any answers but the photos you see on Facebook and that will emerge onto the blog go some way. So many of our stories for the coming months will begin... "In Malaysia..." and then you'll hear a snippet of our journey.

********

Random memories:

Being stared at by 13 year old boys on motorbikes in Kelantan. We became a local tourist attraction in minutes of arriving at Dianne's house!

The world's biggest cockroach on Innie's chair at a local food place.

Rice. Fried egg ice-cream. Pickled peaches. Chicken rice balls. Kissables. Nips. Milo!

Buying a massive stick of sugar cane in the 5 ringitt challenge on thr KL live tour and then watching everyone else carry it round KL for the rest of the tour for me!!

The children we met at the Wau festival in Kelantan. Me and Shireen taught them "Old McDonald" while the rest of our group was in the sea wondering who the heck was singing Old McDonald.

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We are only half way though. Woop! Tonight we have a mini York reunion and will be discussing our plans for when our Malaysian friends come to the UK. If anyone has any ideas/discounts to offer get in touch via the blog or facebook! We want to make it as epic as Malaysia was for us.

Hannah x

Thoughts from the mind of Henry...

Well I realised this morning its been a week since we got back and my jetlag seems to have subsided, which is weird because I can't remember really having jetlag in Malaysia...I assume it was just we had to get up when we had to get up and go out when we had the chance...ergo we had a packed schedule with no time for bodyclocks!

Everything seems so cold...even the sunniest day last week felt FREEZING!!!

I think all my pics are on facebook now and I've stolen others but I'll flag up some of my favourite.Some highlights of mine include:

The Magick River, obviously, it was magical! Just a little tiny pool tucked away in the (ahem) jungle with strong currents, magic sand and a mysterious waterfall! But, in all honestly, I think as soon as we all saw the Magick River we knew it was gonna be magickal!

OMG-The Open Mic majiggy. Twas funny how it’s similar to UK Open Mics and at the same time much more visual. Plus it was nice to perform (I can say I've done Open Mic in York, Leeds, Harrogate, Wakefield and Kuala Lumpour!) and see other great performers in a good atmosphere. Plus, all I could think of was OMG stood for OH MY GOD!!!

Though not really a 'fun' highlight, it was insightful to visit the shells where people have been 'stored' but an uncaring government. It shows politicians make stupid mistakes the world over.

So I've learnt, once again, how dull the Brits can be and how wonderously imaginative other people can be...its the same in Europe and here in Malaysia we have artists creating beautiful dreams and magical worlds. Expression and majesty. Whilst I havn't been converted to Buddism (and probably never will), perhaps it requires more exploration on my part.

I’m grateful for not feeling ill or having any gut problems during the 2 weeks, neither was I bitten nor sunburnt. But what I’m grateful for most is being apart of this amazing project and meeting some crazy and wonderful people both from home and abroad.

Home again already

Well, after an emotional farewell, we managed to get safely home again after about 28 hours of travelling. I am not putting any pictures up on this blog today but for those exchange participants who haven't checked out your facebook account recently good grief there are a lot of awesome pics flying around there! Thank you to everyone who is posting pictures, it is a fabulous reminder of a trip in which we all fell in love with people and places and trip which was over way too soon.

We are all getting excited now about hosting the Malaysian group in the UK and are so looking forward to seeing everyone again.

For those of you who are interested, I picked up on this article from looking at the project connect blogspot. Enjoy.

http://thestar.com.my/youth2/story.asp?file=/2008/6/11/youth2/21071192&sec=youth2

More pics and stories to follow soon.

Hi again from a very dramatically stormy Malaysia.

You will be pleased to hear that everyone is currently well, working hard and having a fantastic time.  Since I last blogged, we have been working hard to rehearse for a performance this saturday night at Dram Projects.  Kotak Otak will see all of our group members performing the work in progress to an invited and friendly audience as a way of sharing the work of the exchange partners.  The York group will perform their piece which was inspired by the contents of the Malaysian box, Innie and Shireen will perform a piece inspired by the Malaysian box while the Malaysian group will perform a piece inspired by the contents of the York box.

Yesterday the whole group opened the box from the Soho group and as I type, the rest of the group are working hard to devise an opening and closing to the whole performance which is inspired by the content of the Soho box as well as polishing the original performance (for some reason "Hey Big Spender" is being sung very loudly, we shall see what that is about later!).

The opening of the Soho box was a really interesting experience and the contents appear to have moved and inspired the group a lot.  It was also really strange to find pictures of Gemma in there who we all miss a great deal and everyone commented that it would have been great to have Gemma with us while the box was opened.

For those of you who spotted that Hannah was missing from the last group picture and therefore that she was one of the people who was ill, you were absolutely correct!  So here to make up for it is a very nice picture of Hannah at the Shadow puppet event in Kelantan.  Hannah would like me to go into more detail about her friendship with the toilet but I am refusing!!!!  You will all thank me for that!

Another highlight of the week has been a visit to the Magick River where we spent a gorgeous afternoon with Antares who took us to a beautiful spot along the river where we swam, sat under small waterfalls and generally had a fabulous time!

The open mic night was a fantastic success and the contributions from our group members was a brilliant addition to the night.  Many thanks once again to Spoon and Henry, Henry by himself, Anna and Shireen.  Fantastic performances.

Anyway, here are some more pictures to prove we are all actually in Malaysia and having as much fun as we say we are!!!

      

Malaysia Baby!!!!

Well, we have been here for a week now and everyone is a little bit more tanned, have a few more bites and are absolutely loving every second of being here!

Firstly to all of you who have been checking the site to check up on your loved ones, I am sorry but today is the first chance we have had to get close to some internettage. 

We have had a few people making friends with the toilet! But today, everyone is well, happy, loving their surroundings and lapping up all the experiences that the Malaysian group are providing for us.

The group in Malaysia have been so welcoming, so friendly, so keen to share experiences with us.  We all feel so privileged to be here.  Quick breakdown of the trip so far:

Day 1:  Batu Arang.  A visit to a hospice where Cloudbreak have been working with a group to educate people about HIV and AIDS awareness.

Day 2:  Flight to Kelantan and visit to temples, craft fairs and a stunning Shadow Puppet Theatre visit.

Day 3:  1st group workshop.  Visit to Buddhist temple, lunch with Kelantan minister, visit to cultural centre.

Day 4:  Visit to Market, batik workshop (where we made an awesome piece of Batik!!!) 

Day 5:  12 hour train journey!!!!!!! from Kelantan to Kuala Lumpur.

Day 6:  KL city live tour.  The Malaysian group took us on their own personal journey around KL taking us to places of importance to them.  A really amazing way to see a city and to see places we would never have seen otherwise.

Day 7:  Group workshop.  Our first workshop with Brian and our first visit to Cloudbreak studios which was great.  As I write, most of the group have gone swimming in Daphne's pool (I don't think she realised how many were going to turn up!!!!)  And a select group of us are sitting with iced tea writing to you.

I am being told off for not writing about Shireen so may I take a moment to say how fantastic it is to have 3 members of the Soho group with us here in Malaysia.  We have come into this project at quite a late stage so to have some of the group from the UK who started this project is fantastic for us as we learn more about the origin of the project.  Gemma has unfortunately had to go home now, she might even still be flying!!!! We miss her hugely already.

Tonight we have an open mic gig in which Henry, Spoon, Anna, Shireen (2 mentions now Shireen!) and Innie are performing.

I hope to update this blog more soon but I have had to steal Owen's computer as mine will not log on to the web for some very annoying reason.

I hope this bit of info makes up for not adding any info sooner.

 

Happy Travellers

The Group from York, minus Henry, mess about for the camera. Would you want to spend 15 hours on a plane with these people???

Here we go

This blog will mainly be recording the events, thoughts and feelings of the participants in the exchage to Malaysia. The members of the UK group will be updating this page both as a way of recording their experience and also to let people know what they are up to.

We have now had our last meeting in York before we set off to Kuala Lumpur and the level of excitement is getting really quite high now. We will meet at York station at 3pm on Saturday 24th May to travel to Manchester Airport then fly to Dubai before flying on to Kuala Lumpur.

Hopefully many pictures and stories will follow soon.