Arrived in Penang last Tuesday, but its taken me this long to tell you about it. The food is the best thing about being here, just across the road from the Uni is an indian place which does the best Tandori chicken with Naan bread for a pound, its great. The places on campus serve sweet malaysian curry, grilled fish and other wierd looking things which all taste nice, its even cheaper, about 50p a meal.

The campus is nice, not too large, and easily navigable, I live in the hostel Aman Damai which means Peace and tranquility, and it is at the moment as nobody else is about. Term starts in the 9th and all the other students arrive on the 1st and 2nd of May, so far just me and Eileen from Canada, she plays guitar too so we jam outside, when its not too hot, but its taking me a while to get back into the guitar as I stopped playing towards the end in Mexico as I had too much work to finish before I left.

I miss Mexico, especially the family I lived with, it was so nice to live with them and Jeremy and I were really welcomed as part of the family. I bought a phone card, so I will give them a call later to say hi. Im trying to keep on top of my spanish by emailing friends still in Mexico.

I think I will stay here next week, as I am still in no mood for travellingt and will just spend money if I do, which Id rather save to bring back to the UK so I dont have to work next year at Hull. I spend my days practising Malay, which is quite easy to pick up, but there are not so many people to practice with and everybody speaks english or Minglish a mix between the two.

The USM (Universiti (yes spelled with an i!) Sains Malaysia) library is good, internet is slow and not many machines, so we are in one of the numerous cyber cafes at the shopping parade in front of the University, the library has a big collection of films, so I plan to wade through them while I am here and catch up on some classics that I have missed out on over my time of not watching any films at all (as I thought most were a waste of time, until someone told me to be more selective about what I watched). Saw the Matrix Reloaded, unfortunately not that well selected and again I fell for the hollywood marketing more than the content of a good film, but was ok, I suppose.

Read Harper Lee's to Kill a Mocking Bird last week and saw the film yesteray, was good. Still have a stack of books to read that I have carried around in my backpack from UK, so I am slowly wading through them.

My hall of residence is not quite upto that of Singapore, which was excellent, this one reminds me of a prison cell, with bare concrete floor and dirty walls, but its ok, not very secure if someone wished to break in, as I am on the ground floor with dodgey windows, which also atracts mosquitoes from the lake just outside. The lake is wonderful though, full of wildlife, giant monitor lizards parol the banks and skuttle into the water if you come close, occasionally you see terapins emerge from the green water, which is seething with fish in the shallow areas, wader birds stand on logs in the water waiting to catch them. Unfortunately they dont eat enough mosquitoes as I have to sleep with a mosquito coil in my room, which isnt so bad, but in the morning everything smells sticky sweet.

The international office staff are extremely friendly and you get a great view over the penang bridge to mainland Malaysia from the 5th floor of the chancellory building.

10000 students in total with 7000 on campus. 25 more exchange students coming, from Finland, Canada, USA, Holland, none from France and Im the only one from England again. Plus 30 norwegians who I studied with in Singapore but didnt know very well, went to a party at one of their apartments last night, very nice, most exchange students live off campus, but I think Ill stay.

ok, see you soon,
John