Happy Deepavali

The fireworks are still going off as I write. Last night they were firing off for about 4 hours. This weekend was Deepavali, the Indian Festival of Light or Harvest Festival. We got today, Monday, off and were able to enjoy another cultural event in Malaysia. When we arrived at school last Monday there were rice creations like the one above all over the school. Students, parents, and staff of Indian origin had spent the weekend putting together these rice reliefs. This one was rather large and what you see is only one part of it. These were all over the city where ever people gather, the malls, public offices etc.. This one had to be covered up at night or the monkeys would destroy them running around.
The week was a busy one at school. Besides Deepavali, there was a read-a-thon, and UN Day. On Friday all the different nationalities (that had there act together) put on a little performance for the rest of the school to demonstrate their national pride. It was a great event. It gave a perspective of how many from each nationality are at the school. The order seems to go Dutch, Korean, American, Philippine, Swedish, Australian, Brazilian, Swiss, Indian, and others. The Canadian group is rather small and weren't organized enough to get a performance together, although Maureen has plans to change that for next year.

A Dane and Dutch girl in National colours.
My class dress for UN Day. There are Korean, American, German, Swedish, Australian, Singaporean, Danish, Swiss, Argentinian, Italian, Chinese, Indian, and Taiwanese, and maybe some more.

We did have a long weekend but decided to hang about KL for a change and be a local tourist. On Saturday, after tennis, we met up with some other teachers and headed off to Brickfields or Little India to check out the festivities. I could almost imagine what it would be like in India. The area was packed full of people and there were hundreds of stalls selling every imaginable item. As Deepavali represents the beginning of something new the Indians by a lot of new things, clothes etc. Maureen did manage to end up with a nice looking Indian outfit. The sites, sounds and smells are still with me a couple of days later.The stalls at Brickfields extend right onto the street and the street was bumper to bumper traffic.

On Sunday I made use of the GPS I purchased and we drove downtown to on of the parks, Bird Park. It is a very large area, acres and acres, that have been netted off and have birds of every variety in. It was a great way to spend an afternoon. We tried to head up to one of the towers but the crowds there were a little much for us. We joined some friends for dinner at a Mexican restaurant and then headed to a open area cafe/pub to watch the soccer match between Liverpool and Chelsea.


There is 9 hole golf course that goes around our condo so we tried that out today. We thought we might try golf once a month or so. It is actually a nice little course and we enjoyed going out with a couple other of the teachers from the school. This evening we were invited out to a Deepavali open house at our condo. The realtor that we got our condo through is Indian and he invited us. The food was incredible. Maureen got the opportunity to dress up in her new outfit.