This past weekend was one of the most fun weekends I have had in a while! the boys and girls basketball teams at JIS went to a tournament in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia. If you have never heard of KL I suggest you look up pictures because it is a very beautiful city. In many ways it is a lot like Jakarta but in many ways it is very different. It is similar because both Jakarta and KL are developing cities that speak Bahasa ( the Indonesian language also), most of the population is muslim but their is also a wide diversity of people like Jakarta also. Some differences are the population in KL is A LOT smaller. Also KL is a lot cleaner and there are actually sidewalks. There is a lot more green hills in Kuala Lumpur and in Malaysia in general. But the biggest difference is you can actually see the blue sky in KL. All you see in grey in Jakarta because the city is so polluted.
So for our basketball tournament we played at International School of Kuala Lumpur or ISKL. We are not allowed to stay in hotels so some parents of ISKL students decide to become host families and let some kids stay at their home for a couple of days. I have to say, my host family was the bomb. the daughter was incredibly nice and funny and the parents were very caring. The food the had was delicious and I felt very at home they lived right next to the Petronas Towers which were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998-2004. They are currently 6th in the world now. My how family also took me shopping with my friend to a mall called The Pavilion. OMG it is easily my favorite mall ever right now. It had every store. I was surprised there were so many American and European stores there. It also had a TGI Fridays! It was decorated from head to toe with red and gold for Chinese New Years. It was just heaven.
But the most important part of the weekend was the basketball. I didn't realize how much I missed playing basketball games. I think our girls team played 6 games and we ended up winning the gold medal! :) The boys team did amazing as well and placed fourth! What was really special was how our two teams bonded. We never missed each others games and when wee attended them. We were LOUD. It felt so good to have 10 people in the bleachers cheering for you. And it was fun to cheer for the boys team too! It is just one of those events that brings a school even closer together.
Well that wraps up my blog for now :)
-Kaylin
