Initially I had planned to take the night bus to .sg and then go back the next day, to get my visa issues settled, but since I had not fetched up the approval letter for my working visa I couldn’t go. Now I’ll be heading for Singapore tomorrow. But so I had the chance to visit the Golden Screen Cinema in the Midvalley Megamall. And guess – it was Star Wars time! I’ll write a review on the movie later. But what bugs me right now was the audience. It was the show at 9pm and since there were like half an our of commercials it took until midnight. Since the movie is rated FSK12 in Germany under the changed German law it would be possible for a kid between 6 and 12 to view the movie in company of its parent.

“Seit dem 01. April 2003 gibt es die Möglichkeit, dass Eltern (nur Personensorgeberechtigte, nicht Erziehungsbeauftragte) mit ihren mindestens 6-jährigen Kindern im Kino Filme sehen dürfen, die mit "Freigegeben ab 12 Jahren" gekennzeichnet sind. In der Praxis kann zum Beispiel ein 10-Jähriger in Begleitung seiner Eltern in den Film "Star Wars" gehen, der erst ab 12 Jahren freigegeben ist. Die Beurteilung, inwiefern 6 - 12-jährige Kinder in ihrer individuellen Entwicklung den entsprechenden Film verstehen und verarbeiten können, wird somit den Eltern überlassen.“

From http://www.spio.de/index.asp?SeitID=247

But I would not expect the parents to bring their kids into an evening show! And of course not really little children under six years. The number of children in the evening show here in Malaysia really shocked me. Not only a few, but at least 10 kids as little, and tired after the movie, that they had to be carried outside by their parents watched the movie. And I thought Malaysians where conservative…

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 08:14 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

I had a good weekend, but somehow it was kind of a mess… Initially I planned to attend the wedding of a colleague here at Siemens, which was somewhere in the North. Then my friend Schoschi, who is currently touring through Asia contacted me and suggested to meet on Penang. But I didn’t here from him, so I couldn’t plan to go to Penang. Since Penang is not far from Taiping I could have easily reached the wedding there. But I didn’t have a Backup of reaching Taiping withour going to Penang or with someone going there from KL by car. My only chance to get there would have been to go with Ben or Alison, but since both of them didn’t go I didn’t make it there either. As an alternative I went out with Dirk, Alison and a few friends of Alison to the Waikiki Bar in PJ, which is really a great location. But guess we had a few beers to much, and on Sunday I was totally devastated…

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 10:03 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

The only aspect I got to worry a little right now, is that I needed more money than expected. It would be to hard to switch completely to an life style, which is not that expensive.. I mean you can eat for MYR 6.10 and your a completely filled up and the meal tastes really good - but if you have the desire to eat a pizza with plenty of cheese, and you want to drink a beer for beverage you end up spending MYR 25.. Even to get some bread and sausage, which is something really common in Germany for a light dinner may cost a fortune, if you are not willing to eat the cheap bread, or if you are up for some non-halal salami (MYR15/100gr).

I calculated that MYR 34 would be sufficient for a living per day, but that figure is without anything special, like a dessert after lunch, or a DVD movie to watch in the evening. And as mentioned before you can easily end up spending money which would be enough for a whole day for just one dinner.

Calculation for a minimum budget in Malysia:

• Breakfast - Cookies MYR 2
• Lunch - MYR 10
• Taxi home from work MYR 7
• Coffee-brake MYR 5
• Dinner - MYR 10

So, 30*34MYR=1020MYR considering, that there are additional costs for accommodation of about 500MYR, the whole money of the pay check will be gone for the minimum needs. I know that being really economically it might work to live with less than MYR20 a day.. but that would be far away from European standards. So I try not to do the expensive things to often and hope that there will be money left for many, many holiday trips

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Things to know at 11:26 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Although I’ve got some spare money in my bank account, I don’t want to change that to MYR right now, because the exchange rate between Euro and MYR isn’t that good at the moment. So it was really good, that I received my first full paycheck this week! But getting paid here is not that easy.. You get an check issued by the public bank where Siemens Malaysia is customer, and you can only cash it at that bank. The alternative is to open account at any other bank (good that there is an alliance bank at the ground floor of CP Tower), but then it takes at least 2 working days until the money arrives at your account. Anyway.. got my check on Friday, and money should be available on Tuesday.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 09:25 | Comments (0) | Trackback (1)

MYR is the currency here in Malaysia. 1 MYR (Malaysian Ringgit) equals 100 sen. There are coins for 1,5,10,20,50,100 sen. And there are notes for 1,2,5,10,50,100,500 MYR. The Malaysian Ringgit is pegged to the US-Dollar with a fixed exchange rate of US$1=MYR 3.80 (the currency is also sometimes referred to as M$ or RM)

The Ringgit is a closed currency, that means it can only be sold/bought in Malaysia. Therefore there are limitations concerning the export of currency. Many people in Malaysia belief that through the tight connection to the US$ the currency is quite undervalued. But the Malaysian government keeps the fixed exchange rate, to support the countries economy.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Things to know at 08:22 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Actually, yesterday I did quite some overtime hours. Not for my department – but for my friend and housemate Dirk, who had some work to do where my computer know how was needed. Basically we just had to burn some CDs and DVDs. But getting a split archive file was somehow a problem, since my computer didn’t like 700MB SFX-Files.. Also the stupid Anti-Virus Tool slowed the HDD access down. Well this only leads to one – everything took its time and we had to work from 9pm-3am to get all the CDs done…

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 09:52 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

This time we got some variety at work. It was time for the Siemens Malaysia Power breakfast. Which was a meeting from the company management for the employees to present results after about half of the fiscal year, to introduce new managers and of course to motivate everybody to work hard in order to achieve the goals set for the current year. Quite interesting to see the executives of the company in person. You might expect, that at a power breakfast you'd get some really heavy stuff to eat - to become powerfull, but only a "light breakfast" was served. That meant some fried noodles and a small variety of cakes.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life at 09:29 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

It is Hale Berry and she is amazing! Well.. at least if you are just up to see some nice girl jumping around like mad ,). Actually i found the movie apart from the boring beginning quite entertaining. you have some nice girl as main actress and a few good action scenes. But don't expect too much of the plot. IMBD describes it as "A shy woman, endowed with the speed, reflexes, and senses of a cat, walks a thin line between criminal and hero, even as a detective doggedly pursues her, fascinated by both of her personas." and guess - there is really nothing more.

(Jay's Rating 1/5)

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Media at 07:46 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)