holi festival

a belated happy easter! i spent easter at the same church i talked about last year, only this time i went to an earlier mass at 9:30 and found it much less overwhelming as what i had walked into last year.

following mass, i met up with meagan and we headed out to a local holi festival. holi is a hindu holiday, celebrating several different legends in the hindu religion, and also marking the start of spring. we weren't quite sure what to expect from it, but it certainly turned out be one of our better experiences!



this is what we looked at just after walking through the welcoming committee. and this was only the beginning!



see how happy she is? EVERYONE was that happy. i have never giggled so much, nor been surrounded by so many people who were just genuinely celebrating their religion and acting so completely carefree.




essentially as you walk through the crowd (who are all dancing or just enjoying themselves), everyone blesses you by marking you with the colored powder. we eventually got our own color and were able to walk around spreading the love to others. generally on the street, if someone were to come up and rub your face you'd probably be quite concerned. that was not the case here. it was all happiness.



this is what we looked like nearing the end of it. it was interesting, to say the least, to hail a cab and hope that he wouldn't mind our colorful selves in the backseat.



of course when i came home i had to share some of the colored love onto snuff, as well. he didn't enjoy it. i think he was a little startled when i walked through the door.

last easter i wrote about how amazing i found it that right next to the church, there was a chinese temple, and it signified to me exactly how culturally diverse malaysia is. this easter i had the same experience, only more first-hand than last year. it's just quite amazing to see. i'm a firm believer that one cannot blindly follow their own religion without lending themselves to experience the traditions of others. i'm all the more thankful that my opportunities here are giving me firsthand experiences. i had much to be thankful for this easter.

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my easter experience!

on sunday, i was fairly determined to find my way to church. i researched the catholic church in kl, weighed the benefits of taking a taxi versus experiencing the light rail train (note to self: you no longer ride the metro. you ride the train). masses were at 8 am, 10:30 am, and 6 pm. because i like to sleep and had a morning skype date with my friends, i decided on the 10:30 mass.

ok.

my first task was to walk to the train station. this is not a difficult task. my next task was to figure out how to get a token. for the train system, you can purchase a card which you can then reload money onto as much as you'd like, or you can get a one-use token. i decided to get a token because i don't know how often i will actually ride the train. the train station was actually very easy to navigate, and the token machines were extremely easy. i say this with a grain of salt, as really my only "regular" train experience is the metro, and even after riding it every day for two years and multiple times a year growing up, i get confused at the reloading stations in dc. anyways. that's beside the point. we're talking about kl. and here in kl, it was extremely easy. it's a touch screen, so you touch the map for where you want to go and it calculates the price and you pay and you're done. the only negative i could find is that it does not take bills larger than 2 ringgit. that isn't really a big deal though.


see? super easy to use. take notes, wmata.





overall, it was so super nice and easy, i was just happy. i was really concerned when the train pulled up and i saw a child in the front window. i thought he was sitting on the lap of the driver. it wasn't until i got into the train that i saw there was no driver, it's just a window, and it was totally legitimate for the child to be sitting there. still not safe, but this is the mindset you get when you stay up until 1-2 am reading about monorail crashes at disney world. i also laughed when going up the escalator and reading the stand-to-the-left sign. i think anyone who has had to deal with rushing to catch a train while politely asking tourists to move to the right side of the escalator in DC can appreciate that.

so anyways. navigate train system: check. my next task was to find my way from the train station to the church. i wrote out my directions, but of course, when coming up from underground, i had no idea where i was and my directions were useless. i used the tall buildings as guidelines for where i should be going, and i managed to find it. the swarm of people helped.



i say swarm, and i do mean swarm. i have never experienced anything like this church. firstly (and i didn't take pictures of this, but i should have), the street leading up to the church is filled with vendors. selling random things. anything. it was strange. i walked through the gate and up the hill and encountered a crowd. the church had tents set up in front of the church and at the sides, with presentation screens so that those sitting outside could follow along with the mass. the church bells rang, so it was 10:30 exactly. but the swarm of people had not just sat down for mass. the swarm of people had been there for a while. i could tell by where they were in mass that it did not just start. i walked around to the side of the church (aka i followed americans who looked like they knew what they were doing) and stood in one of the side entrances. i was really confused. i figured either the earlier mass started later, or ran longer, or something, but that the 10:30 mass would shortly follow the one i was currently standing in. so i stood and patiently waited, and the mass ended. the swarm of people cleared out, and i took a seat. the swarm never returned. the next mass started at 11:30, and aside from little quirks that you always find in going from one church to another, i enjoyed it. i was warned that there was no air conditioning, so i was not surprised to feel beads of sweat down my back. at the root, church is church, and no matter where you go, you're going for the same purpose, and all the extras don't really mean anything.



it is pretty inside, and very large. i suppose it will be my churchly home for the next three years.



on my way out, i saw this little shrine. one of the things i think i am going to like about asia is the religious mix. i think it's a fairly obvious idea that appreciating a culture's religion is important in order to appreciate the culture as a whole. and here in KL, with the mix of malays, indians, chinese, and everyone else, there seems to be a speckle of every religion anywhere you turn. i like that. although i have my religion and what i believe in, i appreciate the ability to learn about other religions, and really appreciate being somewhere where the opportunity to do so is so abundant. that's really the only way to not be a blind follower of your own faith. but anyways. so it was interesting to go to mass and come out and be encountered immediately with not just another christian sect, but a symbol of another religion entirely outside of christianity.

so anyways. that was my easter church experience. i have talked to a few people, and they have said that it's likely the church service at 8 always starts late, so to always expect it to run into 10:30. or, it may have just been easter. i will only know the truth by continuing to go! i spent the rest of easter sunday eating dinner at a friend's house, from which i unfortunately had to leave right after eating. it was still very nice to have a real dinner. i hope everyone else had a happy easter ♥ tomorrow is a local holiday here - the installation of the new king. his full title is: Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah ibni Sultan Badlishah. the names here are something that will take me a while to fully understand. also a fun fact, he is the first king to have reigned twice. his first term was in the 1970s. neato.



these popped up this weekend. i liked them.

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