About a month ago I walked over to uni.. and into a little Malaysia. It was the Malaysian Society's welcome do, and I was the only white person there (bar one). Everyone was speaking in their delightfully accented malay-english, or bahasa, or Tamil (I think) - or a bit of each. We played games - who could make teh tarik (literally pulled tea - poured at a distance from jug to jug to aerate it) the best (me and my partner managed to spill a fair bit on eachother!) We played giant games of tug-of-war, and did lots of what malaysians do best - eating, and drinking teh.
On my birthday I was in Sydney to catch up with people and hear Shane Claiborne (Christian-monk-hippy-dude) speak. While we were in Newtown we found this fantastic Indian/Sri Lankan/Malay restaurant that made dosai (massive crispy lentil-based pancakes), sambal and chutneys just how they tasted in India!! I nearly died of excitement.
On that visit I also found an asian grocers' that sold heaps of mixes and spices and other fascinating things.. which enabled me to make idli and sambal a few weeks later. (as we didn't have an idli steamer and the stove was full, I ended up cooking them in the microwave. shhh I won't tell anyone if you don't. they still tasted great, I swear!)
