Our Experience of KL in a Nutshell
KL is lovely, no really, it’s our kinda place. The weather is pleasant, even if it’s raining… the people are (mostly) smiling, always friendly and ever so polite, and the food… to die for. We survived the trip in from the airport on Air Asia’s bus and monorail to our hotel. Despite the monorail becoming packed and everyone squishing around our bags, there was not one death stare! Not even a glance. Just a normal day on the monorail. So polite and friendly!
After checking-in without hassles, we tried the downstairs cafe for a coffee. The Indian waiter was visibly offended at our request for soy milk in ‘his’ coffee like it was against his religion! He kept saying (and you need the Indian accent on this) “Soy milk? No, I cannot.” … “In the coffee? No. I cannot.” *furrows eyebrows* haha. Oh well, we’ll try Starbucks. No luck, they were out of soy due to a strong demand from a soy tea latte promotion. Another customer at the counter was grumbling even louder than us! The main gripe was the barista had told him it’d be another week before the store got more in. Bazz spoke to the barista later and he said he’d try to get some that night… but no luck on that either. We did eventually get our soy lattes and have been savouring them ever since.
We met with Alex’s friend Mike and had a delicious lunch and dinner at a vege Indian place called Ghandi’s. We ate from a banana leaf with rice and many different vege curries and some extra plates of fake meat curries (soy imitations). Bazz tried his hand (literally) at the old Indonesian/Malay style of eating with your hands. I wasn’t that game (and worried about making a mess everywhere) and stuck to fork and spoon. Excellent food though! So tasty. Mike told us he is a vege and lent us an excellent reference book “Becoming Vegetarian”. After the delicious food and reading the book we decided to reduce our meat intake from now on. It’s called flexitarian - will eat vegetarian for preference, but still ‘flexible’. Kinda like the name. I think we were always flexitarian, but now we’re actively trying to reduce the meat side.
Been to many-a-shopping centre. There’s Times Square, Imbi Plaza, and Sungai Wang at Bukit Bintang (Star Hill) - mostly fashion there, Mega Mall out in the ‘burbs - almost everything there, and Mike took us to a bigger place Utama 1 (one) - there we found absolutely everything including a hardware store. We’ve not shoped excessively (aware of baggage limits) as we don’t really care for dust-collectors and trinkets, but have bought some useful items that we can’t find in China, like a smoke detector, movement sensor light, and some Bazz-size clothing. B clothing was not present really, everything is small (expected) and Asian or Muslim fashion. Not really my thing. Even basic things are too difficult to find, like undies. So it’s back to square one and relying on postage for now.
We found the ‘Phantip’ of KL (tech mall) called Low Yat (actually Mike showed us around). There’s about 6 floors of almost anything you’d need (except diskless workstations). We shopped around and bought 2 Eeepcs, unfortunately with hard-drives (as we were hoping for SD drives). At least we know hard-drive technology and hard-drives are very easily replaced. They’re both white, have about 10 inch screens and 3/4 sized laptop keyboards. Back at the hotel (Tune) we paid for 24 hours net and set about downloading EasyPeasy (Ubuntu Eeepc - linux for the netbook). Within one hour the pre-installed XP was frustrating both of us and tension ran high as the bloody thing reminded us every 2 minutes “Your computer may be at risk!”… OF COURSE it’s bloody at risk, it has Windows!! Quit telling me!
I was so determined to rid the thing of that horrible OS that I set an alarm for 1am. My download had finished and I set about installing (bleary eyed and all!). After minor teeth nashing - “Oh, the BIOS sees it as another hard-drive not as a USB stick! Fancy that …”, we were able to vanquish the evil lord XP. EasyPeasy was as the name says, easy! It was clicking next buttons and waiting for it to finish. It was a brilliantly smooth install as promised (and the reason we went with ASUS Eeepc). You do have to be aware that there’s no root password until you set one inside Users & Groups. Bazz woke up enough (after helping with mine) to try his as I went experimenting with connecting the internet and customising. We continued pimping our machines until about 5am when the black rings of sleep deprivation sagged prominently. Bed time.
Bazz woke to an alarming crash and flew open the bathroom door (with me inside), but it was from outside somewhere. Now that we were awake, it was back to the net until caffeine addiction was tugging at the eyeballs. After testing Starbucks’ free wi-fi, we headed over to our favourite nasi kandar joint for our (becoming) daily dose. We’re getting better at piling the offerings to even greater heights of ludicrousness. Today’s was so mammoth, we just had to take photos. We dubbed them “Mount Foodious”. It’s good we only eat twice a day!
While excavating our respective mountains, we noticed a pair of Boys-in-Blue stride into our quiet little restaurant. Not here to cuff and remove anyone (although both looked capable and carried an array of suitable arms), they found a table and waited to be served. A waiter took their order and we’d pretty much lost interest in the law-enforcing duo… until, that is, their order came. the first cop got a big steaming plate of nasi goreng (fried rice) - fair enough, that’s manly enough, we thought, and one certainly has to demonstrate a degree of dexterity while forking mouthfuls away without dribbling all over the over-starched, titty-tight royal blue shirt (what is it with Asian cops and super tight clothing?). It was the second cop’s order, however, that warranted this entry. A large wide-mouthed squat glass full of bright pink strawberry ice-cream was carried to their table. Bazz’s spoon stopped half-way to his mouth as he watched, agape, as the mountain of ice-cream reached its destination. “Is this for real? Did the cop actually order that, or is the waiter playing a brave joke?” We waited for the reaction… No tension, sadly. The cop nodded politely and tucked in to his cold lunch while gabbing to his partner. We breathed out, smiled and continued eating… no one was going to get hurt today. 
We spent more days on the net (Bazz figured out internet sharing, so no more fighting - hehe), and more days shopping/exploring. We walked to the towers one night. Damn! How much electricity does that bad boy burn?! Upstairs (or lift as it was) was shut for the night, so we wandered through to KLCC (a shopping centre) which was full of expensive brand names. Pausing on the rail of the centre court, absorbing the nature of the place, I glanced down at the grandma playing with her little granddaughter, tile jumping, while parents were deciding where to go. Cute. My eyes drifted over to another group seated around the edge of a garden area. I noticed all were male… then I took in the expressions of absolute boredom, sleepiness and basic zombie looks on their faces. This was the set of husbands, at about 8pm, who were still waiting for their respective wives to come back. They looked absolutely drained of any fighting spirit, despite the fact that their money was probably being drained at a phenomenal rate. This exact circumstance HAS to be designed into these places! To drain the male of fighting spirit, while enlivening the female to spend more. A very clever art. One, I noticed, was actually a Muslim couple. The wife was literally falling asleep while, probably, waiting for a younger relative or wife to finally finish her expensive second or third rounds.
We also ventured out to Melaka a more historic area full of museums and tourist shops. It was nice to see something actually preserved (unlike the lack of care taken at historical parts of China), but also disappointing to see the touristisation complete with trinket shops and music-blasting, 3-wheel peddle bikes. Tourism Malay style. And people wonder why we don’t like tourist spots. It was nice to try a delicious ice-dessert and soft, squishy, sticky and sweet glutinous thingies (that reminded me of Thai sweets).
We are now at the end of our journey, happy, but not really ready to return to work. Interestingly, Mike told us about “Malaysia, my second home” a retirement program where, given enough cash, you can get 10 year visas to retire in Malaysia. At this stage, that sounds like heaven as this place is sooo comfortable in weather, people, food and liveability! Something to ponder as we go back into the cold environs and back to work.