Like Croydon, only hotter and not shit

The taxi I got into to go to work today wouldn’t take me at first, for whatever reason I don’t know, but then after I’d got out, he shouted across to the concierge and then let me get in! Weird – anyway, I (eventually) got into work: at the moment it’s quite nice that I have not got too many meetings lined up in the KL time zone, so I can actually get on with some work from stuff that’s arrived the evening before from the UK/US. And of course I can surf the internet at will! I still, however, haven’t been very good at delegating or declining meetings that are run from the UK that are late into the evening here – and I end up at one until about midnight. 

Before that, I head to the Jusco Chinese Supermarket down in the mall adjacent to the hotel, and it pongs of durian fruit – that oh-so-familiar stench of sweet rotting cheesy feet and petrol. I buy a variety of (unhealthy) snacks, which sorts of defeats the object of having soups and going to the gym daily, but I couldn’t resist the wasabi peas and hot chilli baked crisp things. I could resist, however, the drink labelled "Pocari Sweat". What the hell is a Pocari?

I did find a M&S here too – so in the immediate area of this hotel I have got a huge Tesco, an Ikea, a Waitrose and M&S! Petaling Jaya is like Croydon, only hotter.

And not shit.

Or full of chavs.

In the gym tonight there were loads of people doing ‘exercise’. I have put this in inverted commas because I don’t think that walking at a snail’s pace on the tread mill, or holding your hands above your head, or lying on the floor actually constitutes exercise! There’s also this young child in there clearly fascinated by me who runs up and introduces himself, tells me his name, where he is from and what he has done today. I start to reply and he stares at me, lets me finish my sentence and says, “Sorry Mister, I don’t speak or understand any English”

Right...