How did THAT get there?

The repairmen are supposed to be coming round this morning at 9 am to sort out the drainage, air conditioning and intercom once and for all, but I am not holding my breath. Aida, one of the girls in the office, makes a comment that 9 am Malaysian time will be more like midday, but I have more hope: and rightly so –they turn up at 8:55!

Air conditioning: apparently the reason why it is leaking is because the drainage pipe is blocked, and all the humid waster has backed up into the unit and that's why it's flooding. This drainage pipe emptied out into the spare bathroom’s drain… 

Ah. 

I remember just after I moved in that there was a continuous ‘drip, drip, drip’ noise coming from the bathroom, and I thought it was a leaking water pipe in the wall, as I couldn’t work out where else this water would be coming from. Anyway, as I knew that I would tune into it at night and probably not be able to sleep, I stuffed some loo paper into the pipe to muffle the noise. The handyman pulled this loo roll out and we all looked at each other shaking our heads, tutting, wondering how on Earth it got there. Must have been the cleaner…

Intercom: it wasn’t working because it wasn’t wired in to anything – the bloody thing was just for show! Anyway, one of the workmen rewired it for me and I managed to call and speak to the concierge guy several times (just to make sure it worked properly), who was a bit confused as to what I was doing, keep ringing him up and pressing all the buttons.

Drainage: there was a block so they got this super-sized hoover thing, rather like one of those poo-suckers you get to empty out portable loos at festivals and cleared my blockage.

Hoorah! All those little niggly things were done – I could relax now.

Astro Man

Today the Astro Man is coming to install my satellite television, and he’s due about lunchtime. I have become used to the Malaysian clock, and “about lunchtime” is probably the most accurate I can get. Anyway, he turned up on time (12.20) and after a futile one-way conversation with the security guard on the non-functioning intercom, I go down and meet him – and he appears to be having an argument with the security guard and one of the management reps, occasionally pointing to an ominous looking huge cardboard box, which looks suspiciously like it has a huge satellite dish in it.

I guess they were telling him that he couldn’t install the dish, and I was about to join in too, as I don’t want it hanging out the window either, making the place look like a council house in Croydon. Anyway, the conversation and mood suddenly appears to lighten and they allow him passed security and I let him up to the apartment. He is a miserable man, not uttering anything to me at all and when I asked what he was going to do with the dish he just grunts and shrugs his shoulders.

I leave him to it all and he makes all the necessary connections, without the need for the dish in the box, and I get television, all be it mostly in Mandarin Chinese.

After holding out his hands and asking for his installation fee (199RM) he buggers off, leaving all the boxes over the floor and this great big satellite dish in a cardboard box in the lounge, unused, and doesn’t even give me the change from the 200RM that I gave him. 

Bastard.

Peaceful Sunday

I head to the pool again this morning, which is deserted again and lie in the sun for a bit, before doing about 40 leisurely lengths and then deciding to go down to Mont Kiara shopping area for some breakfast, shopping and a nose around the shops there.

'pavement'

I walk over the road to the shopping area: it’s quite funny that despite all the fantastic building that’s going on, and the pretty good road infrastructure that’s in place, they seem to have completely forgotten about providing decent pavements. Maybe people really don’t walk anywhere as the place is pretty deserted - mind you, it’s about midday and scorching, so perhaps that’s the reason.

So I spend some time taking photos of the new area – it’s very new here and in about 6 months I reckon there will be some people here! Actually, the main shopping area has a bit more going on, and I decide to sit outside The Coffee Bean with a warm banana muffin and a coffee to watch the (hot) world go by. No sooner as I had sat down, this car starts beeping its horn right in front of me, and from what I can make out, the driver is trying to get out of a parking space in which he’s been completely hemmed in by triple parking! One of the shop owners comes and sits next to me and starts chatting about how crap the Malaysian drivers are and how parking is a real problem round here.

    

Above him is a sign for what is probably the biggest car park in Mont Kiara, and all of 50 metres away. I point this out to him, and he says that all Malaysians are too lazy and would rather spend ages trying to squeeze into parking spaces, or (like here) just abandon their car in the middle of the road and double/triple park to be outside the shop they want to go to, and besides they don’t want to pay for a parking space (1RM – 20p)

The intermittent polite honking soon turns into a continuous BEEEEEEEEEEP for about 2 minutes until the offender, who has now finished her shopping, returns to her car and drives away, freeing this prisoner from his parking space.

I walk around the blocks of the shopping area, and there are quite a few restaurants, small shops etc here, which seem quite good. I find a "cheap" DVD store and buy several cheap DVDs for about £2 each, including films that have only just come to the cinema (e.g. Salt) and a few others I haven’t seen – Sex in the City 2, Terminator, Clash of the Titans, Amelia and Julia & Julia...

I then head over to Cold Storage and buy a plant before walking home in the sweltering heat.

Is it all a Dream?

Decide to go to the cinema tonight, and then try to get tickets to see Inception at one of the local cinemas. What a complete and utter palaver!

I went online, only to discover that there were pretty much no seats available for Inception (or any other film for that matter) in virtually every cinema in Kuala Lumpur, and then when I did manage to find some spare seats, as soon as I clicked “buy”, either an "error occurred", or I got a message saying I needed to "Please use the Golden Screen Online e-Transfer system", for which I needed to register.

OK, I reckoned that I was probably going to make use of this quite a bit, so I decide to register. I couldn’t really believe how difficult that was either – you need so much stupid information, like passport number, Identity Card number, two telephone numbers, Race, Nationality, occupation, salary details, inside leg measurement, six professional references…Ridiculous. Anyway, I persevered (giving false information for the majority of the information) and managed to register correctly, only to find that I couldn’t use the e-Transfer system with my Safari web browser and it threw me off, so I repeated it all again using the Google browser, only to find I needed a Malaysian credit card, which I haven't got yet.

Because I haven't been able to open a Malaysian Bank account yet.

Because I haven't got my work visa sorted yet.

Because a lot of things take a lot of time to sort out.

I was beginning to think that cinema is only for Malaysians…and Windows users (fucking Bill Gates again)

Anyway, Ali suggests phoning the cinemas directly, but no luck there either, so we just head to the cinema and try the old fashioned way – queue up. This worked and we managed to get probably two of the last remaining seats in Kuala Lumpur to see Inception – which was a brilliant film and I managed to stay awake and actually understand what was going on!

I still think it was all a dream.

Hello?

I remember arranging with Kelly that a cleaner would come on Fridays, at 8 am, but I don’t ever remember getting the confirmation that this was going to actually take place (and I have subsequently learned that you need to really check, and re-check and re-confirm that things are going to happen, three times...) so I was going through some emails to find any confirmation, before heading off to work, when the intercom buzzer goes (exactly at 8 am), so I answer “Hello?” but there's no-one there, instead, the buzzer is still going, so I press all the buttons, calling “Hello?” all the time, but still the buzzer is going off. It stops, then starts again, so I pick up the receiver, press all the buttons and shout "HELLO" so loudly I expect they could hear that downstairs: who needs the intercom?

I guess the intercom doesn’t work either. It’s OK, just more teething issues.

I end up going downstairs to the concierge and the guard says that Duta is waiting for me – Duta is the cleaner. Fantastic!

Anyway, I show Duta around the apartment and explain what I want done, being quite detailed and I explain where all the cleaning stuff is, the air conditioning, and how the dishwasher works (in great detail) and she is just looking at it, clearly not getting what this machine is supposed to do. Anyway, I let her get on and she starts by taking a cup and starting to wash by hand! So I smile, ask her for the cup, put it in the dishwasher (which is full and needs putting on anyway) and after showing her where to put the powder in, I turn it on.

She is completely mesmerised by this and goes “wooooow” for about 2 minutes. After the cycle is finished, I call her into the kitchen and show her the results – hot, sparkling clean, dry dishes! Just like magic.

I don’t think Duta will be happy doing dishes by hand anymore…and I imagine that when she gets home, she’ll be demanding a magic dishwashing machine of her own.

The flat is spotless after she’s done, and she even tidies up all the things inside the kitchen cupboards, my socks in the wardrobe and arranges my toiletries into size order!

Culture, innit? (Volume 2)

The next part of the cultural training was 4 hours going through business protocol. I was so tired and to be honest, though some of it was useful, I think actually it was a bit too long. He asked me what sort of stuff I’d observed working here with the team / office etc, so I told him some general stuff – time keeping, deadlines not being met, not really communicating issues when they arise, and he wrote all this stuff down and was smiling and nodding enthusiastically saying “yep, yep, yep” “hmm-mm, hmm-mm” a lot. He then said, now I shall tell you why that is so and what you need to do.

It’s all because during various colonisations, the Malaysians spent their time under the coconut trees and as the land is so bountiful, there is no reason to hurry anywhere nor worry about deadlines as there is no competition. I see. OK.

There was some useful stuff though, to be fair, like doing a profile of how I like to operate, and what values I hold etc, and compare them to a typical Malaysian, and there are differences (naturally), so as long as I am cognisant of this, I should be able to get the best out of the team. He asked me what it was like when I walked through the office and got into my Director’s office – how did they behave? I said that I didn’t really understand what he was on about because I don’t have an office, on purpose, so I can sit among the team as part of the team and get away form a typically hierarchical office environment.

He looked at me as though I was mad.

Oh well – we finished up and I felt a little more culturally aware (i.e. avoid these sorts of things and people!) and went shopping for a few more towels and a bathroom bin. I wanted some help with the towels but the girl in the department kept walking away from me, and as I walked out after buying my stuff, I spotted her in the corner asleep amongst the pillows!

I guess it would have been against my new cultural awareness to go up and go “BOO”.

Culture, innit? (Volume 1)

I have my cultural training this afternoon that I didn’t really want to do, but thought would be useful. I am supposed to meet the trainer at the One World Hotel for lunch and then spend 5 hours being cultured.

He meets me in the lobby and he is quite animated, in fact probably the most animated person I have met in a long time, and an American/Canadian one at that. He then introduces me to this Aussie woman who was going to walk me through some of the day-to-day living stuff. She had the biggest tits I have ever seen on a woman of about 5”. He is the same height and they are like a bit of a double act…

We have brief introductions and then they suggest lunch and say that as I have been here for so long I must have been out and about and know where the restaurants are, and I have a feeling that they are testing me, deciding whether i have actually ventured out of my hotel room in the three weeks I have been here, as they both have this odd look in their eyes, almost as if analysing my answers. Anyway, I suggest somewhere in the hotel and over lunch we go through some cultural things:

Tipping: “don’t bother, they are not used to it”. Seemed a bit harsh, and I shall ignore that advice. This was quickly followed up with giving your maid double on her birthday. That wasn’t really the advice I was after: I am relying on taxis a lot, and often get the same one: I thought that if I tipped one, they might not drive passed me the next time (happens quite a lot here, or just a refusal to take you where you want to go as it’s too far away). She did suggest that if I urgently needed a taxi, I could propose to pay double. Right, OK.

Etiquette/Clothing: usual stuff really, nothing here I didn’t know from reading my travel book, and unless you are a complete ignoramus then this wasn’t that useful either. No short skirts. OK, right.

Driving: I said in my pre-meeting questionnaire that I was concerned about driving, and things like road signs, warnings etc written in Malay could be a problem. She didn't really have much to say about that, but someone will park your car for you whilst you spend all your money in the shops. I did get advice on how to offer a bribe to a policeman when I got stopped for speeding. Right, OK

Safety: don’t leave my handbag about on a table anywhere, or walk in dark alleyways at night-time. OK, right.

Shopping: they stated that I must be missing things from UK in terms of food (I’m not) and then sat looking at me, almost expecting me to burst into tears and say how homesick I am for Marmite and cheddar cheese. I said that actually I was OK with the supermarket shopping that I had done, and that if I couldn’t get some ingredient for cooking (VERY unlikely) then I’d go without. Apparently if I see something that I like from the UK in the shops then I should buy the entire stock because before you know it, it’ll be gone.

F-o-r-e-v-e-r. 

I can get all my electrical goods, apparently, in a great mall called Low Yat – and I said that the place was great and I’d already spent a lot of time haggling for my GPS. That was met with a blank look and she moved onto where I could get my manicures. Right, OK.

Golf: Did I like golf? I resisted the temptation to say, “No, I’d rather stick golf clubs up my nostril/wasps’ nest up my arse/pins in my eyes (delete as necessary)” and just said that it wasn’t really my cup of tea, to which she just retorts that I needed to make it my cup of team as a lot of business deals are made on the golf course. OK, right, like I’ll be doing a lot of business deals.

Socialising: I must go to as many expat events as possible and meet lots of people like these two; she’ll invite me three times and then (blowing a raspberry) that’s it – you can sit all miserable on the 13th floor of your apartment on a Saturday night all alone. Right, OK 

I think I know what I’d prefer…

I did get some useful websites though, and quite fancy the look of the Full Moon Hashers - a jogging club

General: you can’t trust them to take notice of anything you ask/say – you need to talk slowly and loudly so they understand you. She got annoyed with the waiter as she wanted to order the fish and chicken noodles, but without any fish or chicken. Talk about trying to confuse someone! He didn’t really understand what she wanted, which is fair enough, and when her food turned up with fish in it, she sent it back and just turned to me and said “see?”

Why would you order a meat/fish dish and ask for no meat or fish in it?

Just Teething Issues, Sir

I call the management company and explained last night’s intruder incident and they are completely horrified and arrange for the owner to get the locks changed this evening. I also tell them that the washing machine flooded the kitchen when I used it the other day, as did the dishwasher (the drainage must be blocked) and the air conditioning unit leaks after a few hours of it being on (it leaked all night in the end, which is bad) so they should be sorting that out this week. 

It’s OK – just teething issues, Sir

I head to the gym later on, but my card doesn’t let me in – so I think I need to register or something, so I head into the management office and get greeted like an old friend when they realise I am the one who’s been on at them to fix various bits and pieces in the place. Never mind that, just get the stuff sorted…

Anyway the gym looks like it’s never been used – it’s huge, with all new equipment. At one end there is a mirrored wall, with all the kit just in front of it, facing it, so you can watch yourself sweat (and look like death whilst you are exercising) – the rest of the (expansive) room is completely empty. Thing is, the bit where the kit is has no air conditioning: the units are on the other side, where there is nothing! After about 5 minutes on the bike I was sweating like a cow’s wotsit and dripping body fluids all over the floor. Lovely!

Pongo and the Intruders

I think I have fixed the gas (replaced the battery in the sparker) but I need the project team to come round to sort out the water heater. They arrive in the afternoon and as they come in and walk past me I get this incredibly strong pong of BO, which makes me feel a bit sick. 

Anyway, Pongo 1 goes into the ceiling and sorts out the water heater, whilst Pongo 2 sorts out the shower head (I have noticed that it was pissing more water out the fittings that the head itself) and I get them to look over the gas to make sure that it’s all OK. After they go, I turn all the fans on full blast and open all the windows.

I was just drifting off to sleep tonight when I heard the doorbell go, at about midnight. I thought ‘oh piss off, whoever you are’ and turned over… only to hear a key in the lock, it turning, and the sound of the door opening, plus mumbled voices! I jumped out of bed (naked) and ran out into the lounge shouting “WHO’S THERE?” with all my bits wobbling about! They scarper, closing and locking the door behind them, and by the time I had gone back to put some pants on and gone out into the hallway, they had disappeared. I put the chain on the door and go back to bed, but am a bit worried now about the security – it’s not that I have loads of belongings here, but what I do have it pretty important – passport, money, identification documents, gin.

It's A Sin

As I need some groceries, I head over to Cold Storage to get some essentials – this store really caters for expats, and there was one in 1-Utama that I used when staying in the hotel (where I found the Waitrose aisle!), but the one near here is huge – two floors with an amazing choice.

£200 later, I was stocked up with the essentials. Wine, slim-line tonic, frozen peas and curry puffs!

It’s funny the things you don’t really appreciate when in a different country: the second floor (where you couldn’t take your trolley) was for the “sinful” items (beers, wines and spirits, Japanese goods and pork), so you have to leave your convenient trolleys downstairs, whilst you fetch the sin from upstairs and carry it all down by hand.

A bit like a 'walk of shame'  with the other shoppers looking and muttering 'sinners' under their breath.

D I S H W A S H I N G T A B L E T S

My first morning here, and I can hardly remember it as I have a huge hangover, after a really good night out with cocktails, wine and spicy noodles in a bar / restaurant near here called Souled Out

I want to get up and about, and I drag my hungover sorry arse to the shops downstairs (there are not that many open yet – it’s a brand new complex) and manage to get hold of some washing liquid, ironing board, hooks etc from the local DIY store. I tried to ask for dishwasher tablets but none of the three assistants knew what I was on about and even after trying to act out “dishwashing” they were none the wiser. One of them pointed me toward the toilet seats, and the others just stared blankly at me. I even contemplated pointing to a dishwasher in the electrical shop that I'd spotted somewhere else in the complex, but thought that they would probably think me mad for asking them to follow me round a shopping centre... and in any case I'd be able to pick something up at the supermarket later.

Moving in

Kelly picks me up at about 2 pm (with me and my bags waiting on the hotel doorstep) and we get to Solaris – my new home! It’s just as I remember: there are 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, nice kitchen, fab view over the city and it’s brand new. I think I am going to really like it here. Whilst I prance about the place opening cupboards, wardrobes, looking in the loo, trying the shower and air conditioning, Kelly is getting the broadband set up, but for some reason it just won’t work, so we are all there trying to figure out why the bloody thing isn’t connecting, and I just happen to say “did you put the SIM in?

Ah

So, broadband sorted, next was handing over the place, so the owner had to grab me and went round explaining what all the switches were (we had to guess a few, and I think I’ll need some labels) and checking that all the appliances, air conditioning etc turned on and off OK. That done, Kelly signs over the place to me (in fact there are a few things that are not working: the gas for a start (pretty important) and one of the bathrooms has no hot water – both of these are ok actually, as I will probably not want to cook anything on the hob in the next few days anyway…

They all leave and I’m here, on my own, in my apartment overlooking Kuala Lumpur! And I suddenly feel a bit lonely, wishing there was someone else here to share this moment with. Ah well, now I just need to make an effort to get out, meet some people and make the most of my time here.

Ramadhan-a-Discounts

I am up really early today as I am very excited about moving into my new place today – and I still have to get some bits and pieces and finish packing. I head out to Parkson’s again and to a place called Homes Harmony to look at bedding and soft furnishings. As soon as I entered, this very enthusiastic shop assistant made a beeline for me and I tried to avoid him by hiding behind the cushions. Actually, it wasn’t that bad really, and he was very helpful in helping me understand all the various confusing offers and promotions that were going on in the store at the time, all designed around me getting the best deal, I am sure… Anyway, this nice man did all sorts of calculations on this huge 1970s calculator and tried to explain what I needed to do to get the maximum discount:  if-I-bought-the-pillows-first-and-joined-the-store-Card-Scheme-then-came-back-to-the-till-5-minutes-later-I-could-use-that-card-the-one-day-only-extra-card-holder-discount-and-get-an-extra-20%-off-this-bedding-only-but-not-this-range-and-because-it-was-Saturday-I-qualify-for-an-additional-Ramadhan-%-discount-even-though-I-am-not-Muslim…

ARGH!

Anyway, I smiled at him and politely asked at the end of his enthusiasm “so, if I bought this and that, what would the total price be with various discounts applied?” 

5 minutes later after furiously tapping on the calculator, he gave me the best price and all in all I think I got a pretty good bargain – pillows, sheets, duvet, pillow cases, bolster pillow case (to which I said I didn’t need, but that was met with a frown and a retort “well, we are Asian here, we need these”, and all for about £60 (and seem decent quality too). The best thing is, it gives me some bedding etc to sleep in my own bed tonight!

The Essentials: Wine Glasses, Candles and Corkscrew

I was talking over lunch (very hot curry of egg and chicken bones) with the team and when I said my plans consisted of me shifting my stuff tomorrow morning, then IKEA in the afternoon, then bedding in Isetan Saturday evening they all laughed (hysterically behind hands!) and explained that it would probably take me all day in IKEA just to get through to the car park.

Oh.

I then change the plan and think I’ll go over in the afternoon, pick my basics up and store them all before I move in tomorrow.

The IKEA here is exactly the same as the one in Croydon – with the exception that the café sells Curry Puffs instead of meatballs! I love Curry Puffs – little Cornish pasty shaped puff pastries filled with curried chicken, egg, vegetables etc and delicious.

Anyway, do the usual routine of wandering through the showroom, putting essential things into the yellow basket, thinking “oh yes, I really need some of those plastic thingies and some more candles/cable tidy/energy saving light-bulbs/etc” and then head down to the market place to kit me out with crockery, pots and pans, cutlery, lamps etc. I had to stop myself putting the whole of Ikea in the trolley, and found myself thinking "I don’t even like this" 

Some of those items made their way into the Impulse Buy Graveyard just before the till, but even after discarding my third electric extension lead, box of cable tidies and cutlery tidy, I still managed to spend 1450RM and fill Ali’s car boot and back seats. It was really good of her to do this, as doing this in a cab would have been impossible, especially trying to get it all into and out of the hotel room later…

I head out tonight to buy some bits that I missed in IKEA – corkscrew and tin opener being two, but I also need some towels, kettle etc so I wander round the (rather tatty) Jusco Department store and pick those bits up. Most of it I can ship back to the UK, or just throw away  / leave it here when I go – the kettle, for example, only cost me about £10.

It’ll probably melt when I turn it on.

Two plus Two is Three-A...

I get a call from Kelly today saying that the deposit cheque’s OK, the agreement is in place and I can move in tomorrow – hoorah! I really hate staying in a hotel – there is just no privacy and a couple of times I have been either in the bath or having a poo and housekeeping (who don’t give my time between announcing they are there and barging in) finding me in an embarrassing situation! I’ll be happy to shift my stuff out of here as soon as I can.

So much for Friday 13th! Actually, the number 13 is not unlucky over here – but other numbers are, and being a culture made up of Malay, Chinese and Indian, there are several – 4 being one that springs to mind: this hotel doesn’t have a 4th floor (G, 1, 2, 2M, 3A) nor other floors with the number 4 in (so no 14, 24, 40 etc), and I remember that a lot of the apartment blocks I looked at were the same, but in addition, lost other floors too. If the apartment block was built by a Chinese company, or intended for Chinese investors, other floors would go too: for example 5, and all multiples of 5…

With all these missing floors, even though I am on floor “20” in the new place, I am probably just above ground floor!

Grr

I am settling into the routine of going to work here and now that I am able to direct the taxis to the office, perhaps it’s time I thought about getting a car…I’ll sort that out next week, I think – perhaps I can get some test driving done too…

I really hope that the tenancy agreement is sorted out tomorrow and everything’s in place for me to move in on Sunday: I hear that things are ready and we are just “waiting for Kelly to pick up the cheque”.

Then when I probe, and ask if Kelly knows that she needs to pick up the cheque, I get met with a blank face, and “Ah, OK, I call Kelly to ask”.

Grr.

(C)rap Music

I am still not really 100% on the stomach front and need to be careful with what I eat: the steak last night was good, and I am going for the rice/chicken dish at lunch, but I can’t resist the various spices and sauces that blow your head off…and blow your bum away later. It looks like we are making headway with my tenancy agreement, and hopefully I’ll be in the apartment at the weekend. 

Gym tonight, but I am really tired after Monday night’s drinking (such a lightweight these days!) and I only manage to do a feeble 20 minutes on the bike and a few weights. Still, it’s considerably more than others in there, who mostly gaze at the television that is blasting out some crappy Chinese rap music constantly. I am really thankful of my iPod.

Meat Market

Ali is back in the office today, which is great, and invites me over to dinner to her place in Mont Kiara in the evening – her place is amazing and it makes me even more anxious to get into mine! Deciding (after a lovely G&T) that it's too late to cook, we head out to Mont Kiara and to this place called Meat Market (!) and have a delicious fillet steak, with wine. The food was great and so cheap (compared to the hotel at least): the whole lot came to about 230RM (just over £40) for the pair of us, for main course and desert!

The wine was BYO, and I think that one of the (two) bottles of red that we had cost more than the entire meal. Disastrously, wine is very expensive, and I am thinking about smuggling a load over from the UK, as it’s MUCH cheaper there. By comparison, a bottle of a typical £5 bottle in the UK will set you back about 60-70RM (£15). I'll need to remortgage if I want to drink my usual Sancerre / Pinot Noir...Anyway,  we have a great time and it was good to go out for an evening with someone else, not worry about etiquette, and have a few drinks.

And I certainly am quite pissed by the end of the evening and I get a taxi home and chat drunkenly to Kris on Skype, which I am sure he really appreciated whilst he was at work.

Haggling

Everyone's having FUN

As I arrive at Bukit Bintang, there is a load of loud music and 100s of people out in the streets: there seems to be some sort of party going on! Funnily enough, it’s the BIG FUN festival! Are these people obsessed with FUN? Maybe it’s a government plan to ensure that the whole nation is brainwashed into thinking that everything is great if you think you are having fun! I should stop being so cynical really – it’s just a festival, and looks, erm, fun! I wander about for a bit amongst the crowds, taking in the atmosphere and sights, and then after a coffee and cheese and blueberry (indeed) muffin in Starbucks, I set off on my mission: to get a cheap GPS for when I need to drive.

I head to the Low Yat shopping mall which is about 6 floors of authorised and not-so-authorised dealers selling every electrical gadget imaginable and a great place to get my bargain GPS. I spot a place immediately I walk in and they are selling them for about 450-1000RM (about £90 – 200) so that’s a good point to start off with. I head into the labyrinth of outlets, squeezing through what appears to be millions of nerds to do some price comparison and bargaining. I was watching a few other people haggle, and the rough protocol appears to be:

• Chat to the seller for a bit, then ask their selling price
• Suck in air through your teeth at the original price, and ask what their best price is
• Pretend to do some calculations on your phone / calculator and look disappointed, followed by a ridiculously low offer, saying that this is your budget
• Laugh with the seller as they laugh at your offer
• Walk away
• Come back about 5 minutes later and ask the best price again: it should be lower
• Repeat the process until you are happy with the price, or the seller really looks pissed off and has lost interest in you (mind you, that is probably part of their process…)

I try this on a few places, and I the best price I can get for my Garmin 1350 GPS is 760RM – with a carry case (80RM) and a mains adaptor (150RM) thrown in. This seemed to be quite a good deal and I decide to check out the prices online before parting with my cash.

So, I head back to Starbucks (free wifi) and it seems that this was indeed a good price – the GPS without any of the accessories sell on Amazon for about £130 and I am getting mine for £140, plus accessories, which I am OK with – my budget was up to £150. However, I have to move from Starbucks, as the FUN has got to a level where it’s making my ears bleed, and head over to Coffee Bean instead, and clearly having a decaf was a mistake as they had to strip down the machines, and in doing so broke it. Ridiculous. Apparently it was going to take about 30 minutes to get my coffee! I demanded an iced-skinni-frappo-choco-mocha-do-dah instead for the inconvenience, which was more expensive (and much nicer than a dreary old decaf anyway)

I go back and buy the GPS then head back to the hotel, deciding this time to get a taxi from a more official taxi rank outside KL Sentral: this one was far better and only had the one door that didn't shut. Kris has the internet sorted at home, so it was great to catch up on iChat at last.

All aboard to Titiwangsa!

Decide to head into KL again today, and plan to get the train from Kelang Jaya to Kuala Lumpur Sentral, and change onto the monorail to get to Bukit Bintang, the main shopping area - I was after a GPS from one of the shopping malls there, Low Yat. The transport system here is OK actually (and air conditioned!) but for some reason, no-one’s thought about integrating the various components: KL Railways with Kommutor Trains with Monorail, and you have to buy individual single journey tickets for each, as far as I can tell. It’s like each of the providers don’t want you to use, or even to acknowledge the existence of, the others, even though they all serve completely different parts of town. For example, the KL Sentral Monorail stop at KL Sentral is only signposted by a piece of paper flapping in the wind, and even then you have to walk miles through a building site to get to the stop, only to be confronted by the most horrendous “queue” for tickets as the concept of an automated ticket machine seems alien.

As is the concept of a queue alien – a bit like queuing for a bus in Brixton, and in my ticket rabble to get the Monorail to Bukit Bintang from KL Sentral I was already drafting a letter in my mind to the Minister of Transport to complain: however, my assignment here doesn’t really cover the travel infrastructure, so I mentally tore the letter up. 

In my haste to get into town I nearly ended up the wrong train - I needed to go towards Titiwangsa...(seriously!):

FUN FUN FUN

We have a meeting today as part of the bringing together of the different teams, as one of the outputs from a previous session was that they wanted more FUN at work. Agreed, work should be enjoyable, and I am great believer in having a laugh etc at work, and I have noticed that some of the people here literally sit at their laptops all day with headphones on, not appearing to have FUN at all. That would drive me insane, and I hope that we can change that.

Looking round the table during the FUN meeting, I also notice several people didn’t really appear to be having too much of it: these things are always a bit difficult, but overall it was a good meeting, and it got better towards the end when we watched some videos of people crashing cars followed by a discussion about an outing that we could all do together, e.g. water rafting, rock climbing, hill walking or kite flying, which would be cool. All eyes on me to provide the budget for it though, which was not FUN.

At the end of the FUN meeting one of the guys handed out some snacks on barbeque sticks: sticky dried squid. I took one (half came off in the bag, which was actually not a problem as they absolutely stank and were repulsive). I am pretty adventurous with food I think, but these were horrible and incredibly fishy smelling, which I could taste for the rest of the day whenever I burped.

That was not FUN, either.

Fuck Off

I change my flights back to the UK for my holiday in Sardinia today and try to re-book the return flight here. Lastminute.com lost out on my money as their website is completely shit: firstly it entices you with offers of flights for about £400 on Singapore Airlines to KL from London, and you get through the whole selection process, confirmation, reading mall print shit, and then it says one of 2 things:

1)             "In between you searching for the flight and now, the price has changed. It is now £2500" For economy? Fuck off

2)             "Sorry, an unexpected error has occurred". Fuck off.

I find a decent one on Malaysian Airlines (having first looked at Air Asia, but that would be like flying EasyJet – and for 14 hours? Fuck off).

Breakfast anyone?

I am determined to eat no crap today in light of recent events. That didn’t last long: we have a workshop this morning and there are contributions for breakfast bought in by the team. The thing about Malaysian breakfast is that it’s the sort of food I'd probably eat on a Friday night! We had noodles, spring rolls with chilli sauce and rice!

Not complaining, mind, it was lovely, and certainly beat the pants off my handful of apples and bunch of grapes that I contributed. Guess which ones were left at the end of the session? Mind you, seeing the amount of and the type of food that the team eat, I think they’d rather eat their own hands than fruit or vegetables.

Unless of course they were deep-fried.

Sheep Placenta Killed my Beard

I woke up in the night wanting an emergency crap, and realised that my rest-bite yesterday was only temporary… and enough to make me feel poo (!) all day and my stomach tender. (I was also thankful I'd stolen some loo roll from the hotel to take to the office after the other day, in case of emergencies)

I go to the chemists to get some poo pills: the first one I went into there were a load of assistants in the corner, all giggling at something, and I was a bit reluctant to go up and ask for poo medicine, as knowing my luck, I doubt they would understand me and I’d have to do an improvisation of diarrhoea. Instead, I asked another lady in the shop, who knew what I wanted but then shouted over to the giggling ones where to find them! To prolong the agony, one of the girls tried to explain that the pharmacist was out to dinner and I could "GET MY DIARRHOEA TABLETS FROM THE CHEMIST DOWNSTAIRS", loudly, across the shop.

On my quick exit way out I noticed some sheep’s placenta products and ran faster. I googled "sheep placenta" later and found this:

Mr Fernandez and his dead beard

Testimonial By Mr. Fernandez

Here you have a picture of mine at 57 after a few month taking your product - compare me with Bill Clinton who was born in the same year!  I have some gray hair in my beard that is died in the picture, but they are disappearing too."

Interesting – his beard ‘died’ after using the product...

Actually I really wasn’t feeling well and bought some comfort food (crisps) from the shop and ordered room service with a bottle of wine. Probably not the best combination of food when you have an upset stomach, but who cares!

Abominable Loo

Woke up feeling like shit today – and didn’t get into the office till about 9 and just felt horrendous all day: that’ll teach me to eat nothing but spicy peas and soups for dinner! My stomach feels really bloated and I know that I am going to need a diarrhoeary poo, which fills me with complete dread, as the toilets in the office are an abomination: they are shared with the rest of the building's occupants, and despite being cleaned almost every time I want to go, they stink.

And there’s a bit of a cultural difference: 1 cubicle is an elephant’s foot, and all the others have no loo paper, as the method for cleaning yourself after is to use your (left) hand and the hose next to the loo. As a consequence, all three cubicles are swimming in bum-wash water and I don’t want to touch anything as it just seems a bit grubby.

Now I appreciate why the custom is not to shake hands with the left hand (it’s the hand you are supposed to clean yourself with).

Anyway, I find some kitchen towel and hope that I don’t block the drainage system up, as I cannot hold on any longer. No more spicy peas for me for a while! I struggle through the day, feeling a bit queasy and get a headache about 5 pm, so decide to go home and do some sorting out: I need to get my visa stuff done and get some passport photos done: and it’s the old fashioned way – in a photo shop with huge flash bulbs, a selection of back drops and a camera crew (well, not really) - where was the makeup artist!?

I have a great big chocolate cake in Starbucks and immediately feel a lot better – it did have bananas in it, so it wasn’t all that bad, and I do go to the gym afterwards for a while, so I don’t feel too bad about eating lard.

Frappo-chino-machi-something and Spicy Peas.

A relaxing day by the pool – especially after yesterday. Well, it’s all relaxing and lovely until this really overweight guy comes round form the kiddies pool wearing nothing but underpants, which are wet and therefore virtually see-through, his wife following behind him, dressed in burka, snapping photos of him jumping (with this see-through underpants on, leaving nothing at all to the imagination), in and out of the pool. He was just horrible: shouting at her all the time to do this and do that, and she just quietly obliged.

I imagined that he’d beat her otherwise; he looked like a complete cunt. 

Anyway, after about 15 minutes of him in the pool, demanding that she take his photo in all sorts of poses, I was about to tell him to shut up, as I was trying to chill out and all I could hear was him, when he got hold of her burka and pulled her in! Unbelievable, and there they both were – him in his see though underpants, and her clad head to toe in black. Quite funny really.

I head out to Starbucks in the mall later for some raspberry and blackcurrant frappo-chino-machi-something and to people watch, but immediately hate it as there are these two or three little kids screaming and tearing round the place, running in and out of the doors and in amongst al the people trying to enjoy a cup of 'coffee'. The parents are just sitting there watching them, cooing, so I glare hard and hiss every time they come near me. They soon get the message and about 5 minutes alter, they all leave, leaving me (and everyone else it seems, judging by the looks on their faces) in peace and quiet. Family and friends excepting, I hate other people’s kids.

During my shopping trip on Saturday I’d found M&S – with a food section – and bought a bottle of cheap wine, and I decided that I needed a glass tonight. Unfortunately I bought a bottle that had a cork and I didn’t have a corkscrew, so I used my nail scissors to demolish the cork, and pushed it inside the bottle.

I was teasing Kris on the phone, saying that every time I didn’t get an immediate answer to my text, I would drink a glass of wine. I was only kidding, but somehow I did manage to drink the whole bottle, and was quite pissed as I had only eaten spicy wasabi peas and crackers for tea…

Flat Chinese Kylie, Karen and Gaga

I went down to the lounge for a drink tonight and was just enjoying a lovely G&T when the Chinese equivalent of Bananarama got up on stage and started singing Kylie’s “Tears on My Pillow” – I could have shed tears, this lot were crap.

Flat Chinese Fake Kylies.

Followed by Flat Chinese Fake Karen Carpenters doing a strange version of "Close To You".

I had to move and went for a Chinese meal where I could still hear them wailing away in the background, and as I was just tucking into my steamed broccoli with ginger and garlic, I heard Flat Chinese Fake Lady Gagas murdering Bad Romance. 

Ra-ra- oh la-la oh dear oh dear…

KLCC, The Three Jayas and Scary Taxi

 

I decide to go shopping in KLCC. I need to start thinking about what to furnish the flat with, as I think that the one I am going for has hardly anything in. I shan’t be going to any of the places that are advertised as full page spreads in the newspaper: who the hell would buy any of this crap?

The concierge guy calls me one of the executive cabs (as I am a VIP, of course) and then jumps in to share a ride into town! I jokingly say we can slit the cost and he laughs, babbles something Chinese to the driver and off we go. He has clearly ignored my ‘joke’ about sharing the (50RM) fare – cheeky git! After several hours of shopping and people watching I decide to head back about 5 ish to the hotel: the fare ‘sharing’ concierge told me that it would be easier to get a train from KLCC to Jaya and then pick up a cab from there, as there would be loads and it would be a lot quicker (we had, in fairness, been stuck in traffic outside KLCC on the way in this morning, so it was nice of him to tell me a better way of getting back).

There were 3 ‘Jaya’s on the train map: and I didn’t know which one was the one the ride stealing concierge meant.  I don’t actually think he said anything other than “Jaya”, so after a quick consult with my iPhone Google map application, I settled for the Jaya at the end of the line, and off we went. As the train emerged from under the city, the weather had completely changed: it was like a monsoon – rain lashing down and winds blowing, amazing!

These 2 boys got on the train at Bangsar and they were the most ridiculously camp things you could imagine – playing with their hair, being very over expressive, giggling at everything behind their hands – ridiculous! One of them kept looking over, and I managed to completely avoid his eyes – I did manage to surreptitiously take a couple of photos thought, and I am sure the woman next to me saw what I was up to…

Finally reached Kelang Jaya, and it wasn’t immediately clear where I’d find a taxi from, so I hunted round the place and came across what can only be described as more of a scrap yard that a taxi rank, and all these really beaten up old Proton cars with broken windscreens, dented doors etc. Hmm, not sure this was the Jaya that the concierge was talking about, but it was pissing with rain and I wanted to get back to the hotel. As I got into the cab – noticing that the meter had long since been ripped out – I negotiated a price and no sooner than I had agreed 15RM, this scraggy old hag gets in behind me and slams the door, and I’ve suddenly become another share-taxi! This did feel a bit odd, and I got a bit concerned when we came off the main road and went hurtling along all these pot-holed back roads, in the pissing monsoon rain, and the driver on his phone turning to me and saying, I think, that the way we were going was a short cut!

My over imaginative imagination was getting the better of me and I was playing out scenarios of me being dumped in the middle of nowhere, in the pouring rain, whilst this old hag and the taxi driver stole all my stuff and left me for dead! The shortcut seemed to be going away from where I wanted to go and then he stopped the car...

Oh shit, what was to become of me?!

..and let the woman out, who paid her fare, bit him and me farewell, and we went on our way, in the correct direction and back at the hotel 5 minutes later safe and sound, him having chatted at me about his children and whether I was married or not, whilst I sat there in fear.

Silly arse.

Everyone's a little bit racist...

I head down for some breakfast – all healthy of course – and ponder over the newspaper and I note, with interest, an article about getting a job in Malaysia, which is quite clearly pointing out that “..they will not entertain any applicant who is a foreigner..”

Hmm, I’d better watch out! I am beginning to wonder about the tolerance level in this country: I assumed being a mix of a number of cultures, relatively submissive in nature they would be much more open and tolerant – but it seems not. In the notification shown here, replace “a foreigner” with “Chinese”, and that’ll be about right.

They hate the Chinese here, for some reason.