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Squishy fuzzy yummy thoughts
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Saturday, December 28, 2002
Just about everywhere here, shops are playing "Asereje (Spanglish Version)" by Las Ketchup
on infinite repeat.
Any time I hear that song ever again in my life, I am probably going to remember being in Malaysia.
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 08:05:00 PM
Last night, Peter, Jim and I watched Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. There were subtitles in Chinese and in Malaysian, and I had a hard time watching the first half of the movie because I was spending my time trying to read the Chinese subtitles.
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 08:03:00 PM
At the bird park, we saw a bird show. One of the tricks was a race between two parrots where they needed to carry three rings to the other side of a long table and put them around a dowel at the other end. One of the birds dutifully takes one ring at the time, but the other one picks up all three rings at once and carries them all the way. The trainer moves two of the rings back and puts them far apart at the start line. The bird goes back to the start, picks up one ring, walks to the other one, and carries them both to the end.
After the show, the trainer was teaching one of the parrots to ring a bell. The bell had printed on it, "1 + 2 ="
The parrot rang the bell over and over and over and over again but the trainer gives it food anyway. I say to Jim "Maybe he's just trying to train the parrot to ring the bell at all."
He says, "baby steps."
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 08:00:00 PM
After leaving the butterfly park and before going to the bird park, Jim and I went to find something to eat. We found a huge street near the national mosque where 60 or 70 umbrellas are set up with stands under each of them. We wade our way through the people leaving the Friday prayer and look at all the food.
We come across a smiling all around sunshiney and fun guy that is talking and writing some math on a whiteboard. He calls Jim forward and asks him where he is from, and starts to show the crowd around him some cool arithmetic tricks. He's selling pamphlets for 2 Ringgit. Jim buys one, but it is in Malaysian, so neither of us is able to figure out what it is saying. We give him our email addresses. I hope he writes to us.
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 07:57:00 PM
The park also contains some glass display cases of other creatures: scorpions, extremely large beetles, extremely large millipedes, large leaf-shaped bugs, stick bugs, a horned toad, all alive and running around.
One of the scorpions had fallen into its food dish upside down, head first, and its legs were waving around as it tried to remove itself.
Jim points out that the best thing is that all of these creatures are *from* Malaysia.
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 07:52:00 PM
The butterfly park here involves paying 10 ringgit, and walking through some hanging plastic chains draped across the door into a big net full of butterflies flying around. I am looking up, at the flapping wings, and Jim says, "look out!" I look down at my feet, where a butterfly is perched on the ground right in front of me.
Near the entrance, a chinese tourist has a butterfly on his hand, and his girlfriend is taking a picture of him. He gives the butterfly to me and it immediately empties its rear onto my hand.
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 07:51:00 PM
I got my second Twinrix shot yesterday. We happened to get off the bus back from the Batu Caves near the KL general hospital, so we walked there and I was looking in at the rows of cots lined up without dividers like in a military hospital. I was feeling as though this was a little bit sketchy, and worrying about how things would turn out when someone walked up and asked if we needed help. I explained that I wanted to get a Hepatitis vaccination.
Turns out that Mr. Wong was a physician's assistant for four years where he would keep the patients blood flowing and lungs full of oxygen during open heart surgeries. He said that we didn't want the hospital -- they wouldn't have time for this kind of shot and they had a half day that day anyway. We needed to just go to any clinic and he was just killing some time while he was waiting for his mobile phone to be repaired. So I asked him if he had any recommendations of a clinic, and he ended up helping us find one and get the price. He was expecting a price of about 40 Ringgit and so at the first place, where they quoted us 68 ringgit, he said that they were trying to rip us off (hand slicing throat gesture) and we went to another clinic, where he went in first to find out the price, so they wouldn't see that tourists were involved. On the way, I explained that one shot in the U.S. will cost about US$50. Wow, he says. I also explained that I wanted A and B together, since I had already gotten the first shot in my series.
Twinrix Shot #2: 150 Malaysian Ringgit.
I feel a big sense of relief now.
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 07:47:00 PM
Actually, the other afternoon, Peter made another great comment, when Jim and I were discussing how we enjoyed listening to the calls to prayer that we have heard a few times from Mosques here.
Peter says, "man, when I was in Egypt, I swear, they would be calling like that all the time!"
I say, "five times a day?"
Peter: "no no no, every half hour, I swear! It starts at 4:30 in the morning, and I just wanted to go back to sleep, after a few days, I just wanted them to shut up."
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 07:38:00 PM
Jim and I have picked up a few temporary travel buddies while we have been in K.L.
John, Yin and Yin (some fun people on their way to a reunion in Penang)
Matt (super happy english language in Japan teacher from Manchester)
Peter (talkative guy from Belgium)
We went to the Batu Caves with Peter, since he didn't have a plan, yesterday. Up the 272 steps to the top, there were some chinese tourists, as well as some monkeys eating food that had been left around by other tourists.
One of the chinese tourists was jumping up and down like a monkey, waving his hands around right in front of one of the monkey's face and making all sorts of noises. This seems like a pretty bad idea, since the monkeys have shown themselves to be prone to hissing, baring their sharp teeth, and lunging at fingers.
So Peter is yelling at him, "Don't do that! That's dangerous! What are you, Japanese or something?"
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 07:37:00 PM
Store visited in the Mega Mall while trying to kill 2 hours before the start of "Die Another Day": "World of Feng Shui"
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 07:31:00 PM
Jim and I, on the way back from KLCC park, visited a store with some amazingly cool thumping dance music and a wide variety of random cheap goods. We both bought umbrellas there for 5RM each (me to replace the much more expensive one that I had broken in Singapore), and I took a few videos with audio of the place, because the music there really made me want to groove.
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 07:30:00 PM
On the LRT in Kuala Lumpur, there's a sign with listing some "Don'ts" like: "bringing durian" or "skating" or "playing music" or "carrying large & heavy goods." Each don't is accompanied by a black and white silloutte of the thing that you should not do with the red international "no" slash and circle over it.
The last Don't on the sign is "No Manners" and is accompanied by a picture of a couple kissing.
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 07:27:00 PM
The other day I was sitting with Jim in KLCC park next to the petronas towers. We were playing "international superspy" with our cameras. Actually, since I don't have a telephoto lens, and he does, he was playing "spy" and I was sitting next to him taking tourist pictures. We spent the day wandering around the park in the sweltering sun. A little bit before 3:30, we were sitting on a bench near a grassy area, and as I opened my bag to take a look at the KL map, my luggage lock flew off of the zipper, through a grate behind me, and into a gutter.
So I went to take the grate off the gutter, and peered down into the dirty water to see my lock, a few centimeters below the surface. Jim and I both were laughing our fool heads off and when I reached in to fetch my lock, he said "how much was it?" and then "I think I would have just let that one go."
I told him, "left hand for dirty things, right hand for eating."
posted by wtanaka at 12/28/2002 07:23:00 PM
Friday, December 27, 2002
Going down the river in Taman Negara, I saw an end of a branch, the other end of which was presumably stuck in the mud beneath the river. The mass of the river shoved its way past the stick. The stick itself swayed and danced, as if to try and keep out of the way.
posted by wtanaka at 12/27/2002 07:53:00 PM
2002-12-14
The bus jumps over a bump and the two of us in the back seat fly up into the air about a foot. We turn back to try to see what we hit. I don't see anything. We glance at each other, and he grins at me.
posted by wtanaka at 12/27/2002 07:46:00 PM
Now that I've been in Malaysia for a while, I'm noticing that plants grow everywhere. Initially I thought that it was just in Taman Negara park, where there are plants growing on plants, plants growing on wood decks and plants growing on concrete. But even in Kuala Lumpur, there are plants growing on plants, and even plants growing out the side of concrete walls.
posted by wtanaka at 12/27/2002 07:36:00 PM
On the way back from the bird park, we passed some monkeys climbing around in the trees next to the road, as well as on top of the traffic lights.
posted by wtanaka at 12/27/2002 04:09:00 AM
I'm feeling a little bit fatigued from travelling. After being on the road for two months, the idea of being able to stay at home seems pretty appealing.
posted by wtanaka at 12/27/2002 03:21:00 AM
Jim landed in Singapore the other night. We spend christmas eve at Sandy's place and headed up into Malaysia via the Singapore MRT, the local Singapore bus system. We spent a few hours in Johor Bahru, and then took a bus up to Kuala Lumpur. On the way, the bus stopped at a rest stop with some hawker stands and tourist shops. We ate dinner there and went into one of the shops to wander around.
We heard one of th busses honking. We look at each other and head toward the door of the store to see our bus pulling out of its parking space.
We run and hop in the bus just as it's pulling out of the space.
posted by wtanaka at 12/27/2002 03:12:00 AM
Sunday, December 22, 2002
Trucks and commercial vehicles in Singapore are required by law to travel less than some speed on the roads here. Each such vehicle has a black and white sticker on it's backside advertising the maximum speed. The vehicles will emit a loud annoying beep inside the passenger compartment if the speed is exceeded. The other day, I saw a police truck (siren and all) with a sticker on its back door: 60 km/h. I wonder how the truck can chase down a criminal if it isn't supposed to go more than 60km/h. And the officers inside must get pretty annoyed with the beeping.
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