Lies, All Lies

I guess I should set the record straight. I haven't been travelling alone as I may have let on earlier.

Meet Hobbes, my travel companion, the Yin to my Yang (or was that the other way around?):

Unfortunately, tigers don't use bank accounts and I'm not prepared to pay for his share of the bus tickets - that's why he's been stowing away in my luggage all this time.

More pictures here.

Daddy Needs a New Pair of Shoes

My trusty pair of sandals and I have been through quite a fair bit of action together over the past couple of months, seeing highland foliage, mountain streams, sandy beaches, ocean tides, monsoon puddles, urban terrain and the like. They're still holding up but the moisture has affected the fabric to the point where they've developed a musty gym locker smell. I'm fine with that but I don't think many people share the same sentiment. Especially on crowded trains.

It's time to part ways with these old sandals, I'm afraid. Sad, I know.

Ah, but it's not so easy. It usually never is.

Men in Asia generally don't wear shoes larger than size 10's. As such, most shoe stores here don't sell anything larger than 11's. I wear 13's.

Luckily for me, today's trip out with my cousin and his folks brought us to Petaling street, a place I'm not wholly unfamiliar with. Because Petaling Street draws in large amounts of tourist dollars, the stalls along this stretch offer products in larger Western sizes. I settled on a shoe stall near the end of the stretch that claimed to have size 13 sandals. Impossible, I thought. I picked out a suitable pair of Timberlands and my cousin's wife helped bargain down the price (thanks Jen).

Just as the deal was about finalized, the guy yelled out something in Chinese and started packing up. He told me "no shoes today" and continued closing down his shop. The other stalls followed suit.

The counterfeit police, it turns out, had just raided the store right behind us.

And like that, the proprietor and his shoes disappeared off into the crowd:

It looks like my old sandals just got a temporary reprieve.

In Communist Russia...

...Toilet pees on you.



The backstory:

So I followed my cousin and his wife back to their swanky 5 star hotel after lunch to freshen up and prepare for another afternoon outing. Now, I've stayed at my fair share of dives over the last couple of months so I was a bit unaccustomed to seeing what real hotel rooms look like. I must have spent a good few minutes rustling through complimentary bars of soap and shampoo bottles, disposable slippers and toothbrushes, working fixtures and the attached bathroom. All that good stuff.

Then I came upon this high tech piece of porcelain:

I imagine this type of thing belongs in a rocket ship or some ancient world expo's "home of tomorrow" exhibit.

A closer look at the knobs:

#1

#2

Our best guess was that knob number 2 is for uh... number 1 cleanup and vice versa. I took it upon myself to test them out to make sure, hence the video. We're still not clear on the function of knob #2.

I wasn't expecting it to shoot out with a force great enough to rupture a colon. It's a good thing I wear glasses.

Chomp

In honour of my cousin's visit from Canada, the whole family got treated out to an exquisite lunch up in the Petronas towers today (they were, until recently, the tallest buildings in the world). My aunt had dialed up a few connections to score us a room at the Malaysian Petroleum Club on the 43rd floor. Under normal circumstances, average schlubs like me aren't allowed in places like this. From what I've heard, this is the type of place where million dollar deals are made.

The view of Kuala Lumpur from our private dining area:

Everybody got these little ducky pastries for dessert. Mine looked a little worried:

...with good cause:

Funny, it didn't taste like duck.

Behind You!

Okay. I admit it. I looked over my shoulder to see what he was pointing at (a big building). In fact, I'm resisting the urge to do it again right now.

Red vs. Black

Your standard mamak store curry sauce normally consists of santan (fresh coconut milk), some meat and/or vegetables, nine secret herbs and spices (curry powder and msg fit into this category) and, if you're lucky, a couple of potato cubes. None of these ingredients are meant to be crunchy by default.

Today's curry breakfast, however, had a little extra something, adding a new level of depth to the texture. The difference was subtle, but noticeable nonetheless. Imagine bacon bits, but not. Revolutionary, I thought. Crunchy curry.

I sat for a while afterwards to let the meal settle when I felt something land on my head. Something tiny. I fished around in my hair and dug out an ant head, then another, followed by a twitching thorax with a few missing legs. A couple of ant colonies high in the above tree branch were duking it out for territorial rights.

Judging by the bits raining down on us (and our food), the red ants were winning against the black ones two to one.

Verdict: Tasty!