I wasn’t expecting to write another blog entry so soon but
as the adventures seem to still be ongoing and my mum is complaining that I am
not calling enough it seems appropriate to post an update.
So this is for you mum!
Where we last left it I had returned from The Americas for a
brief UK spell having accepted a job based in Tokyo.
Whilst all the details were being sorted and the project was
taking shape for a September start I busied myself by getting back in to the
work routine in London and began my Japanese lessons.At first I wondered what I was letting myself in for as we aren’t just talking about learning a new language, it is a completely new reading and writing system to get to grips with, but strangely enough I found that after only a few lessons I was learning quite a lot and the theory that once you have opened your mind up to learning one language, Spanish in my case, it becomes much easier to pick up the second, third, fourth…..seemed to be true.
Of course it was nice to be back in the motherland and
London and hanging around in the city, eating out, watching some live music and
getting back down the Lane to watch Spurs was all good; but in my mind I had
already left again and so the longer everything dragged on at work, the more
nervous I became and the eagerness to get over to Japan to start the next
chapter and also be reunited with AJ, who had now returned to Aus to see her
own family, was palpable.
It was a Friday morning at 10am when I was called into the
boss’ office and told that it was all off. Disappointment and anger were the
top 2 emotions that I was feeling because not only did it mean I wasn’t going
to Japan (I was due to fly on the next Tuesday) it also meant that I didn’t
have a job!
However, things tend to work out and in this case they did
very quickly as that same Friday at midday I was offered a similar but more
challenging role in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia!I was given the weekend to think it over but I didn’t need it, why wouldn’t I take this opportunity? Admittedly it was for a much shorter term but who cares right? It is a chance to live and work in a major capital city for 3 months, in my favourite continent and in a city I have already visited and loved, plus I would get to choose my own accommodation and it would be paid for. Beaut!
I confirmed my acceptance on the Monday and arranged to fly
7 days later – there was no need to hang around was there?
During this time I also made a brief but necessary trip out
to Egypt to see my long lost sister. I hadn’t seen her for close to 2 years and
wanted to experience what her life was like in her so-called ‘job’ / permanent
holiday in the sun and even though I didn’t get to do the classic Egyptian
sights it still counts as a new country for me.
We had a really good 5 days together and this also marked
the start of my first-class lifestyle, not something to be underestimated or
unappreciated after 3 years of budget travel.
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| Beck's bathroom or Boots? |
We made sure to maximise our time together and achieved far more than my mum and aunty did during their recent trip; but this wasn’t hard as by all accounts they spent 7 days snoozing on their respective sun-loungers.
The list of activities included:
- Snorkelling in the Red Sea and
being hounded by a hotel guest and his Go-Pro – why did he feel the need to
stalk us and then barge through to take footage of the fish and scare them
away?
- Eating in the local markets – the
pigeon was nice but like the Guinea Pig in Peru there just wasn’t enough meat.
They need Trafalgar Square pigeons
·
- Drinking in local establishments
such as Cliffside Shisha Bars and gate-crashing the Bar Crawl to get free
drinks and watch the Russians live it up to dire electro music
·
- Playing Bat ‘n’ Ball in the ocean
but never getting close to a respectable score – Beck’s fault
- Avoiding the hotel guests such as one couple who insisted on telling us about the wife’s sexual harassment case before she turned away to shed a tear even though she brought it up and I had only just met her! Odd
- Attending the ultimate chill-out acoustic session on the beach by the resident band who were seriously good and could learn any song request in 15 minutes.
I requested Run by Snow Patrol (it was chill out after all) and they very kindly announced that I made the request because I am a huge Leona Lewis fan.
- But best of all was the ‘desert’
day where we spent about 6 hours quad biking, riding camels (for about 2
minutes) and getting bullied by the camel master, drinking lots of tea,
visiting Bedouin camps, watching sunset and belly dancing before gazing at the
night sky through a telescope and getting to see Saturn with its rings and Mars
close up.
This was all done with the threat of
terrorist action for any tourist visiting the desert hanging over our heads.
However, like us, the 100 or so other tourists taking part across various
companies didn’t give a sh*t about these idol threats
And so to KL.
As I said, life is pretty sweet now and it doesn’t get much
sweeter than flying Business Class; a first for me.
I flew from Birmingham to KL via a connection in Dubai and I
can’t begin to explain how nice it was from start, in the business class lounge
with its free food and drink, to finish, during which time I got to hang my
suit up in the wardrobe, play with my massaging chair, sleep on a flat bed with
a mattress that was put down for me and choose my own 3 course meal from the
menu and eat it with real cutlery and a table cloth set out.
This is the only way to fly and it was just a shame that the
person next to me on the first flight wanted to talk about his money! No class.
It didn’t take long to press the button to make the privacy divider go up so I
didn’t have to see or hear him.
For the first 4 days I had arranged my own accommodation
whilst I found a more permanent location and fortunately the team at work were
able to recommend and arrange the perfect place. Whilst the first place was
great location wise it was in a slightly shabby part of town and every night I
got to walk by a car-park where I could watch the local prostitutes sit around
a plastic table and apply their make-up for the long night ahead!
My current abode is sh*t-hot. I have a one bedroomed
serviced apartment in a 5 star hotel and as far as I am concerned it is
luxurious and even better it is all paid for by the company.
To add to this there is also a pool, spa, gym, 2 bars, 5 restaurants and a cigar room aptly named Fidel's.
I am in the middle of the city within walking distance to
all that makes KL such a great city and also I am only about a 7 minute walk
from the office as well.
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| The font door |
It didn’t take me long to get into a daily routine,
something that has been missing for quite a while and it goes something like
this:
·
Up at 6:15am for the gym
·
Showered and down for the complimentary
breakfast at 8am. Here I am greeted with a “Morning Mr Adam” and confirmation
that I want my ‘usual’; a black coffee and freshly made omelette. There is also
an array of cooked foods, fruit, cereal, cakes, pastries, bread, yoghurts and fruits
etc to choose from as I read my daily delivered newspaper and watch the news –
seriously, what have I become?
·
Head off to work and say goodbye to Manoj, my
cleaner
·
Out for lunch with the colleagues
·
Head home at a reasonable hour and decide how to
amuse myself for the evening – a movie, a swim, a walk in the balmy night-time
atmosphere, a few pints with colleagues or meeting random backpackers for a
‘one night in KL’ booze fest
It really isn’t too shabby.
As for work, we don’t really need to discuss that, work is
work. It is all going really well now that the first 2 weeks of getting
everything into shape is out of the way.
Kuala Lumpur is a great city, a complete mixture of Asia
meets the West, but its winning feature is the food. In this city you can eat
anything that you want for next to nothing price wise. Every Asian country is
represented in this city so every type of Asian food (my favourite) is cooked
fresh by the people who know how to cook it and do it justice.
There are high end establishments all the way down to the
infamous Jalan Alor (Food Street) where you can eat out on the streets whilst
the food is barbequed in front of you. I love it.
During the previous 2 weeks Arancha had come to town to play
and this has only heightened an already enjoyable experience.
Obviously I have still been working but this has suited her
just fine as KL is home to multiple huge and modern shopping malls – so much
for us saving for a home!!
It has also been nice for me in that Arancha comes for
breakfast each morning, even though she could lie-in, we meet up for lunch
(along with the shopping bags) and then we go out for dinner. We have been
eating all over the city, such as one food court that brings together all of
the most famous Malaysian restaurants under one roof and is ranked as number 37
on the New York Times top 100 list of Asian odysseys; but our favourite
restaurant has to be Din Tai Fung – a Michelin starred eatery (but cheap even
by UK standards) that serves dumplings that are so good I just want to shout
out and declare my undying devotion. Yum f*cking yum!
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| Roller coaster in a mall, why not? |
Having not ventured out of the city yet I was determined that
we should see another part of Malaysia whilst AJ was here so in the middle
weekend we flew north to Langkawi, an island located off the west coast in the
Andaman Sea just below the border with Thailand.
It is pretty mad that from the door of my apartment to
stepping off the plane into a tropical location can be achieved in exactly 2
hours!
Having gotten very used to a luxurious standard we decided
to keep it going by staying at the Meritus Beach Resort and it didn’t
disappoint.
Situated in its own 35 acre plot with manicured gardens,
swimming pools and open access to a white sandy beach it just about met our
standards of a weekend getaway destination. We were greeted at the airport,
driven to the resort where we were presented with a cold towel and a cool fruit
drink before being offered a golf-buggy ride to our cabin, which we declined
and walked over to because that just seemed a step too far considering we only
had a day bag each.
We got a last minute deal on a garden view room but I lied
and told them that we were on the island as part of our honeymoon, so we got an
ocean view room instead! I was hoping for a complimentary bottle of champagne
but you can’t have it all.
Langkawi is very popular with mainland Malaysians because it
is tax free meaning that you can buy booze, fags and oddly enough chocolate
very cheaply. The mainland is cheap for everything except alcohol, the price of
which converts back to GBP as more expensive than London for a pint.
Whilst doing a little bit of first day exploration we happened
across a tax free mall and so bought a few items for the room – 1 bottle of
Port, 1 bottle of Campari and a huge bag full of boxes of Smarties. The
designated Chocolate shops were mouth-watering for me but for obese people they
must be orgasmic.
From that point on the first day passed us by in a drunken
stupor. We drank at the pool bar before then doing it from the comfort of our
balcony overlooking the beach, the palm trees and the ocean with a sprinkling
of islands that make up some of the 99 in the area.
We then carried this on in town where we met a bar owner
from Nottingham, as you do, and had a good old sing-along to the resident band
– a proper SE Asian band doing British Indie covers – how I have missed this
sort of night.
Langkawi isn’t just a beach destination. Once you step away
from the coastal edges the land rises sharply to form mountains that are
covered in dense rainforest and the best way to view these to take the
cable-car up to the top of an 800 metre peak to look out across a jagged range
akin to the surrounding mountains of Machu Picchu and then down across a green
wilderness surrounded by a ring of white sand and then the blue sea.
It wasn’t quite this colourful for us, we had to imagine how
it would look because it was a bit cloudy and miserable but it cleared enough
for us to know what we were looking at.
For the rest of our long weekend we wasted the time away by either
playing in the kid’s pool, walking or lying on the beach or taking long
pointless taxi rides to the island capital and realising that there was nothing
to see except for a huge eagle statue and more tax free shopping malls.
And then it was back to KL.
Whilst in the city we did venture out to see the Malaysian
Philharmonic Orchestra in the concert hall at the base of the infamous Patronus
Towers but I have to say that it was a bit disappointing and I wish we had paid
for the cheap seats. Still, on the way there we did get to walk by a live DJ dance
set and I don’t think I will ever again hear these immortal words shouted out
the get the party started:
“Let me hear you KLCC Science Festival”
Towards the back end of Arancha’s stay one of her best
friends and husband happened to pass through the city on their way back to Aus
from Europe so it was nice to hang out with them and do lunch and dinner etc
and it gave AJ something to do during the day time whilst I was in the office.
And so that brings us up to date.
Arancha has returned to Aus and I now have to plan a few
weekend trips away to explore some more of Malaysia before I depart at the end
of November – to who knows where?
I did make a trip out to the north of the city to the Hindu
revered Batu Caves and this was well worth it and as enjoyable to visit as it
was the last time I was about 4 year ago.
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| A monkey looking at his willy |
Unfortunately I have to fly to Singapore on Monday for 4
days work but I suppose I will just have to deal with the hassle of yet another
5 star hotel and a few after work dinners at any number of the over-priced
restaurants on offer.
Life is a bitch!
ps. looking back at this blog it appears that my new lifestyle still leaves me without only 1 yellow t-shirt. At least I can argue that it hasn't 'changed' me!!!
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