A Bathing Ape– Friday 5th Feb 2010

Today, my ever faulty immune system did it’s thing, and it was off to the doctors for me! Diagnosis: Inflamed throat, sinus congestion, runny nose and one monster of a headache. Zaidee carted me (and Jess) off to the klinik where all I had to do was show them my passport and into the doctors I went. She told me to drink lots of water, take the antibiotics and de-congestion medicine she gave me and NOT TO EAT SPICY FOOD. How one avoids spicy foods all together in Malaysia I’m sure, unless you go to McDonald’s or KFC, neither of which I want to do.

 

On a completely different note, I found this amusing: Whitening lotions. Lots of them.

Okay, so our KL adventure begins. We managed to successfully navigate our way around the Melaka Sentral bus station, get on the right bus to Kuala Lumpur and settled in for the 2 hour drive (which was followed by a 45min standstill in a KL traffic jam). I found my very own ‘Engrish’ (if you are not sure what engrish is, check out www.engrish.com) shirt on a man on our bus, I was pleased: It reads “beley milo – a bathing ape”

Upon arrival in KL, we were greeted with torrential rains and thunder storms, which had turned the streets into rivers.

Jess and I set off around 6pm on a walking tour of Chinatown, guided by our lonely planet book. Which, being girls, we had turn upside down to read the maps. We got lost many a time, but found some wonderful places including the Sri Mahamariamman Temple, Old China Cafe (where we had dinner), Jalan Petaling (street markets) and many a lantern shop.

      

(washing my feet to go inside the temple, and women blessing a baby in the temple)

  

(Old China Cafe and Jalan Petaling)

It seemed to be that the men working in the Jalan Petaling markets thought that by calling us “sexy lady” and saying things like “nice boobs” would entice us to buy their products, when in fact, it had quite the opposite effect and made us walk faster past their stalls selling fake Rolex’s and Polo shirts. One lady warned us to watch our bags as hers had just been slashed open – needless to stay I held my bag like a baby from then on. There are some beautiful buildings in this city … along with some very unattractive areas, but Chinatown had a fantastic atmosphere.

After a long day we headed back to our hostel (called Back Home Kuala Lumpur) where we proceeded to somehow break the air conditioner and now have none at all. Go us. We now have a small fan. Our roommates will be arriving at 3am, so I better get some sleep before then. End of Day 1 in Koala Lumpy.