land of a thousand massages

hello again!

it's now the 12th of june for me, and my bus back to singapore to meet up with shehzad leaves on the afternoon of the 14th. somehow, either through apathy or comfort, i've remained here in the heart of kuala lumpur for the entire duration of my time in malaysia. it's a bit of a proposition to head to other areas, although i'm very fascinated with the idea of seeing penang, taman negara, the perhentian islands, and tioman island. i'll have to do those some other time i suppose! you see, the process to GET to those places involves bargaining for low bus fares in an straddling china town and little india known as puduraya. it's a moving mass of coaches and humanity, neither of which seemed welcoming/reputable enough to warrant me taking a chance on them.

that's not to say i haven't been doing anything, however: i've been living the KL lifestyle, to some degree. you may wonder what the KL lifestyle is. it consists primarily of hours of walking around the city, constantly being asked if you want a massage:

"yes sir, massaggi?"
"you want massaggi?"
"good massage sir, you look tired."

if it's not massages, it's taxi drivers running after you yelling, "teksi! teksi! teksi?". in case you're wondering, that's how you spell it in malay. in fact, the lobby lift (elevator) in my hotel in genting was the "lif lobbi". restaurant -> restauran. malay is a crazy-easy language to learn, apparently, because there aren't even verb tenses.

a friend i met at the ice cream stand (a local named alang) taught me a bit of malay. he taught me the word "chick", as in girl. it's "awek" and pronounced kinda like "auw-way" with a hint of a 'k' on the end. wanna know the plural of chick, i.e. chicks? "awek-awek". yes, plurals involve saying the word twice. man? laki. men? laki-laki. you, too, can master the nuances of the malay language as i have. take note, however, that this habitual repetition results in acknowledgements such as the perennial "okay-okay-okay-la-okay-okay". they say "la" to fill the spaces...

i took a walk to the petronas towers today. i took a few nice pictures, but in general i'm finding KL to be a very un-photogenic place. the city is so busy that the visual field is constantly full of people, cars, signs, and massage therapists. reflexologists, more accurately. the people are very cool to watch, but i'm way too much of a wuss as it stands to walk up to people and ask to take their pictures. too bad, really -- i need to get over that.

other than all that walking business, i'm mainly just taking it easy here. eating durian fruit, the national fruit of malaysia. i'm lying; i took one bite and almost threw up. the texture is similar to mushy brains, and it tastes like garlic mixed with human perspiration. you do not ever want to eat one of these. i also drank some "sirep" last night (syrup, in english -- see how easy it is?). it, on the other hand, tasted like a floral arrangement suitable for use in a 90-year old woman's cheap perfume. needless to say, i passed the remainder off to alang for consumption.

once i get back to singapore i should be able to send a few of the... few pictures i've actually taken. maybe things'll be a bit more approachable in bangkok? that doesn't seem likely.

au revoir!