FURUM 2019: Robot Apocalypse

Last weekend was spent at FURUM, which  was the third time I had attended the event. Alas this year I was going into it having picked up some sort of nasty fever in Thailand or, most likely, on the plane over and I would still have it at the time of writing in the airport terminal in Bangkok. This did put something of a downer on the weekend as I felt pretty lethargic throughout the convention, but I did my best to plough my way through it, not least because it was the only opportunity I had to see far-flung friends.

 

Tempering my mood further was the result of the General Election, which saw the British people elect a venal, self-serving charlatan as leader of the country and with a huge majority too. This also ended all hope of Remain, meaning that Brexit will now definitely happen. The reality of this hasn’t yet sunk in, probably because I have yet to return to the UK, but ultimately it would seem that next year will be one of huge turmoil and upheaval for us and that’s also playing on my mood. The results were dropping in from the early hours of Friday morning - I even awoke early to check the exit poll before my heart sunk upon hearing it - and I kept updated at the airport as each constituency succumbed to the blue wave. Alas we also managed to vote our useless MP back with an increased majority whereas all of the decent MPs were replaced by absolute arseholes. Now that Johnson is unconstrained, I really do fear for the future, but my view now is the British walked into this with eyes wide open so they deserve everything they get. 

 

The flight from Bangkok to KL was comfortable enough under the circumstances and it was great to actually get a meal too as I had opted to fly with Malaysian Airlines due to airport convenience. With immigration done, I managed to grab a taxi, which drove me the hour or so it takes to get from KLIA to the con hotel. This ride was somewhat sombre on account of my mood while the driver also seemed to be a gentleman of few words but he got me to where I needed to be, which is all I asked of him. I was feeling quite sick though, so during the ride I decided I would spend the evening recuperating in the hotel room rather than go out and get food. Kaiyoki said that there was a large number going into town but I didn’t really want to pass the illness on to anyone and all I really wanted was lie down. Furthermore, my thinking was that I may be able to shake the thing off, forgetting that when I get ill, it tends to last over a week (as it indeed has). Anyway, I did indeed spend much of Friday evening in my room, first grabbing a luxuriously hot shower before chilling a while. The only time I came out was to get a bottle of water from a 7-Eleven just a short walk away, stopping by a KFC en route to get familiar food as I had also not had dinner. It was all average fayre but it was probably needed, and as I headed back to the hotel, I spotted both Fox Amoore and Hollud waiting outside the main entrance. I had seen Hollud earlier as he had kindly brought some drugs to the hotel room in the hope of making me feel better and indeed the paracetamol in particular definitely helped. Meanwhile, this was the first time I had seen Fox this trip and it was good catching up, making him the first person I have met on four separate continents. After a quick chat, we headed upstairs to the third floor, checking up how the setting up was going. This was also time for the Sponsors and Super Sponsors registration but alas I was a normal attendee so I couldn’t sign up there and then (although Fox did try for me). After a little time chatting to some of the locals, I went upstairs with Fox and Hollud to the former’s room to chill with a pint of Guinness before calling it a night.

 

With little going on until the opening ceremony mid-afternoon, I opted to have a lie-in on Saturday. I hadn’t slept much over previous days so this was welcome and although my illness was little improved, at least I was no longer coughing and felt a little refreshed. After registering and grabbing a Thai green curry pie from the newly introduced snack level on Floor One, I stuck my nose into the Dealers Den, only to find it was still being constructed. I headed back down there later in the day but in the end didn’t buy anything, on account of there only being fourteen stands and little of real interest. I did also swing by the adjacent art gallery though, where you could vote your best artwork out of eight selections based around the con theme. I declined to do this but admired the works anyway, along with some of the goodies which were to form part of the charity auction the next day.

 

The opening ceremony itself was lively and of perfect length. The basics were introduced, including the exciting addition of being spread over two floors now as Floor One was open to us. We were then shown an animated video featuring the two characters of FURUM, Sammy and ..., who were shown getting into the Robot Apocalypse theme after they had tried to create a time traveling potion. Loaf Cat fell in, became evil, and then in charge of robots, hence the theme. It was all very well done and set up the con perfectly. 

 

Immediately after the opening ceremony was the Guitar Furs Meet-up lead by Zander. I was going to stick my nose into this but on hearing the quality of the playing, combined by the fact there were only five people there, I became self-conscious about my own level of performance and decided to go back to the room. This is where I stayed a while, until 5pm when it was time for FURUM The Origin panel. Having been to three of the five Malaysian cons thus far, I thought this would be interesting if only to reminisce. Indeed there were pictures on display, but the nose fascinating aspect was the history of the furry fandom and how the con actually came into being. The first Malaysian furs meeting between Raptor and CT was back in 2004, only five years before my first visit to the region, and charting the growth of the community definitely made me feel more a part of it, as well as getting some very good insight into the development of Fursuiting in the area too. This was borne out of comic cons before there was enough interest to run an independent furry event. Even so, the 2015 iteration was in conjunction with a local comic con in case it all went tits up, but fortunately it did not. To think that now they are their own company and had over 400 attendees highlights the incredible growth and popularity of this great con. I thought I could add some insight of my own here but most things were covered and I didn’t have the confidence to interrupt.

 

It was dinner time after the talk and having bumped into Kage and Fox Amoore at the bar, we went together to the restaurant eatery where they had an extensive buffet on. I kinda gatecrashed this as it was technically a GoH event but Fox asked if I could be invited and I knew CT anyway, who was also eating with us. The range of food was a mix between Western and Asian, with some really strange things like raw turnip which was masquerading as roast potato. I had a lot of gratin and a lemony drink that looked like a semen sample if you just decanted a small amount in a glass. Meanwhile, the dessert station was manned and I enjoyed going round and round it, making the waiter rotate as he followed me. Over dinner I got to know Kage better, reminding him of the 2007 wine drinking we had done during the RBW auction. Perplexed slightly, he suddenly announced “did you have short hair back then”, which proved to me that he remembered. It was like seeing an old friend after this, starting with a big hug and then descending into conversation. Kage had had quite a lot of sake by this point though and later in the evening we were going to have much more as he regaled about six of us with his stories in the bar area until 1am (I didn’t even realise they had a bar, I hadn’t seen it at all back in 2017). In some respects, we only ever saw the performing Kage and not the man underneath, who I got to meet during the early hours of Monday morning in the lobby as he was waiting for his taxi to the airport. Shorn of his lab jacket and now wearing a bowler hat, he was more sedate yet still effusive about how much he enjoyed his first FURUM. It was a side of him I had never seen before, away from the performance, and it was good to see.

 

I deliberately avoided Fursuiting on the Saturday due to my cold, but Sunday morning was the Group Photo and I at least wanted to suit up then. Alas I had developed an even chestier cough and felt somewhat groggy, dizzy even. However, despite my better judgement, I decided to suit anyway as no Fursuit walk this year (due to permit reasons) kept everything contained in the hotel and I thought I could easily deal with any issues should they arise (plus I needed a shower anyway so there was no additional inconvenience here). I’ve never been a huge fan of early morning suiting, but cons do have a habit of encouraging it. Still, after some serious bed gravity, I managed to get changed into Lupe just in time, asking Marvin on Registration to do the zip up honours. It was then into the main hall for the photo, but before this we were sort of ordered by height. The queues that formed in the corridor outside became more like a splat as we entered the hall but with serendipity I found myself right in the middle just three rows from the front. Positioning myself behind a couple of smaller furs, the only battle was keeping the position as there was a taller fur than I to the left of me in the row in front. Fortunately he did not encroach into my space and as I could see the camera on the ladder clearly, hopefully the shot taken is a good one. Granted, the whole paws in the air thing has likely obscured my face as it normally does (I don’t know why cons insist on doing this, the same thing happens all the time) but hopefully they won’t use that one. As usual, it took the organisers a good half hour to get ready, during which time the temperature in the room got progressively warmer, but at least it offered a good opportunity to speak to my fellow suiters. Aside from a few small flashes of dizziness, I generally felt fine too, so much so that I spent a short while afterwards just suiting up in general and getting photos taken. I also managed to meet many people in the Fursuit lounge too, a number recognizing me from my Facebook page and calling me “Andrew”. This was quite a common theme throughout the con and for the first day I found it baffling why everyone was calling me by my real name. It was only after a while did it twig that my Facebook profile is NOT my furname.

 

Marvin once again got me out of suit and by 11:30am I was back in the room having a shower. With the next main event not being until 2pm - Uncle Kate’s Story Hour - I took the opportunity to recuperate and try and shake off the fever. Indeed bed gravity was so strong that I also missed it, also on account of needing to head back to the snack area on level one for another delicious Thai green curry pie (as it was lunchtime and I had wisely decided to Fursuit on two hobnobs). I sloped into Story Hour at 2:05pm, with Kage already in full flow. It had been a while since I had seen one of his shows, and the first since Fox Amoore provided the musical accompaniment, which added a depth to proceedings. Some of the stories I had not heard before but some of them I had, but all were greatly received by the local audience, many of whom were seeing Kate’s tour de force live for the first time. He’s certainly an engaging narrator and quite the stage presence, which is why the act has worked for so long. There was a little banter between Kage and Fox but ultimately it was the stories that did the talking and although he did threaten to overrun, he ended up finishing bang on 3pm, hence the hour part of the name.

 

I had decided to run an impromptu snack exchange at 3:30pm, having spoken to CT prior to the con starting. It not being in the conbook did cause an issue, as was it being shunted to one side in the snack area on Floor One, but we had a healthy trickle of people over the hour we put it on. Many furs had gotten my message to bring snacks of their own so we had things from Australia (including the obligatory Vegemite - great news as I had forgotten the Marmite), Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and the UK. I always find a snack exchange is a good way to make friends and so it proved to be here, with a number of new furs such as Nighty coming who I had never met before. There wasn’t much exotic stuff this time and a lot of it I had already tried before, such are my frequent visits to SE Asia these days, but highlights included Gao’s crispy Thai crackers. Simultaneously - at least beginning at 4pm - there was a soft drink tasting panel going on next door so I decided to save my dandelion and burdock for this event, for which they were very grateful. This was a Kaiyuki production and I wish I could have joined it, but I had the snack exchange to run and this was the only time I could do it. The range of rare colas in particular looked intriguing. Anyway, I was chilling with new friends, with the six Remainers sat around the table chatting about things once proceedings had petered out. Not being air conditioned, this bit of the hotel tucked behind a sports superstore was somewhat hot but it was nowhere near unbearable.

 

Once 5pm started approaching, I cleared up what was left and headed back to the main con space for the charity auction. As I went, I offered passers-by any of the remaining snacks as the last thing I wanted was to take them all back home, particularly the opened ones. There was quite a decent take up to be fair and the same could be said for the auction too, which was run by Kage in his own unique style. Quite full-on, he certainly got people to bid by employing a wide range of techniques including staring them in the face, sitting on them and pitting fellow bidders off of one another in a more confrontational style. This saw a lot of money raised for the charity and some very good pieces sold. I bid for the super sponsors box but was marginally outbid while I was conscious that some of the pieces I wanted would unlikely fit into my luggage to take home, which was a shame. I had Hana sat next to me for much of the auction, a friend I had met two years ago in Kota Kinabalu. He really wanted to snuggle with me throughout the weekend but I was too fevery to be up for it unfortunately, which was a shame. Still, at least we got to meet up, which I suppose was something. In the auction, I also got to see the only clearly under-18 fur there, whose father had decided to turn up dressed as Batman. It was a fantastic outfit, one of the best I’ve seen, it’s just a shame this was a furcon rather than a comic con really. Still he was just keeping an eye on her and she got very excited when the money started rolling in for one particular item, the prototype FURUM mascot plushies, which sailed well beyond RM1000 and touched RM1500. The final act of the auction was general money raising, where Kage promised to drink a shot of durian liqueur if more than RM2000 was raised. His stretch goal was RM3000 to get Fox involved and of course I strode up in front of everyone and put a lot of money down, to huge cheers. In the end, RM3033 was raised so both had to drink. Pleasant it apparently wasn’t - “somewhat garlicy” Fox told me - but the deed was done and the money raised (I was to try the liqueur myself at a room party later that day and it was perfectly fine to me, slightly creamy and almost pleasant in fact).

 

With that, the auction segued into the closing ceremony, where we found out we had raised over RM11000 for the cat sanctuary and that the theme for next year will be prehistory, as highlighted by another darling video skit with our two friendly mascots. CT went through the usual thank yous and with that the con was done for another year.  

 

There were multiple meal options on Sunday but as Gao’s group had grabbed me first, this is the group with whom I went. A&W was initially discussed but as it was still raining - the rain had been tropical and torrential for much of the day - it was decided this wouldn’t work. After some to-ing and fro-ing regarding car parking facilities, in the end we decided just to take a Grab to the Starling Shopping Centre where local chain Spade Burger had been recommended to us. There were about fifteen of us spread across three cars in the end, so we ended up pretty much taking over the place. The burgers were in the black burger buns, which made this a little unique, but aside from that it was the very typical Almost Famous experience except a lot cheaper. I had the Baconizer, which as it’s name would suggest, had lots of bacon on it along with BBQ sauce which worked quite well. Meanwhile the fries were good and came with two pots of orange dipping sauce, one milder than the other. We ended up staying here for about an hour with us then piling back in taxis to get back to the hotel. Some went to get bubble tea for dessert while I went straight back. Part of this was size issues with a few heavier set people amongst our crew but I also thought that when people were going to get tea, they were going to buy loose leaf tea from a store and not get a blended one. Had I known that, I may have stuck around, particularly as Krado’s Lion Tea with burnt sugar on top looked decadently unctuous.

 

I got back to the hotel about 10pm and chilled for a while, toying with whether to invite Hana up to the room for cuddles. I was still feeling grotty though so it was a close run thing, in the end with him making the decision for me by announcing he was going to bed. Shortly after this, I thought I would pop down to the bar area on the off-chance something was going on and I bumped into the Gao/Defago crew who had just finished doing a Fursuit photo shoot in the bar. The pictures for this were to turn out wonderfully but the key point was that they told me they were hosting a room party a little later that evening. Once confirmed, I slunk away, delighted I had asked Defago to buy me a couple of beers on the off-chance of such circumstances. This was convenient I thought as I collected them about twenty minutes later in his room. The party was modest, of seven furs, but we were soon told of the main staff one in another room so we headed upstairs to the same room as it had been in two years ago. There were about forty furs up here getting through all the leftover booze and snacks acquired during the con. This is always one of my favourite parties and so it remained, as I was there until nearly 5am, only breaking cover as a few of us had gone down to the lobby to see off Uncle Kage and we thought we should probably hear to bed. Anyway, the party was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends, meet a few new ones and just bounce from person to person. It was also amazing how, with just a single beer inside me, I was much note relaxed and confident speaking to people. This is what I had been missing. In the end I drank very little, 2.5 beers, some Japanese gin, some decent smooth sake and the aforementioned durian liqueur, but I was pretty sober throughout. It was also great to try some of the local snacks again which again provided great talking points.

On account of going to bed at 5am, I awoke very late on Monday, again to a rather stagnant chesty cough. A shower and a cup of tea seemed to clear things up though and as I was lying in bed, I got a message from Kaiyoki telling me that everyone was at the Sunway Shopping Centre. It was around this time that CT rang me, urging me to come to the lobby quickly as he would be able to drive me there, with Kaiyoki apparently arranging with him to give me a lift. As CT had contacted me through another one of his characters I was surprised to see him rock up, but soon enough I was in his car and heading towards the mall.

It was great heading down there as I managed to bump into the Singaporeans as well as Fox Amoore, who were all waiting for their bus to head back to Singapore. Once we had seen them off, we headed to a local place for food, the Honolulu Cafe, with me grabbing deep fried belly pork and rice, along with a sweet bun stuffed with butter which wasn't too dissimilar to the delicious unctuousness I had tried in Hong Kong. I hadn't had any breakfast aside from some butter cake from the hotel, but all this food was too much and I ended up feeling a little bloated. Still, there was an option to head back to the hotel after food, which is one that I took as I needed a lie down to recover. With CT telling me that there was another larger gastronomic gathering in the same shopping centre at 7pm, I was told to get public transport there later in the day. This is what I did, but not before an hour-long nap back at the hotel.

Getting back to the shopping centre was pretty straightforward, even if I did get lost at the station where I needed to change lines. When I arrived at Teh Tarik Place, a Malaysian-themed restaurant, there were already about twenty furs sat on a long table in the outside area. This number only increased as the evening went on, while we were charged with buying our own food as and when we wanted it. I grabbed a bandung - my first during my trip thus far - and some excellent roti, which admittedly was a little too sweet and greasy for me considering the sheer volume of food I had had earlier in the day. Still, it was a good recommendation from Kaiyoki, with whom I sat for much of the evening meal.

After this, most of us hopped into cars and headed into the city centre for Blastacars. This has become a post-FURUM tradition and sees a large number of furs race against each other in specially designed go karts which drift rather than just turn corners conventionally. There are three different engine capacities to try, with the furs on the normal one as they were permitted to suit while I driving (as evidenced by the pictures on the racetrack wall). I was very tempted to give this a go myself, but I was still feeling somewhat weak with my fever and I didn't want to cough at high speed. In the end then I just watched, although this got a little dull after two hours, if I was being honest. It was not helped by the feeling I was just being a burden and getting in the way, as the others had fragmented into groups. Still, I did get to marvel at the downtown city skyline from the roof terrace of the fifth floor of the shopping centre where Blastacars was based. The famous Petronas Towers were in my vision, along with other twinkling buildings, with the scene only made marginally less romantic by the huge thick pipes and barbed wire which formed the periphery of the Blastacars Arena. The race track did look competitively fun though, and the information screens detailing times and the like, did add a competitive air to things. Next time, I must do some driving, not least because the cacophony of engine noises amplified by the starkness of the space did make for an exhilarating mix. Even the smell of the petrol in the air contributed.

Kaiyuki needed to leave shortly after midnight and I hopped in his car too, leaving the others to continue racing. I saw precious little fursuiting to be honest, but with a 31-hour travelling day ahead of me to get back to the UK, I thought sleep would be best. Furthermore, I managed to secure a taxi ride to the airport with some of the Singaporean furs so all of this was sorted (although as usual the taxi wasn't quite big enough for all of our luggage and we had to sit with a lot of it on our laps). This meant I could have a nice eight hours sleep before having to get up to go to KLIA, with a flight to Bangkok first on the agenda. This was uneventful, but it did give me six hours to hang around the airport, which was a frighteningly dull experience. Indeed, I spent much of the time in the Observation Deck as the restaurants were all too small to find a seat. Even past security, after I had checked my baggage in, there wasn't very much so it became something of a relief when the gate for our flight was called. I was sat right between two people on this eleven hour flight to Istanbul, which was a little claustrophobic, but the trip past without incident, as did the next plane to Manchester, which was a huge Airbus 300 which turned out to be far bigger than was required. Still, it was all on time and I slept so much on the plane, I didn't really notice which made the travelling much easier.