Doing Kermit

[lupestripe]

I landed in Kuala Lumpur safely after a tedious flight from Taipei on which everyone seemed to be ill, particularly the woman in the seat behind me who kept sneezing in my direction without covering her mouth. She also spent a lot of time burping in my right ear and coupled with the woman to my left who spent most of the flight rubbing her filthy feet on the wall, lets say I didn't arrive in the Malaysian capital particularly refreshed.

Chaos at Taipei airport, followed by a minor delay, didn't help matters while the four and a half hour flight was surprisingly long, I didn't realise just how far apart the two cities were. The Malaysians have also changed their immigration procedure from four years ago, now we need to have fingerprints taken and the landing cards are not necessary. With the bedlam at Taipei airport, I feared my bag had not made it the journey with me so the relief when it finally appeared on the conveyer was palpable.

Fortunately, my furry friend Canis Enigmas was on hand at the airport to drive me the hour long journey to my hotel. We hadn't seen each other in four years and due to issues with time zones, have struggled to communicate with each other on IMs, but time has not dulled our friendship and the ride into the city centre was as if we had only been absent from each other for a short while. We chatted about a variety of things - from furry to politics - and this was to set the tone for my entire time in Malaysia.

My hotel here is pretty basic, far more basic than the other ones on this trip (aside from the homestay). It's manned by a big scary burly chap who phoned me on Sunday morning demanding money, which was kinda scary. There are also stains on the sideboard which really should have been cleaned, the shower jets water into a light fitting as there is a crack in the nozzle and I only get the same three TV channels four times but everything else is fine. The hotel is also called Best View even though my room has no windows. The walls between rooms are also very thin, I can hear next door showering for example, while some random person has tried to access my room with me in it! Still, it's cheap and reasonable value for money, I'm probably just complaining needlessly.

After checking in, Canis grabbed CT, Marvin Raptor and his flatmate and we all drove over to a local night market in Sri Petaling,which was still thronging at 11pm. We grabbed a table, ordered some beers and CT (who looks a lot like Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood) showed me around all of the stalls, which pretty much served every type of food you can imagine. In the end I opted to try crab for the first time - served in a butter sauce - as well as frog, which came in a spicy stew with onions and green beans. The latter tasted like tender chicken while the former didn't force me into anaphylaxis, so it was all good. Stripping the crab from its meet was a tricky task though, and very messy, but I soon got the hang of it. We also talked a great deal, so much so that it was past 2am when we left, with many patrons still dining in the communal area flanked by the stalls. The food was far from cheap - the crab was surprisingly expensive - but it was worth it.

One of the reasons why my flight was delayed was due to a thick haze which is affecting Malaysia and Singapore right now. Last Friday, Singapore recorded its most smoggy conditions ever, while Kuala Lumpur has been choked over the past week too. This has been due to prevailing winds blowing smoke over from Indonesia where prospective farmers have been indulging in a spot of deforestation in order to get land on which to make a living. I believe this is causing a real diplomatic issue right now. On Sunday, we had intended to have a furry picnic in the park in the shadow of the Petronas towers called Critters In The Park but the fog negated this and we unfortunately had to move inside into Suria KLCC, the shopping mall underneath the world's fifth tallest tower.

Traditional Malaysian food had been promised for the picnic but with this cancelled (Singapore furs' inaugural Fursuit walk next Saturday has gone the same way for the same reason sadly), I had to make do with the offerings from the food court of the shopping centre. While most furs contented themselves with McDonald's and particularly Subway, I went for a local curry dish served with curry pasty and a variety of vegetables. I also enjoyed the bright pink drink Bandung, which is of a similar colour to my fur, and is a sweet concoction made predominantly of condensed milk. It's pink and gorgeous so I was to have a few of these throughout the course of the day.

Furmeets in SE Asia seem to be dominated by malls as we spent a while here chatting and drawing before heading over to an expensive coffee shop called Cafe Vienna. Apparently, this mall is one of the ones for the wealthy - there were certainly many shops dedicated to individual high end brands - and Cafe Vienna certainly caters for them. Here I grabbed an ice chocolate drink at UK prices while talking about the socioeconomics of the furry fandom, which was one of the most engaging conversations I've ever had in my six and a half years as a fur. We also spied the Malaysian poet laureate too, a wizened old Muslim chap who apparently likes to walk around the centre.

After this, we took a large group photo in a corridor as a testament to the biggest ever furmeet to take place in Malaysia (there were 16 attendees). CT and Marvin brought their partial fursuits while I had my ears and tail. We donned these too and played with a fat fox and a squished shark plush for a while before hopping on the LRT system and headed hour stops vaguely west to colonial KL, where the city was founded. There is a central market here, which once was open but is now covered, while there are many grand buildings of the past in the shadows of the skyscrapers of the future. The paint in the old buildings may be faded but I do like the feel of them, while the atmosphere around the market was great. I even bought a new wolf T-shirt.

The Jalan Petaling street market was next, with hawkers and stalls crammed into a narrow street, with the shelves bursting with a wide range of goods to buy, particularly handbags, T-shirts and your typical tourist tat. On the ceiling hung red Chinese lanterns while navigation in the warren of stalls was difficult such was the narrowness of the walkways. We also went into a toy store disturbingly called Kiddie Love where a friend of mine bought a husky plush.

With the haze thickening and air quality reducing, we decided to head over to Mega Ma for some food, taking the efficient LRT two stops (once you understand that for some reason the trains have a different number of carriages and you need to look at the lights above the automatic doors go see where the train sill actually stop) and then CT's car for the remainder of the journey. Driving through KL reminds me a lot of Britain - the houses are similar as are the roads, with driving on the left the law. Even the plugs are three pronged. A Japanese-Italian fusion restaurant was the order of the day but with 40 minutes to kill, we opted to go to Pet World, the sixth Malaysia Pet and Aquatics Exhibition. For 5 ringgit (£1.10) we got to see a range of stands promoting various pet products, a cat show and a dog agility course starring a fine black collie and a derpy beagle who kept collecting his ball at one end of the course made from jumps but then forgetting to leap over the jumps on his return to his master. He was disqualified at least four times due to this. We also saw lizards and lots of huskies, including two who were peacefully snoozing over the stools they had just made. Judging by their nasal sensitivity, how they do it, I don't know. I also wore my pink tail around the pet convention, generating odd states throughout, particularly from children.

The restaurant, Pasta Zanmai, was a good way to end the day, even though they had run out of a lot of food and kept delivering our orders intermittently so we couldn't all eat together. Nightphaser kindly gave me a copy of his self-published art oil here, replete with special Lupe drawing at the back, while the conversation was convivial and a nice way to end the day. Sadly we had to split all too early and with me heading back to Singapore tomorrow and then home, this visit was again all too fleeting. Hopefully it won't be another four years before I see them again.

Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Canis Enigmas was on hand at the airport to drive me the hour long journey to my hotel

Oof, indeed - I recall the coach I took from the airport took quite a bit of time to really get into town. Has the transit connection improved? You'd think there'd be an LRT link by now. Still, the coach was comfortable enough and quite cheap, so I suppose it all works out.

and I only get the same three TV channels four times

Much like home, then. =:) (ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, E4, E4-1..)

I opted to try crab for the first time

Oooh, cool beans! I fondly recall the crab I enjoyed not too far out of KL, at a riverside shack, courtesy of the friend I was visiting then, and his parents. Gorgeous! The key was being boiled with egg white and ginger, lending the meat a delicate fragrance. =:9

I'd've recommended the Hotel Equatorial as a wonderful place to stay, but they're closed for a while, for a fairly thorough renovation and refitting. Back then, ISTR it was 220RM/night - expensive by local standards, but worked out at about US$55. Not bad, for a top-notch place with five commensurately excellent in-house restaurants, pools, gym, 24-hr room service, and so forth. =:D Having spent the first couple nights in a place not too dissimilar to the one you're describing, I could hardly refuse such luxury at such an eminently affordable rate.

Good to hear you've taken to KL. ^_^ I'd love to get back sometime.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I did the coach in 2009 and it takes forever, plus you are at the whim of the driver. Driving does take a good 45 minutes, it's not in a convenient place but aside from Singapore, most airports in SE Asia tend not to be. There is an LRT coming, I think in 2015.

Yep, like terrestrial TV at home, just worse.

I am not sure how they cooked my crab, it was in a sweet butter though. It was nice but perhaps a risk if I had been allergic to it.

I'll check out the hotel when next I visit, I do hope to visit KL again ^^