Welcome!: Weekend in KL

Tuesday 16 June 2009

Weekend in KL

I'm back to civilization from Kuala Lumpur over the weekend!

No, I'm kidding. KL was great! I had an awesome, albeit short time there. In fact, it feels just perfect, having another day will probably spoil the rotten ouf of the whole thing, 'cos two nights with a snoring man is still tolerable, but any longer, you may have to shoot me. I need my beauty sleep, period.

We stayed at Ancasa Hotel, which is very convenient 'cos Chinatown was just right around the corner, and you can always find cheap and good food over there. The place's constantly packed too with tourists and locals selling various stuffs from T-shirts and fake designer handbags. The amount was just overwhelming! We spent nights having beers or cups of coffee in the street, enjoying the noise and surroundings and people singing 'Country Roads'. It was pretty darn awesome.

Sometime, during the day, my dad or Laurie would crave a cup of coffee (the thing about travelling with caffeine-junkies), and we had to find a little coffee shop, conversed in funny Malay slangs (which I always found amusing, cos some Malay words sound funny to me) with the locals around, and I don't know, it's just more liberating talking to people when you're a tourist, for some reason, as if that gives us an excuse to be an annoying blabber-mouth.

And of course, I visited the Twin Tower. I never really see a big deal of the place, but it's just like, Merlion to Singapore, or well, what's the equivalent of that in Jakarta, I wonder? I'd say Monas? It's like, you gotta go there, otherwise you haven't really been there, you know? But well, I enjoyed it too, and the tower was rather majestic in my opinion, which was cool. (Man, I love it that I just used the word majestic.)

We went to a couple of shopping malls also, like the Times Square, Sungai Wang and Bukit Bintang. Saw the KL Tower from afar, and wandered around aimlessly through the city. Oh! I had a full body massage over there too, which was a complete bliss!

I've always been kinda skeptical about massaging shops like these, 'cos they seemed rather shady, and I heard lots of dogdy stories from people too. So my dad made sure we chose the 'legit-looking' shop, although it was also in the side of the street. It wasn't in the mall or hotel or anything; it was just this little stand and as we were passing though, the workers approached us with the brochures of the service. It was a scorching hot afternoon, and I was like, 'man, a massage right now will just be amazing,' So I went in and had an hour of complete zen.

It seems like I was the only female customer in there though,which was...well, interesting. They asked if I wanted a male or female massaeur, what do you reckon?!

One thing I love about taking trips is also the fact that I got to stay in a hotel. It's not that this experience is particularly exciting in itself, but I don't know, I just love hotels. I love hotel rooms and I love the breakfast every morning. Hotel breakfast is one of the best thing in life, and also totally underrated.

There's a downside of KL too. Well, it's maybe not a downside, it's just a fact. Every country's different, right? Their taxis, for example. Although it's clearly written 'metre-taxi' in big bold capital letters on the side of the cars, no taxi in KL operates with metre-system. You had to bargain your price, well, they demaded the price is more likely. I have a feeling we were ripped off everytime we took a cab. It's annoying but that's the way it is.

But I have no complaints for the rest of the trip. It was fun being with my dad, and seriously, it's like I turned into five years old again! I kept like, clinging on to him, hugging him and making jokes and it's like, what the hell is going on with me? Ha-ha. I love my dad.

Anyway, it's back to reality now, ah bugger. It has been an awesome weekend full of denials (ha!)

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Quotes

There's a hundred million different ways of writing, and it takes you a long time to sort through that stuff. And I think it takes anyone a long time to find a voice.

You must learn to take the good with the bad, the happy with the sad, love what you’ve got and remember what you had. Learn to forgive, but never forget, learn from your mistakes but never regret. People change and things go wrong, but you just have to remember that life goes on.

The day before I’m supposed to be meeting Caroline for a drink, I develop all the textbook symptoms of a crush: nervous stomach, long periods spent daydreaming, an inability to remember what she looks like. I can bring back the dress and the boots, and I can see her bangs, but her face is a blank.

I don't know, I think that if I could just accept the fact that my life is supposed to be difficult. You know, that's what to be expected, then I might not get so pissed-off about it and I'll just be glad when something nice happens.

I can see now I never really committed to Laura. I always had one foot out the door, and that prevented me from doing a lot of things, like thinking about my future and... I guess it made more sense to commit to nothing, keep my options open. And that's suicide. By tiny, tiny increments.

There's a big fucking world out there. It's messy, and it's chaotic, and it's never, never ever the thing you'd expect. It is ok to be scared, but you cannot allow your fears to turn you into an asshole, not when it comes to the people that love you, the people that need you.

Maybe what I'm saying is, is the world might be evolving the way a person evolves. Right? Like, I mean, me for example. Am I getting worse? Am I improving? I don't know. When I was younger, I was healthier, but I was, uh, whacked with insecurity, you know? Now I'm older and my problems are deeper, but I'm more equipped to handle them.

I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who's ever lived: I've loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.

Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.

A woman needs to be held, even, and science has shown this, if its with someone she doesn't care about. Protective hormones are released, and the amount of hormones released depends on the degree to which she is held. The first and best is the complete surround. He wraps you in both arms, whispers how beautiful you are. Second best is the 'arm around.' He is next to you but with one arm around you. Third is he's just next to you on his elbow, but he rests his hand on your stomach and looks at you. Fourth is you snuggling up to him with your head on his chest, while he looks away into space. But when the first best happens, you feel completely, wonderfully like a woman.

So, so what, so fuck off, go home, leave you alone? I'll tell you something Paul, there isn't anything that I've wanted for eighteen years, cause I was a kid eighteen years ago. And if I did still want the same things I'd think I'd gone wrong somewhere, because actually I don't want to marry David Cassidy, I don't want bigger tits, I don't want to do better on my marks. I've stopped worrying about that kind of thing and maybe you should try.

Well maybe there's a big bit of you that's gone missing somewhere, maybe everyone should want something they've always wanted.

Why is it that adults aren't supposed to go mad about anything? You gotta keep a lid on it. And if you don't then people are apparently entitled to say what they like. "You haven't grown up. You're a moron. Your conversation is trivial and boorish. You can't express your emotional needs. You can't relate to your children." And you die, lonely and miserable. But you know, what the hell, every cloud has a silver lining.

I just woke up one morning and didn't feel the same way. Where did it go? It was like there had been a lot of food on a plate in front of us, and we ate it all really quickly, and then there was nothing left. Maybe that's how couples stay together: they're not greedy. They know that what they have in front of them has to last a long time, so they kind of pick at it. I hope it's not like that, though. I hope that when people are happy together, it feels as though someone keeps piling seconds and thirds on their plates.

That is what I have learned: Sex is destructive. Love is nothing to be fooled with. I learned that I was dangerous, not to be trusted. I wondered if my parents were right, with all of their stiff lovelessness. Maybe they knew better. My parents don't dole out love for the deserving or the undeserving. I was learning that love could cost me.

You could say all you liked about reason and logic and common sense and imagination, but when the chips were down, the one skill you needed was the ability to think about absolutely nothing whatsoever.

There is a comfort in never making an effort, but it's a lonely comfort. What keeps you going is the knowledge that you're only playing with only four cards showing. But when you see other people succeeding with their mediocre hands, you have to make a decision. If you turn over that final card you're certain of victory, but it also means you have nothing in reserve.

I’d gone through life believing in the strength and competence of others; never in my own. Now, dazzled, I discovered that my capacities were real. It was like finding a fortune in the lining of an old coat.

Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as mere consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship.