Saturday, January 31, 2009

on toilets

kim and sam, coming out of the first malaysian public toilet encountered in five years...

*look of awe* it was a squatting one!!!
man, i couldn't remember how to use it.
did you face the wall or the door?
i almost didn't know what to do.
did you flush?
i don't want to bring these slippers back to perth.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

so i thought wrong

and we have Streamyx (and ESPN).

Sibu is uncharacteristically cool these days because of the 60 hours of rain over the last two days. Drizzle is perpetually intermittent (go figure).

So this is how it goes:

The seats on the plane are tiny. I'm glad I'm not claustrophobic. I stretched across mum and Sam and slept for ages. When I woke up - my eyes all dry and contacts ready to jump out - I checked the time only to find we'd only been flying for two hours. BUT... We moved right to the back of the pesawat and there were plenty of empty seats there :)

The child sitting in front of me on the plane kept turning around, looking at me, and then giggling. One time he did that, I made an ugly face at him. He let out a little shriek, and turned back around so quickly that he smashed into the seat in front of him.
That was amusing for a while :)

LCC-Terminal has nothing. NOTHING. The five hour transit there was the worst part of the trip. And then there was the checking in...

There is no such thing as a neat, orderly line when it comes to checking in at the airport. There is no such thing as justice for the fair. I could elaborate on the 50 people that cut into the line in front of us at KL International, but the angry little girl inside of me would rage out and then even I don't know what might happen. I also didn't realise you could tailgate someone with an airport baggage trolley. Seriously, I looked down at my feet and I could see the trolley of the person behind me just waiting to bite into my achilles tendons.

KL is humid compared to Perth. KL is dry as chalk in the sun compared to Sibu.

There are longkangs here. I love it. Not the longkangs, but you know that feeling you get from being back to the place you come from? The lack of tar-sealed roads, the houses on stilts, very creative driving ("hey EE, wasn't that a red light?" "yes, it was"), smaller people, coconut trees in backyards, foochow everywhere... I LOVE IT.

I haven't had kampua yet - I haven't actually been anywhere but various homes-of-rellies. But it's okay. I haven't been here 24 hours yet.
I love it (rice dumplings for breakfast oh-yay) :)

Maybe it's cause the weather isn't very terrible these days. I don't know.

I ramble in my happiness :)

Monday, January 12, 2009

this is all you're getting until the 5th of February

Okay, I know I've been slack with the blogging...

and it's about to get even slacker.

This hungry person will be leaving Perth to go to the Land of the Kampua on a big flying machine in about 7 hours, and won't be back until the 5th of February.

I have made the necessary preparations:

Lists of food I shall eat when I go home.

Tiffany advised me to save on the calories in the weeks leading up to the trip, but I have not heeded her advice. I am leaving at 48kg and hopefully I won't be over 50 when I get back. Hopefully.

Pack like, four shirts for the 3.5 week trip. Come back with 50.

Laptop + hard drive with lots of movies/dramas = things to keep me up at night.
(I am unsure as to the Internet capabilities where I will be staying in the Land of the Kampua. I suspect Dr. Dialup or Sir NoInternet).

My "handbag" weighs 4kg.


Okay. Last few hours of sleep before bracing the humidity, the flies, the dengghi...

Big smiles for you till I come back :)