There's a koala in my bathroom!!!

I really have no idea why he's there....



Meanwhile, sad times in the kitchen...

Supermarket adventures

I was actually looking for licorice. Licorice allsorts. It was a craving. And I was devastated that I couldn't find any.

BUT I FOUND REAL AUSTRALIAN TIM TAMS.

Not just the "specially produced for the South-East Asian Market" ones. This is actually a euphemism for "more sugar, less chocolate, pretty disappointingly average biscuit".

THESE ARE THE REAL DEAL KIDDOS!!!

Over-priced? Of course. But they are HERE if I need them.

:)

I love it

After about 3-4 minutes of walking I look up the road at the KL Tower & the Petronas Towers in the distance as I wait for the lights to change. I cross, and then I'm heading along Jalan Tun Sambanthan towards the office.

I walk fast. Not (usually) because I'm late, or cold (hah!), or just impatient to get to the office. Just because I like walking fast. It feels good. Even though the slow-walkers get in the way a bit.

There's not actually that many people around, and pretty much none of the types that make me nervous walking by myself along the same stretch after dark. It's not hot yet. I'm full of energy. And these kinds of footpaths make me happy.

Between the footpath and the shops & restaurants are wide covered walkways. They remind me of Turkey somehow, though I don't recall seeing any there. I step down to the walkways and power along, stepping up to the footpath only when someone is mopping the walkway in front of their store.

At the moment the footpaths are a bit crowded anyway. Deepavali is coming, and stalls are selling Indian clothing, sweets & biscuits, flowers, and decorations & cards. But not in the part of the morning that belongs to me. There's just plastic strung up around the place, random electrical wires and display cables hanging down here and there. I duck as I walk through, today noticing a dangling fluro tube at the last minute. Man.

When I get to the monorail station I notice how many people are suddenly around, waiting for buses or to cross the road to Sentral. The pedestrian lights must change at least once a minute. But there's always a ton of people waiting there. If the aunty selling breakfast nearby catches my eye I smile and we greet each other. She says "Good Morning!" and I reply "Selamat Pagi!".

Then it's the Indian restaurant on the corner, which seems to me the same as almost every other of the tons in the area. Except that on the occasional day that I don't feel so energetic, I stop there and order a Teh Tarik to go. They know what I will order. They ask anyway if I want breakfast. I tell them I already ate. Again. With my tea in it's little plastic bag, I cover the last 100m to the office. If the security guard is there we exchange smiles. And I head up to the office to begin my work day. A little sad that my walk is over - but happy that I have such an enjoyable start to the day. Nothing special, but somehow I've come to love it.

Hari Raya 2007

One day a year, the first day of Hari Raya, it's tradition that the King holds an Open House where the public can take a squiz at his place, meet the man himself, and even get a little package of food to take away.

Last year, I was young and innocent and unaware of this tradition. Sam & her mum went on their first afternoon in Malaysia and when I met them for dinner that night I couldn't believe what I'd missed out on!

This year, I was prepared. I couldn't find details of the time online. But in Malaysia, almost no useful info seems to be available online so I wasn't that surprised. The official tourism pages for Visit Malaysia Year 2007 confirmed that this happened, and that was good enough for us. So Pavla & I hot-footed it to the palace on Saturday morning. There were plenty of people around and we took photos with the guards.

Then Pavla asked one of the traffic cops about what time the palace would open. And ITS NOT OPEN THIS YEAR!!!!

The gates opened and out drove two official looking black cars, one of which we assume had the King inside (we didn't recognise the back of his head... nor would we have recognised his face either if we'd since it probably, it's Badawi the Prime Minister who has his pic everywhere!!).

So... we were pretty disappointed. I'm wondering through which channels I should communicate this to His Majesty. I'm sure if he knew that Pavla & I were coming, he would have stayed home and welcomed us most enthusiatically.



ANYWAY, despite this disppointing start to the long weekend, things did improve and its turned out to be a great, lazy weekend :) Tya made an Indonesian Raya lunch yesterday with receipes from her Mum, and the food (sooo much food) & company (full house!!) was great - thanks babe!!

Office cleaning

There's a lovely lady who comes to our office early each morning to clean for us. Sweet.

There's also a couple of people who come once every month or two and clean the phones. Yep, just the phones. They go around and disinfect the phone on each person's desk, and also spray some kind of perfume into it.

This didn't happen at my last company. And I've never heard of it happening anywhere else before. I'm intrigued... will do some research :)

Friends friends friends

The last few weeks have been busy for catching up - which is just the way I like it!

Amelia was here the other week and we went for drinks at Luna Bar - great to catch up on the news from the Aussies in Europe and chat about life in Canberra :)

To Singapore on the weekend for a mini Beijing reunion - ahh good times :) Who has the group pics? Crystal?

Ice-cream with Mel... but not on roller-blades

Flic & Leon

And Joe is here this week on his way back to Adelaide, so in for some more sightseeing.

Dinner at the Pasar Ramadan (Ramadan market) at Bangsar

Hari Raya (end of Ramandan) decorations on Jalan Ara, Bangsar

Carbon neutral

I just booked a flight from Singapore to Adelaide for next year with Qantas. And I noticed something about "carbon neutral" when I was paying. So I checked it out.

I really don't know how legit this is, if it will actually make any difference to the world my kids grow up in, or if it's just a publicity stunt. BUT I made my trip guilt-free for AUD$6.21.

What I'm NOT happy about is that this AUD$6.21 (carefully calculated, I'm assured) is INCLUSIVE OF GST. The government is taxing my carbon offset charge that's going to be put into government-approved "greenhouse friendly" initiatives? What the...?