I’ve been busily composing a (hopefully) decent post for this “week in the life” series. It won’t be published for a month or more, so in the meantime, here’s a preview with lots more photos.
Thursday, January 31: Vietnam to Malaysia Why am I always SO ready to leave by the time it’s time to leave? I checked out of my $230/month room in the large house with the strangest Jesus I’ve ever seen hanging on the wall:
I find him creepily familiar. Like a cross between Val Kilmer and Brad Pitt. And Jesus.
My good friend, Nhung came by to ride with me to the airport. Just before our taxi pulled away from the curb, my VNese-sorta-boyfriend-who-speaks-not-one-word-of-English comes running up to our cab to give me this photocopy of his ID:
Nhung was nuts with wide-eyed bafflement. In all her days, she’s never known a guy to give a girl a photocopy of his ID. In between gasps of laughter, she declared it “true love”. As for me, how long am I supposed to hold onto this piece of paper?!
It was a pretty sweet ride to the airport. We were cracking up about something when I was like, “Quick! Let’s take a picture.”
I love my going-away-present purse Nhung got me. Look how cute:
I landed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia around 11pm, but the airport’s about an hour from the city center, so I checked in to Reggae Mansion close to midnight. For fun, I opted for the 16-bed girls’ dorm. Here’s what it looked like:
Each of the “cubbies” (I call them) are wall-to-wall with a full-sized mattress, so you leave your shoes and crawl in. There’s a lamp and an outlet in there. Free wifi. I didn’t notice the lockers there near the floor, so the first night I slept with my stuff in there with me, which was fine.
Reggae Mansion calls itself a “party hostel”, with a rooftop bar going strong into the wee hours of the morning. Their showers had the best water pressure in all of Asia. Clean and well-run. Here are some photos on the wall by the computers:
Friday, February 1: Kuala Lumpur “Malaysia has the most number of public holidays in the world along with China and Egypt” states Wikipedia. I’ve cleverly arrived just in time for Federal Territory Day, so the Grey Group creative director and I meet at a cafe inside this enormous shopping mall, Pavilion:
I’m almost always early and took this from the booth at Dome Cafe where I was waiting:
After my meeting, I walked into a bookstore to find this curious display:
Except for the airport and some rats in the street, KL reminds me of Singapore more than anyplace.
O hi, Asia! 