Buying a French Dictionary at KLCC

On Sunday night after my JLPT 3 exam, Ding and I went to Jon’s house to play Left 4 Dead, and I was pleasantly surprised to find Dek, Siew and Jerm there – it has been ages since I’ve seen Siew and I somewhat missed seeing the bugger (after seeing each other every bloody day for nearly a month about 12 months ago while backpacking in Laos and Thailand lmao). Siew and Jerm left shortly after to play badminton, leaving Dek there.. it took me about an hour plus just to install the bloody game, which eventually kept hanging repeatedly on my laptop afterwards. =..=” Shawn, Heng, and WH arrived too to lepak and played the game as well.

On Thursday at nearly 11am, Andy, Wai Hong, and I went to the KTM Subang Jaya station by parking my car at Carrefour, and we were in for a ride. For some reason, maybe because of the fact that it was a public holiday for Selangor because it was the Sultan’s birthday, the train we were in was sooo packed but commuters from outside seemed to be oblivious to the obvious and would keep pushing us in even more even though it was clearly full. Any further attempts to compress us into a packed sardine would probably be met with murderous chants and eye-piercing stares.

We were supposed to depart at 10am, but I had a couple of beers at Shawn’s house the night before when Ding picked me up along with Sarah and Wai Hong at 10.30pm – Andy was already there when we arrived, while Heng came by himself a while later. Suffice to say I reached home pretty late at maybe 2.30am and only slept at 3.30am, I didn’t even hear WH phoning me to wake me up at nearly 9am lol.

Back in that KTM train bounded for KL Sentral, we were at such a close proximity that I couldn’t help but scrutinise the people wrapped so closely around us: the short Malay girl who was in a hugging position with her boyfriend, whose hair kept brushing against my lifted left arm trying to grip onto something so as not to topple over when the train moved erratically; the shiny white ear stud on one dude; the beads of sweat on Andy’s face.. and sigh, because the train kept bouncing left and right repeatedly, I felt my butt grinding onto another dude’s butt repeatedly (my back was facing his back) throughout half of the journey wtf. And sweat dripping off someone onto my shirt.. the entire journey was highly uncomfortable.

The LRT from KL Sentral to KLCC wasn’t any better – it was just as condensely packed with breathing, sweaty, uncomfortable humans who probably regretted sitting train that very day instead of using other means of transport or driving (ie: the three of us wtf). Oh and the doors actually nearly just slammed shut at my face, if not for a woman who was standing in between the door and it didn’t manage to close properly, so I quickly jumped on board wtf.

When we reached KLCC, we headed straight for Kinokuniya despite the protest of our rambling stomachs. Spent a bit of some time there searching for the Collins French dictionary that Andy’s and my teacher had recommended, then when found, I went straight for the Travel section, picked out the Lonely Planet edition of New Zealand, went to the counter to have it unwrapped, and gingerly browsed through the introduction and dived straight for the suggested itinerary in hopes I could steal ideas and incorporate into my plan.

I would’ve spent the entire day just reading through that book alone, but sadly we didn’t have much time, so after finding Wai Hong at the Japanese Magazine section, Andy and I went to the counter to pay for our dictionaries.. and even then there was a long queue for it. -___- Seriously I have no clue what was up with that day. When it was our turn, we requested for the RM1 jacketing service (too lazy to wrap on our own, plus I thought it was reasonably priced), and our dictionaries felt even more beloved wtf.

We went to TGV and found a long queue snaking out of it, and being geniuses, we thought of trying to book our tickets and online to bypass the queue and go straight for the reservation counter (so smart! I know wtf), but couldn’t find any free WiFi services around.. so had to ring up Jon and had him book the tix for us lol.

Everywhere we walked there were just.. people. Everywhere. In the department stores, in restaurants, in the foyer. Eventually we settled for Burger King after comparing the amount of people at hand at both BK and KFC – which wasn’t really cheap. I also had a scare when Andy changed places whilst I was queueing up to buy the food for them, and he forgot to carry my camera bag over to the new location too. When I saw that our places had switched, I looked around for my camera bag but couldn’t find it, questioned him while watching his face closely if he was playing a prank wtf, and then I rushed back to our original seating and found that my bag was still there. Lucky. =/

After lunch, we went to TGV to purchase our tickets for The Day the Earth Stood Still (quite good location too – middle seats, plus not too front nor not too far back) and had to pay for the RM1 booking fee on top of the RM8/tix.

We still had about an hour more to go before the appointed time of 3.45pm, so we walked around and window shopped and even entered Galeri Petronas (or something of that sort) where they were having two art exhibitions: one photographic and related to sculptures, and it was a pretty cool experience. Yeah I haven’t actually been to a proper art exhibition in my entire life where they have curators and stuff. >_>

We then went into the cinema when it was nearly time, and I exclaimed to Andy what nice seats they had (compared to the awful ones in TGV Pyramid) and Andy was like, “Uh they’re normal only..”. Anyway about the movie, I like disaster flicks (yeah.. I’m morbid like that wtf) so I was curious as to how this remake would turn out to be. I had no expectations whatsoever so I thought the movie and the plot was pretty interesting, although I wished they had explored more about Klaatu and the alien civilisations which he supposedly come from – though Andy and WH thought it was a little boring.

After the movie ended, we went for a short while to Parkson as Andy wanted to make a purchase on a polo shirt (forgot the brand) but it wasn’t there, so we went to the LRT station and was promptly greeted with this:

A stampede of humans.

I had reloaded my Touch n Go at KL Sentral so I thought I would be able to use it there.. so after queueing up for a bit, my Touch n Go card was rejected repeatedly by two separate scanners, so I had to go to the counter to have it sorted out and then re-queue again. -___-

Then when we were actually at the LRT station, I was most surprised to find everyone.. queueing!

It’s been ages since I sat a train (plus at rush hour at that) so I was quite surprised by this civilised act of Malaysians (knowing how Malaysians just jostle and push for the door).. until I saw a few LRT staffs wandering around with loudspeakers to keep us in line lmao.

And you know what! We saw several angmohs cutting queue – what is this! When they saw the LRT staff walking away and the doors of the train opened, they sneakily strode to the doors and pushed in, the bastards (and a bitch). Thanks for cutting queue, I’m sure your urgency was far more urgent than my being late for a dinner at 7pm (it was about 6.40pm by the time we managed to get into the train).

Another look at the station.

When we were in the LRT train, this pair of English? girls kept giggling and laughing wtf at the awkward position they were in (nearly hugging), and Andy and I too at our own condition. Shawn finally called us (after failing to contact him at all) and we finally delayed our dinner to “when you reach KTM Subang, call me”.

When we finally made it to KL Sentral, quickly purchased our KTM tickets and went straight to the appropriate station, we saw a train about to depart.. and had to wait another 15-20 minutes before the next one arrived. That essentially meant that we were the first in line, but it didn’t matter anyway ‘cause when the doors opened, everyone started rushing and pushing and jostling and pushing and pushing and cutting queue and pushing and pushing and pushing and cursing and pushing that a few (including me) were berating this horde of uncivilised people. Seriously lah what the fuck lah Malaysians.

I’ll never sit another train again in Malaysia (especially during rush hour) if I can help it – the entire experience was utterly unpleasant, not to mention that my legs were beginning to tire from standing for an hour plus.

When we finally disembarked at KTM Subang Jaya, it was raining and we had to traipse through the road before running into KFC to take cover. Blabla long story short, I fetched Andy back, and then both Wai Hong and I waited inside Uno! (the newly renamed Pizza Uno) for both Danus and Shawn.

We were sitting downstairs waiting for about 10 minutes before they came, and then moved upstairs. I had my favourite aglio olio (I always order this when I go there), and when Shawn remarked that both WH and I always have aglio olio when we go there, I shot back that I only go to Uno! like once or twice a year.

That’s Shawn’s plate after cleaning off a whole spring chicken.

Shawn and Danus.

The four of us. I really LOVE ultra wide angle lens because I could snap a group pic by placing my camera on the table on self-timer just about a metre away from where we stood.

A shot of Danus, who came back to NZ nearly a month ago. We were supposed to meet but didn’t have the opportunity till that night.

Another pic of a badly bounced flash.

We then went to Asia Cafe to yumcha, and that was when we spotted Heng and Joe entering the same place too (for FTZ IIRC). Danus went back first when his friends came to pick him up, and then Shawn, WH, and I went for home.

The day out, suffice to say, was sufficiently tiring. I don’t go down to KL that often – can even count with my fingers (and toes) when I actually do so.. and the only reason I had to go down to KLCC at all was to buy a French dictionary that wasn’t available anywhere in the bookstores in Subang.