New Year’s Eve in KL

It was 3pm sharp when I finally left home on the 31st December 2008, after Andy told me through the phone as I was walking back from my piano class that both he and Wai Hong were still at Pyramid after cutting their hair. We were supposed to leave at 2.30pm, but I suppose the extra time would’ve given me a slight breather although it did change our plans a bit.

Nevertheless after I picked up everyone (in the order of Sarah, Heng, Wai Hong, Andy, and Ding) in my Serena, we went to Giant to pick up some cans of 7-Up and a couple of cheap 1 litre apple, orange, and blackcurrant juices that cost only a little less than RM2 (no they didn’t taste that good, but you get what you pay for..).

We were stuck at several traffic jams and with the guidance of my almighty GPS, at about 5.30pm we finally reached Dynasty Hotel, whereby in the building contained our Golden City Condominiums, our actual destination.

The condominium part of the hotel looked quite dilapidated, and to my surprise the reception counter was located on the 5th floor in a room converted into an office. >_> At least we have a roof over our heads.. and so we checked in, paid a deposit of RM200 which I didn’t anticipate (I didn’t bring enough money, so had to get 4 pieces of RM50 notes from 4 others), and went to room 603 on the 6th floor.

#1 The living room with the sunlight of 5.37pm streaming in.

#2 I like how the sunlight is filtering in through the windows.

#3 Daniel, Sarah, me.

#4 A part of what we see outside our windows – and no, there’s no balcony.

#5 Heng, Sarah, me.

#6 A silhouette of WH.

We rested for a while in the living room while indulging ourselves in junk food like Mamee Monster. At about 6.30pm, we left again and attempted to walk towards the direction of the Titiwangsa Monorail station (from what my GPS tells me) but we couldn’t possibly cross an extremely busy road.. so eventually we just walked to the Titiwangsa LRT station about 10 minutes away and we found out that we had to take a train to KL Sentral, so we asked around and located the place to wait for the bus (B102) that would bring us to Bukit Bintang.

#7 Our bus dropped us off here.

#8 Heng posing next to a (presumably) Bukit Bintang sign.

#9 My favourite pic of the night. =) Took a bloody long time to be able to snap this pic without random passers-by walking right into the picture.

Shortly after Shawn arrived – the reason we even went to Bukit Bintang in the first place was to wait for Shawn who took a bus down to KL from Subang (initially he wasn’t able to go, but at the last minute managed to convince his mum) and then dropped by Third Floor for a while. We walked around for a bit before settling for an open-air stall at one of the back streets of BB.

#11 Shawn and Sarah.

We ordered two squid dishes, then the rest of us had fried kuey teow of varying types which might’ve given the stall owner a headache hahaha (some wanted kuey teow only, some mee only, some a mix of the two, while I wanted fried mee without the chilli while most wanted it, etc) and Ding had chicken rice.

#12 Me and WH.

#13 The cross junction of Bukit Bintang infested with tons of people, and this picture isn’t even portraying the enormity of the amount of revellers that were there that night. We didn’t bother to stay, although I was amused to note that there were police trucks and quite a lot of policemen stationed on the street while quite a lot of people were using the banned snow spray paraphernalia without any action taken towards them.

#14 Us sitting on the monorail to the Titiwangsa station.

We were MOST amused (for the lack of a better word) to find that the monorail station of Titiwangsa was directly opposite the LRT station.. -___- Pretty damn funny and stupid of us if you ask me.

#15 We walked back to our room and picked up two bags of ice from a sundry shop right beneath the Dynasty Hotel. Then each of us started to shower as we were all smelly and sweaty from our short trip to BB (the room’s toilet was a little scary due to the poor lighting), and this pic depicts WH attempting to set the antenna right to acquire signal.. which all proved to be futile.

The apartment felt pretty shabby – the main toilet had a broken flush system so when Heng used it for the first time to pee he wasn’t able to flush wtf. The old analogue television still operates using antennas which couldn’t work very well.. and I was praying that there was a typo when I saw the words “VCR player” as one of the amenities listed on the website.. which turned out to be true because you can rent the tapes from the receptionist LOL. Classic – I felt as if I was brought back to the 1990s because the atmosphere and poorly maintained facilities warranted it.

#16 We started drinking at about 10.40pm, and played a modified version of this card game whereby one fella calls the shot of whoever has the largest/smallest/middle number, has to drink. Shawn lost miserably and he drank quite a lot, where else I lost quite sporadically so I wasn’t entirely drunk yet.

#17 At midnight we all scrambled to the windows and I tried to snap photos – none of them were any good because you could clearly see the windows obstructing ‘em, but well, better than nothing I suppose.

#18 Fireworks at a distance.

At midnight the rest began calling and SMSing the others wishing Happy New Year.. and as my online friend Nhat succinctly put it, “I don’t feel any different than I did an hour ago (before the clock strikes 12) so it’s like any other day for me.” I didn’t feel completely changed either that’s for sure, but as humankind finally progressed into the man-made invention of 2009 of the Gregorian calendar, I felt contemplative and wondered what 2009 would hold in store for me.

I SMSed Liew Suet Li and even tried phoning her multiple times while under the influence of vodka and tequila but I received no reply and she didn’t pick up her phone. =(

The next few hours leading up to 4.30am (the last time I looked at the clock before I finally passed out wtf) were fuzzy and incoherent – all I remembered was that I used all my mental prowess to maintain a semblance of sobriety, and so I did not acutely forget most events that transpired.

Shawn left early at about 1.30am or 2am when Yen arrived – I wanted to follow both Andy and Shawn to see Shawn off but Andy wouldn’t let me (if memory serves me right, he slapped me and had the both of us staring into each other’s eyes while I had a silly grin on my face wtf). Andy arrived a short while later and started drinking more shots for no particular reason and it was then we knew very well he was a goner.. he became incredibly emo and cried and stuff wtf while the rest (especially Ding) had a very hard time reining him in.

In no particular order because I only have disjointed bits of memories floating around in the short-term region:
– Heng puked right on the floor and Ding and Andy had to clean up after him
– Heng (I think) made repeated phone calls to Jess and passed the phone around
– After phoning Esther and Kai Tzin repeatedly to ask them to hurry up before we were truly “gone”, they finally arrived at god knows what time and they had to face an incredibly drunk Andy who sorta “held us hostage” (in Esther’s words) hahaha.
– Wai Hong was the first to puke (in a prepared pail) and subsequently puked a few more times before he sobered up.
– I kept trying to teach Esther and Kai Tzin the new drinking game we were playing earlier which involved us creating new names for ourselves.
– A lot of I-love-yous were thrown liberally towards each other wtf.
– Heng and a few others exclaimed that this was the best new year celebration they’ve ever had.
– Andy, when drunk, starts to call us by our full names.

#19 Esther looking very scared of Andy wtf (someone used my camera at this point to snap pics).

#20 Kai Tzin moving around a lot.

#21 Ding leaned on the kitchen sink and managed to sink it literally lol!! The whole cabinet thingy literally collapsed (which again, goes to show how well-maintained the entire place is).

#22 Sarah and Ding trying to fix the damage. (I clearly remembered me telling Ding to not worry about it ‘cause we should only worry about it the next morning or something wtf.)

When I woke up, it was about 9.30am and I found myself on the couch.. no idea how I got there and I’ve no clue whether I slept with my specs still attached to myself or not. Anyway I felt quite lethargic so I slept back again, woke up and then showered.. because I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to convert using from tap to the showerhead despite being shown how to do it the night before, I used the gayung to fill up the water, then pour it all over myself, rinse and repeat.. which took quite a while.

#23 The next morning when everyone else had woken up with me eating Maggi in a cup. We also watched a few videos that were snapped when Andy was drunk from Esther’s camera, hopefully I can get hold of them from her soon.

We checked out at a few minutes after 12pm and almost had our deposit being placed on hold as the receptionist couldn’t get through her boss when I told her about our collapsed sink/cabinet (while adding a story or two of how we placed a heavy pack of beer wtf), until Heng stepped in and told her it wasn’t our fault etcetc, and a few minutes later after attempting to contact a Jeff, another Malay boss came in and he was duly briefed on the incident. The boss OK-ed the return of our deposit and said that the wood had probably became rotten or something, which was our suspicion.

We then went all the way to 1Utama (also remembering to fasten rear seat belts due to the enforcement of the rule effective 1st January 2009) and the amount of people filling up the parking lots was crazy. -___- We were at the open carpark where we only had to pay RM1 per entry, and Esther told us that when these parking lots are filled up, there won’t be any other parking space anymore, and that we were one of the last few who could secure a place.

#24 Esther brought us to this BBQ Chicken (which apparently has a Taipan branch, but I wasn’t aware of that), and we used an SMS coupon (which cost RM3.50) to get a buy-one-free-one deal from mystyle.com.my. The chicken tasted sweeter and much more delicious that’s for sure, due to them using only the healthy olive oil to cook the dishes.

#25 My charboiled chicken (RM14.50 IIRC, under the buy-one-free-one deal, I only had to pay probably about half the price), with mashed potato that I replaced with fries. Chicken was excellent and tasted quite different than how you’d cook it traditionally, while the mashed potato was a little tasteless.

We finally went back at about 3pm.. leaving Esther who had to work there while we went back. I had to ask Heng to drive as I was still reeling from my fatigue and before I knew it, we were already in front of Andy’s house. Heng drove himself to his house, then I took over and fetched both Sarah and WH back, which ended

---

I wouldn’t have much to write about the events that transpired in 2008, but as concisely as possible, I’d say that it has been a crazy year. I experimented heavily with many things, and one due to my hypochondriac tendencies thought that I had acquired something fatal – but it all turned out alright in the end. Friendships were tested (we hadn’t officially resolved it, but I suppose it’s a guy’s thing to sweep unpleasant things under the carpet, and I’ve no complaints I guess), financial stability was rocked along to the tune of the global recession, and I had to confront myself with a bevy of personal issues.

To friends and family whom I talked to about the one thing that has and will affect my entire life, thank you for understanding, for not receding into a backlash, for still being there for me. The amount of people I talked to about this one thing was staggering and was even beyond my personal expectations.. and so sometimes, I believe in humanity. =)

The Canon EOS 450D that I bought (along with a few lenses along the way) will most likely be staying with me for as long as it lasts, it’s the latest addition to my life – it’s probably the best and worst decision I’ve ever made because I’ve been spending way too much than is necessary, but at the same time, that personal pleasure that surfaced whenever I captured an irreplaceable moment or a shot that just leaps out to me made it all seem worth it. I consider myself a documenter (if there’s such a word), and this camera will aid me on this pseudo-photojournalism journey.

Come what may, I’m looking forward to the next remaining 363 days of this year.