The Travel Section at Borders

Sorry for the downtime that’s plaguing my blog for the past three days or so – my host’s server went dead due to multiple hardware failures (sounded like a failure of multiple organs or something), thus forcing my host to purchase a new server and migrate our sites to the new one, purportedly one of the best of its entire fleet.

So yes my blog is back now, recounting what transpired on Wednesday that I wanted to blog but couldn’t – all the way from Kampar (thanks to Jon’s laptop and this hotel’s Internet connection!).

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After my 2nd piano class that ended at 2.05pm two days ago, I went back to my house where Heng was already waiting for me. I quickly changed, packed some camera equipment – including the wireless radio trigger I recently bought from DirectPhoto which I had to exchange as they sent me the wrong one – and then we walked to the parking lot of Court 7 to wait for Esther and Adrian for a bit.

We hitched RapidKL to Petaling Street (Adrian got off earlier at Asia Jaya), then Esther who had yet to eat anything, as well as Heng, ate the famous wan tan mee at that infamous touristy street of fake goods. Prior to that we also had the refreshing air mata kucing as well.

Heng in a RapidKL.

Esther and a partially blocked Adrian.

We walked to Pudu bus station, located not too far away from Petaling Street for Heng to purchase his bus ticket to Kampar, and then went to the nearby StarLRT station (Plaza Rakyat) as we deliberated our next move. I was trying to locate DirectPhoto, whose map and address I saved in the form of a picture snapped by my phone, and then asked the counter lady for assistance. We were eventually directed to a plump Malay superior who patiently helped us and even made a phone call for us (to whom, we do not know) to pinpoint the station that we had to get off at. Eventually, after telling her a few landmarks, she told us to get off at the Maluri station, and we thanked her for her excellent customer service – a rarity in Malaysia – as she was really going out of the way to help us lost, confused KL tourists wtf.

At the Maluri station, we went to the nearby bus stop and Heng asked an Indian lady there for directions, but eventually I used the GPS in my phone and found that we had to go against the direction which we were told by the Indian lady and walked for about a kilometre to our destination.

It was cloudy at the time.

Still walking.

When we finally reached the exact spot of where DirectPhoto would be, our high-spirited hopes were dampened when we found it to be closed.. only to realise later (thanks to Esther) that the shop was actually upstairs, and not on the ground floor.

A test shot of DirectPhoto.

After sealing my purchase of my flash’s hotshoe and exchanging the aforementioned incorrect item, we went to the nearby bus station, stopped a passing bus and asked for KL Sentral but we were pointed to the bus station at the opposite side instead. At the opposite side, whilst we were complaining and discussing about the buses that didn’t seem to be going towards the direction that we want, a kind Indian lady told us that we should go to the opposite side to wait instead.. as that is the direction of KL, and not Kajang wtf.

We then hitched the bus to Berjaya Times Square instead, and decided that we would eat our dinner there, after paying a short visit to the pharmacy.

Eating an entirely healthy happy meal at the ubiquitous McDonald’s.

Heng posing with a finished packet of McD’s french fries.

After walking around for a bit while Esther went on a lookout for shops that sell RM10 stuffs (and there were quite a few of these such shops at BTS for some reason), we then went to Borders.

Now this is where it gets a little.. interesting. Before I elaborate what happened, lemme introduce to you to one of the roads less travelled, so to speak, an adventure of a lifetime aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway! I read about this when a user of a local forum was relating about this in a backpacking topic, and my interest was instantly perked up. This amazing overland trip can be detailed in the image below:

Effin’ amazing – a 7-day journey from Beijing all the way to Moscow! Apparently every day you wake up, the scenery by the window changes – and it’s something that you would never ever see if you do not go on this trip.

As some of you may have known, I’m planning to go on a backpacking trip after my graduation in June 2010, and I pretty much would be away for 3 months plus, and most likely doing it solo. The initial plan was Europe, and this would be perfected with the addition of a Trans-Siberian Railway that would take me from China towards the west end of Russia (a place I dearly want to go to as well), and then just cross over borders into Eastern Europe! However, it was said that the train there would be mostly filled with non-English speaking Russians, so the ride could get pretty lonely without a companion, which I’m on a lookout for now for the Trans-Siberian leg of my trip.

So anyway I went to the Travel section at Borders, and noticed a decent-looking young man browsing through China and the nearby Asian regions, and for some odd reason I had a strong urge to make small talk to him about travelling – it was as if that I was desperate enough for a partner for my Trans-Siberian trip. But then the overwhelming shyness and general social inadequacy around strangers kicked in – plus Asians don’t normally talk to random strangers like that anyway – and I went to the rack behind the Asian section for Europe, and searched for the Lonely Planet book of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Suddenly I was approached by the aforementioned guy and he began speaking to me in rapid Mandarin and enquired about the shoes I was wearing, and I told him that the brand was Crocs. For the next 10 minutes I was conversing entirely in Mandarin – something that I was amazed and proud of myself – and he started asking if I’m interested in travelling to, where I intended to go, whether I’m from KL, etcetc and it was a pretty interesting conversation. I learned that he had travelled with friends before to Taiwan and Guangzhou sitting some other airline (we both collectively agreed that AirAsia had made life for travellers much easier with its incredibly cheap prices), that he’s not from around KL (he mentioned a town’s name in Mandarin and I had no clue what it is), he’s 27 years old but that he’s really still considered as a ‘young person’, that he was going to watch Quarantine with a friend later and asked me what it was about and if it was really good, etc.

Seriously it was so completely random, but at the end of our conversation it filled me with a kind of feel-good, warm sensation in me. A random interaction with a stranger, between two fellow travel enthusiasts – we were connected by a similar interest in a bookstore at the Travel section.

He asked for my number (“I pass by Subang a few times before, so if I go to Subang again let’s go yumcha”) and miss-called it, and then I explained to him that my Mandarin actually isn’t that good and I’m still learning the language, and he told me in Mandarin, “Oh that’s why I thought that you were speaking a little odd earlier”, when I was giving him my phone number in Mandarin, using the phonetic yao4 to indicate the number 1. I dunno if he was just complimenting me for the sake of our typical Asian good manners or something, but he said that my Mandarin was quite good =) *proud wtf even though I used a couple of wrong terms for different things, like 电车 instead of 火车 to describe the train of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Anyway shortly after Heng and Esther met up with me again at the Travel section, and we decided to head back home. It was raining then – and we hitched a sardine-packed monorail (where I was literally sandwiched between a girl and a guy, and I felt as though I was grinding against the guy in front with the typical monorail shakiness wtf) to KL Sentral, then Esther took a bus back to her Old Klang Road place while Heng and I took another bus back to good ol’ Subang, reaching home at about 10pm plus.

A crazy day out in KL – a place I wouldn’t return to anytime soon if I can help it.