Tom in KL

I received a message from Tom a few days before last Saturday on Couchsurfing, and after ping-ponging to and fro and some text messages later (to his UK phone number – it’s only 20sen per SMS on a Maxis postpaid plan), I decided on 2.30pm on Saturday at Berjaya Times Square seeing as he was staying at a hostel in the vicinity.

Despite trying to be on time to shake off this negative stereotypical characteristic of a Malaysian, unfortunately I managed to leave a little later at about 2.10pm and had to rush towards KL. I had to text to Tom, an Australian who has been working in London for the past 3 years and was making a stop at KL on his return to Melbourne (!), that I’d be a bit late. “Traffic jam” was what I had told him – a white lie to save the reputation of other Malaysians we’re representing.

I picked up Esther from A&W near 3K (after getting stuck in a traffic jam near Summit – the stretch of road I’ve always hated to use) and then we hit the Kesas highway (two RM2.20 tolls), followed by almost immediately the very new MEX (Maju Expressway) Highway (RM1.50) – this nearly empty highway brought us straight to the heart of Kuala Lumpur after merely 5-10 minutes trawling on it. We came out at Jalan Tun Razak and from there, made several turns to Berjaya Times Square on Esther’s route-directing advice and managed to find a parking space at 3pm.

Armed with the knowledge from his text message that he’s wearing a red tee and has a beard, we made our way to Starbucks, spotted our guy sitting outside and we made brief introductions and talked. I passed to him the rendang and nasi kunyit my parents made and gave him – he found it a bit too spicy but at the same time, “delicious”, lol.

He was also telling us that he is doing a documentary on the subject of “Going Home” to hopefully snag a scholarship to follow a bunch of doctors or something to Vietnam – he’s working as a film editor and a writer now. What’s even more coincidental is that he graduated from RMIT University, of which I’m a student of now. :) He used his video camera and interviewed both Esther and I, and we had a pretty hard time answering them not knowing what to say, particularly when I was trying to focus on the road and think hard on the questions at the same time (I clearly don’t have a multi-tasking mind).

We proceeded to move to KLCC, went to the loo first, and talked while we made our way to the KLCC Park – he asked a lot about Malaysia and Malaysians in general, such as “What’s one stereotype about Malaysians?” (“Um.. being late, like what we’ve done earlier to you,” I replied a bit sheepishly), to which I happily rattle away about my country. He has very unique, specific questions that I’ve never actually thought of asking before when I was in a foreign country myself, such as if we have to give money to our parents when we work (Tom pretty much worked his way through his own tertiary education – he started working part-time since he was 14), etc, and I told him things like how Malaysians are generally composed of 60% Malays, 30% Chinese, 5% Indians, and 5% “Others”. He told us that when he was studying at RMIT, he was talking to this Chinese dude who has a very thick Australian accent, whom Tom also discovered when he asked him that the Chinese dude is the 7th generation in his family when his ancestors came to Australia in the 1880s or something – Tom told us that even he is only a 3rd generation Australian himself.

As we made our little stroll around KLCC Park for a bit (as Tom was also searching for a good spot to take photos of the Twin Towers from), he pointed to a fully-covered Malay woman and whispered to me, asking if it was allowed for Esther to wear “like that” and whether Syariah laws affect us at all – with these questions of his, he has either done his homework of Malaysia or has an incredibly large repository of knowledge.

We barely walked for 10 minutes before we broke out in total sweat, no thanks to the sheath of haze and humidity combined with the relatively high temperature, and went straight to the entrance of KLCC, which was when I heard Esther squealing loudly and I saw:

Suet Li! Hahaha what a huge coincidence ‘cause she was with Barry and they’re bringing around Barry’s Vietnamese friend around too! “So where have you guys brought him to?” we asked her, and she said “Shopping malls” wtf which was exactly what we’ve been doing so far with Tom. (Interestingly, Tom told us he has been to an “awful shopping mall” which he was referring to Sungei Wang hahahahaha.)

We then went inside, discussed briefly to go to a place to sit down and I suggested JuiceWorks – Esther decided to leave us then to do a spot of shopping on her own, and embarrassingly I kept leading Tom towards the wrong direction (I had to tell him that my sense of direction isn’t the best) before I asked the concierge and we finally reached JuiceWorks.

We sat down, had a drink each (he paid for mine :/), and I had a fun time trying to get to know him and Melbourne better – in fact at one point he asked how long Esther and I were together WTF and I hurriedly told him no, we’re not together. Apparently he got the impression from my text message when I mentioned that I’m bringing “my girl-friend” with me lol – turns out he has a French girlfriend in London and that he was learning Japanese too. We tried out our incredibly rusty Japanese with each other, and god it made me realise I’ve forgotten so many things already. :( Finished with our drinks, we met up with Esther and then went back to our car park (Tom was approached by an African dude near the elevators and he was asked if he needed something, presumably drugs wtf).

This is where things get even more embarrassing – my GPS didn’t seem to be locking on to any signals so we were pretty much driving around aimlessly through the traffic jams when Tom asked if he could help as he has a map. And he has a pretty good map-reading skills too because both Esther and I clearly didn’t possess such prowess. :/ He directed us for a bit and eventually when my GPS beeped out instructions, turns out that we were heading towards the right direction thanks to Tom lol, which meant that he certainly knew what he was talking about.

When we finally at our next destination, we asked the bunch of cops standing by the roadside where we could park, and they told us that we have to park a bit far away – the road crossing through Dataran Merdeka was closed as TV3 was holding an event there to celebrate their 25th anniversary.. swt.

And we’re at Dataran Merdeka! I like the post-processed feel of this picture.

“So this is the Independence Square,” I said to Tom, “and… yeah I think this was where my country’s independence was declared and stuff.” Good grief I’m not giving any good impressions that I knew anything about my country at all. >____>

Cross-processed picture of Esther.

Me and Tom – Esther’s framing technique clearly fails here hahahaha (is the focus on the both of us or on the walking Malay girls?) and Tom made no intention to hide this remark wtf.

Ah better than before.. but could be improved wtf.

Tom displaying his photography skillz which turned out pretty well.

We walked around for a bit before returning to our car park (I had to pay RM4), then we moved on to Murni SS2 after some deliberation.

His Mango Special – I ordered it at first then he decided to try the same thing and he was clearly pleased with the results. This is in his own words, but he earlier told us he certainly doesn’t look his age (28) because of his beard, which he described as “anti-girls” hahaha. He also said this drink kept surprising him ‘cause the more he tried to dig inside the drink, the more fruits he kept discovering lol.

Another picture of Tom.

I had a Roti Hawaii and as he has no clue as to what to order, he ordered the same thing too – I told him that this mamak isn’t really a pure mamak per se as the owner of the establishment isn’t Indian Muslim but a Sarawakian instead, plus their food departs from the usual mamak fare. He enjoyed the food as well, and told me that it actually resembled a Japanese pancake.

We went to the TTDI Plaza and parked by the roadside but we were soon swiftly approached by a jaga kereta who demanded RM10 from us – so all of these negative sides of Malaysia began to roar its ugly head and Esther explained to Tom about the corruption existing here. >_> And in his words, “I’m quite furious to hear this” referring to the jaga kereta menace.

When we arrived at 10 minutes before 9pm, the entire plaza was still rather empty – apparently it would only flourish with people when it hits around 11pm or so. Esther’s friend arrived, and he and Tom seem to be able to click very well – we deliberated where to go (Tom was pretty chill about the whole thing and said that he’s just tagging along and would go to wherever we’re going to), so in the end by Esther’s friend’s recommendation, we were off to Zeta Bar at Hilton KL, but not before we were stumped at the parking lot as we couldn’t find my car, and after sitting in Esther’s friend’s car to go around did we realise that it was not too far off from where we were at swt.

Surprisingly, getting from the TTDI Plaza to Hilton KL took only like 10-15 minutes, but again Tom had to experience firsthand the stupidity of Malaysian signs, whereby signages only appear right at the junction so that you don’t have enough time to read the signs and end up going into an incorrect junction far too easily. =/ We basically circled KL Sentral and Hilton KL at least 4 times or more.

I was a bit apprehensive at first as there weren’t enough seats and we ended up having to stand for the rest of the night which was my first of such an experience at a bar – but as soon as the Canadian band started to belt out some tunes, from the slower ones gradually to quicker-paced dance numbers, the entire bar was beginning to be filled to the brim with people. So many people were standing up and dancing that it actually kinda resembled a club, except that the music that was being played was performed entirely live, and that is a truly amazing experience that kept me completely spellbound – it made me realise that I’m really into live music, and I may have discovered a new interest or passion. :)

Said Canadian band – the leader singers (both the male and the females) have a voice that sounded very alike to the original singer of the songs they sang from.

An incredibly hot black chick – the way she danced and had her body vibrating along with the tempo of the song was really mesmerising.

And another look.

During the break of a second set (iirc), Tom talked to the keyboardist/rapper of the band. At this point Tom was also at the dance floor dancing away to his heart’s content.

The keyboardist/rapper.

There were also a few taitais around with fat diamond rings on their fingers, old white men with a couple of young pretty girls – the latter I presume is a pretty common scene in popular bars here. :/

At 2am, we finally left the place even though the 3rd set had yet to be completed – nearly everyone surrounding me in the bar smokes, so I had practically inhaled a year’s worth of these carcinogens. I didn’t know how to send Tom back to Times Square unfortunately, but Esther’s friend volunteered to help me to send Tom back, and we bade each other goodbye – hopefully I’d get to see Tom again in Melbourne over a live band or coffee or something.

In the end, we went to 5 different parking lots, 2 different shopping malls, and 1 fantastic dancey (albeit expensive) bar – and it was a great day out.