A Weekend in Kuala Lumpur

Last Friday night, after a 45 minute flight and two extremely efficient airports, we arrived in KL.

We were not expecting to be all that impressed with the Petronas Towers, but we were enamored of them. They are incredbly imposing, other-worldy, and spectacular at night. After a room change, we wangled our hotel to give us a room with a view - here was the view from our window:

One of the highlights of our weekend was seeing our friend Kamel who was in KL for business. The three of us hired a taxi to take us on a tour of the city - luckily our driver, named Jaya, was very knowledgeable. We saw the King's Palace (the king is a figurehead who changes every 5 years), an old Chinese temple, the war memorials (this year Malaysia celebrates 50 years of independence from the British), the KL Tower, and every other major sight there was to see. We even saw monkeys beside the road. Then, in true fashion, we went to a Lebanese restaurant for a long leisurely lunch. KL is a big destination for Arab tourists - so we felt like we could have just as easily been in Dubai. By the time we finished, it was time for Kamel to get ready for his trip to Tokyo, and for the two of us to rest up before dinner!

We took a taxi to the suburbs to meet Freddie (the mother of a good friend- Nicole - who Mo went to school with in Dubai) - big shopping malls just like U.S. burbs along the way. Freddy took us to a local Indian restuarant and then she insisted we go to a Malaysian shop to have ice kachung for dessert. Truth be told, this was a dish we had been trying to avoid in Singapore! Ice kachung is basically a pile of shaved ice (much nicer texture than a snow cone - smooth, not gritty) covered with sweet syrups, all kinds of brightly colored gelatinous oddities, beans, and canned corn. Very odd, but depending on what you get a spoonful of, actually quite tasty.

Sunday morning we walked to the Sentral Market and to Chinatown - we are beginning to learn that Chinatowns all over are very similar - the sale of knock-off handbags and watches are the defining feature.

KL is similar to Singapore - extremely diverse with Malay, Indian, and Chinese influences. There is a larger Muslim population (about 50%) and fewer people speak English. For a much larger, poorer country, KL seems to be in a boom. Posh shops, fancy malls, and luxury cars abound. The political life of citizens there is much more dynamic (the election is coming up), people openly criticize the government, whereas THIS PASSAGE HAS BEEN DELETED FOR YOUR OWN PROTECTION.

A few more shots of the Petronas Towers: (Tim - try and not get too excited here)

Soo...there was an earthquake a few hours ago, just off the coast of Indonesia. Apparently felt by everyone in our building except for us. We were playing tennis. Just assumed it was our awful game.

One last note - read Calvin Trillan's column in the Sept 3 & 10 issue of the New Yorker - it is all about Singapore street food!

We will begin compiling our very own guide to Singlish - the language spoken here in Singapore. Ok-lah...that's all for now.

Love,

L & M

Rain, Rain Go Away

Rain isn't quite the word for what falls from the sky here during a ground-soaking, road-flooding storm. It should be called a sky waterfall. Oh, and these storms aren't usually short, passing quickly to let the sunshine back in. Nope - they last for hours. And this isn't even rainy season! People here blame global warming; months like July, August, and September are apparently supposed to be very hot and humid, but relatively dry. This has not been the case, at least as far as the second half of August and the first few days of September have set in.

The last few days however (since this latest blog entry was begun) have been VERY hot and dry. So much for the diatribe on the rain!

Lizard update #1 (that's right, there are 2 lizard episodes): Lucy the Lizard jumped out one night - jumped out from between the refrigerator and freezer doors. Nearly caused one of us to have a heart attack. Screaming, howling, hopping all over the place tearing her clothes off at two in the morning in case a lizard just leaped into them kind of heart attack.

Oh – and we didn't catch her – she disappeared! It wont be long though – I'll take this opportunity to remind you that the last time we named a house guest (that was Rasmouse) he died a sudden, violent and very disturbing death. You cant catch these things with mouse traps, but you can catch them.

She does turn up every night though to leave us a little present in our kitchen sink. There are probably worse things in the world than gecko crap in your sink though.WHAT COULD BE WORSE??? Ok - cockroaches could be worse.

Lizard update #2: We saw a baby or maybe a pre-teen lizard run across the floor in the hallway. Then - it just vanished! It took a few minutes before Mo's super vision detected two little eyes staring up at him - the lizard had turned the color of the marble on the floor to camouflage itself! Very cool. Mo will tell you he calmly swept the little thing into a dustpan, however arms were flailing and there were a few little girly shrieks that came out of him! Despite that, he managed to take the lizard outside whereby he sent it on its merry way (far from our apartment).

We had our first real night on the town last Saturday. A very nice Singaporean friend of Taimur's introduced us to a fabulous restaurant called Mimolette on the grounds of the Singapore Saddle Club. This is not a place we would have ever discovered on our own. It was a gourmet meal comparable to many excellent restaurants in New York. Then we went to the new Dempsey Hill area (a trendy new section of town that has restaurants, wine bars, and shops built in former warehouses - opened in the last 6 months). We had drinks under the stars and stayed out way past our normal bedtime.

So…what you've all been waiting for. We tried durian...the real stuff - no puff pastry or pudding to hide its true colors. It has a very complex taste that is not altogether unpleasant as it enters your mouth, but then the taste of what one could only compare to hot garbage (not that any of us have eaten hot garbage) attacks your mouth. Swallowing doesn't help. Oh and nobody ever tells you about the barrage of durian-flavored and durian-scented belches that transpire over the next 4 to 8 hours. From one bite! Mo ate the whole damn thing and pretended to like it. He burped it up for days.

There's another take on this. If you can get past the smell, there's this really interesting tropical fruit, with a pudding like texture that you've never seen in a fruit before. And you stop smelling it after two bites so you actually only taste the nice part of the fruit.

And you have to give the fruit's real fans their due. They aren't interested in toning it down for your Gringo noses. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/30/news/durian.php

As for the burps – that’s another story. Its not like all that lovely tropical fruitiness is what comes up in a Durian burp. Nope – just the hot garbage. Its enough to make you think this isn't something you'll do twice.

There's more to fruit in Singapore than Durian – the lovely mangosteins which we got spoiled by in Dubai, this little red guava/pear/apple like things from Thailand called water apples (at least in Gringo), passion fruit - Lauren's favorite new fruit so far. Ahhh yes, and mangos from Pakistan; I have been telling Lauren for years that she had no idea what a good mango was.

He was right - Pakistani mangoes are to die for. Dragon fruit is pretty to look at, but doesn't have much taste. Here is a picture of the dragon fruit (the pink ones) at a local wet market.

The next blog entry promises to be more exciting and full of photos. Tune in again early next week!

Love, L & M