Took a lightning trip to Malaysia

I like trains. A lot. One of the things I was most looking forward to about the trip was taking the trip up to Kuala Lompur from Singapore after I slayed the GRE beast. It was a long trip - longer than anticipated, because I was a couple of hours early at the train station - and the economy line I rode on was pretty Spartan. But in a new country, everything is an adventure.

The Singapore train station is the one place I saw in that fair city that is kind of run down; but it's under renovation. I'd really like to see it again in a few years and see if it's undergone a miraculous rebirth ala Union Station or Grand Central. Malaysia is, of course, quite a bit more down at the heels than its southern neighbor, and sitting there in the station for a couple of hours, I felt a bit like I had already crossed the straits.

I lost that illusion as soon as we did get on the train and cross into Malaysia. There was quite a bit of rural poverty visible from the train throughout the six hour trip to KL, but also a lot of pretty landscapes and such. Both, of course, kept my attention for obviously different reasons, so I didn't get bored too often on the long trip.

Arriving in KL after dark, I had a slightly intimidating introduction to the city: quite a few people speak English, and there are signs everywhere, but the layout is very, well, convoluted. The main source of my confusion was that I had already decided on the hotel to spend the night at, and from the Lonely Planet guide, I thought the hotel was linked directly to the train station. It turned out that it was actually an old train station that had been renovated into a hotel, and there was a subway train that led there. But I was too tired to try to figure out the local MRT map (more about that later!), and took a cab there instead.

The hotel at the old train station was great, except that the air conditioner in my room was busted. No problem on that first night, as I was tired enough to sleep just about anywhere; but I wasn't nearly so forgiving the second night. Just one mosquito can really change your perspective on a hotel room, I find. One thing I really loved about the hotel, though, was its restaurant, which still looked very much like something you would find at an old train station - lots of ornate decor, high ceiling fans, leather chairs, a fair sprinkling of Asian kitsch, and the food wasn't bad either. Not to mention everything was quite cheap, a big draw for the country in general, actually.

Now, about the MRT. I've never run into an MRT quite like Kuala Lompur's. It's actually several different train lines run by different companies (at least three, from what I gathered), which intersect occasionally at stations and sometimes have stations across the street from each other; but since they're different companies, you have to buy separate tickets and go to separate platforms even on the occasions when they do stop in the same station. So right off the bat, that made it tricky to get around. It did at least make for some adventurous wandering around downtown KL on the morning of the one full day I spent there.

I'd like to say I spent that one full day doing something - anything - uniquely Malaysian, but, well, there honestly wasn't a whole lot to choose from in that department. I had heard that the city's boosters are trying to play it up as a cheap alternative to Singapore when it comes to shopping, and that does seem to be the case. There are stores everywhere there. I did seek out a couple of outdoor markets and spent a pleasant couple of hours browsing there, but I didn't see anything I couldn't buy back in Taiwan. I did at least manage to sample some of the local cuisine, which was terrific. Kuala Lompur also has a slightly different subset of Western food outlets than either Singapore or Taipei, so I was able to procure my first A&W root beer float since who knows when. So it wasn't all bad by any means. But I must admit that I wasn't too sorry when the sun went down and I had an excuse to go back to the hotel for dinner at that great restaurant I mentioned.

There was one interesting sighting at the hotel, which does still have a small functioning train station attached to it - I got off the MRT there, having finally deciphered the system to an extent. As I was getting off the subway, I saw the Eastern & Orient Express stopped outside the station for what looked like a refueling of some sort. With forest-green cars with gold lettering and trim, the train looked straight out of the 1930s, as did quite a few of the passengers, who were eating dinner in the plush dining cars. (Yes, you could see they were plush from all the way across the railyard!) Everything about it looked gorgeous and, of course, expensive. And naturally, it didn't make me feel so enthusiastic about getting on the train or bus (I hadn't yet decided where the next stop was at this point) out of town the next day. I'd have given a lot right then to be sitting in those air-conditioned cars in my linen suit - if I had a linen suit, anyway. My usual response to such things is to think of a pithy Fitzgerald quote that fits the scene. This time, the first thing that came to mind was the fact that Scott and Zelda spent most of their adult lives up to their eyeballs in debt!

When I got back to my room, I looked up the E&O in my tour guide, and found that hunch was right. The well-dressed passengers I had just seen had shelled out well over US$1,000 for the ride from Singapore to Bangkok, with stops in KL and Butterworth - so much for the "express" in their name! Somehow a plain old dinner of roast chicken and Tiger beer in that hot but pleasant restaurant didn't seem so bad after all.

So Kuala Lompur didn't sweep me off my feet like Singapore did. In any case, I didn't dislike it by any means and I'm glad to say I've seen it. It was a nice introduction to Malaysia, and was followed in style by my first Day At The Beach in far too long. More about that tomorrow.

Singapore swings!

Most of my friends know by now that every now and then in the past six months, I've found myself in a situation so wonderful that I actually got slightly angry at myself for not taking this road in my life years ago. The latest of these occurred on my second full day in Singapore, while sipping on a martini at the outdoor bar in the legendary Raffles Hotel on a wonderfully sunny afternoon. (I thought about getting a Singapore sling instead of a martini, but it seemed too...well, I can't think of the right adjective, but I'm sure you know what I mean.) I didn't actually stay at the Raffles, of course - it's very expensive - but much of it is open to the public and I highly recommend a visit there if you're ever in the neighborhood. Just sitting there sipping and reading and watching the other tourists breeze by - yep, it all felt wonderfully cosmopolitan.

Which is a good way to describe Singapore. It might well be the most diverse city I've ever been to, but unlike some other extremely diverse cities (notably my beloved DC), I got the distinct impression that it wasn't an intentional effort. It was just the right combination of location, history, and a simply great place to live that brought so many people together from so many different walks of life. On my first night in the city, the cab driver who brought me from the airport to my hotel told me he'd met a lot of Americans and Europeans whose companies had transferred them there for a couple of years, and when the couple of years were up, the people wound up looking for other work opportunities so they could stay there. I don't blame them!

Yes, the place is just about as pristine as they say. I did see a bit of litter here and there, but nothing compared to most cities that size. It's also much easier to find one's way around; in three days I never really came close to getting lost. You may have also heard that there are signs everywhere delineating what's not allowed, and sure enough, there are. (My favorite: no durians on the subways. No word on whether or not that ban was inspired by the smell or the fact that they could potentially be used as weapons!)

I dropped by Sentosa Island and did my fair share of window shopping in Little India, and spent a riveting couple of hours touring the old underground British army base, which is now a museum dedicated to the royal army's surrender to the Japanese in 1942. The tour guide was a survivor of the occupation as a young child, and was still quite vocally bitter about it. He had a few choice words for Japanese tourists he'd met along the way who, in his words, "wanted to tell their side of the story." I can't quite condone his attitude, but it was a heck of a tour anyway.

But the biggest draw in Singapore is probably the shopping, and I did quite a bit of that. The prices were better than I had expected and the selection was quite a ways above anything I've found in Taipei thus far. I also finally got to see "Farenheit 911," which was all I expected it to be. I cried along with everyone else over the mother from Michigan who lost her son in Iraq, laughed a bit at the boos that greeted Britney Spears for her "I think we should all support the president" remarks, and was kind of frustrated at the number of my fellow audience members to whom the notorious Seven Minutes in that classroom in Florida appeared to be news. (It's been fairly common knowledge in the progressive community for well over a year.) But at least the word is getting out now.

So overall, it was a welcome injection of Western culture in a still uniquely Asian setting. Actually, perhaps "unique" is a better way to describe it than "Asian," although Singapore is certainly both. I enjoyed it so much that the dreaded GRE I necessarily scheduled for last week was a relatively minor inconvenience. Not to mention a great sendoff for the next part of the trip: it took ten years, two degrees and three tries, but I finally cracked 700 on the verbals. Those pie-in-the-sky daydreams of Stanford or Princeton now seem just a little bit less farfetched, y'know?

Flying south on a plane, drinking all that free champaigne

Well, my first lucky break of the trip came when the flight was delayed by nearly an hour. First, it was reported that the delay involved some folks who were connecting in Taipei and whose incoming flight was late, then it involved a no-show whose luggage had to be removed for security reasons. So there I sat on the tarmac, finishing off "The Merry Month of May" (which by the way is magnificent) and not feeling too frustrated. An extra hour in Taipei was one hour less cooling my heels in Hong Kong.

So why was the delay a lucky break? Well, when I arrived at the check in for my connecting flight in Hong Kong, the woman at the counter crossed out my seating assignment and wrote in a new one. And when I got on the plane, I was directed to...first class.

Now, understand, I'm a cheapskate, except when it comes to records. First class has always struck me as appealing but not worth the extra money it involves. Besides, everybody knows how I feel about upper-crust stuff - just ask any of my friends who have ever hassled me about the university where I got my master's degree and lived to regret it. (Hey, you'd be proud too if you got in on your second try and worked your way through!) So it was quite a novelty for the quiet American in his t-shirt and Hush Puppies to be invited up to the land of wider seats and pre-flight champaigne. I sipped it demurely and read my complimentary Herald Tribune, feeling like Maggie Brown on the Titanic and expecting a flight attendant to tap me on the shoulder any second and explain that it had all been a mistake. It never happened, and I am ashamed to admit that I really enjoyed it. From the chardonnay and sauteed prawns to the ability to stretch out my legs without kicking the person ahead of me in the rear end, it was quite the nice surprise all around.

Here, then, is a hearty endorsement of Cathay Pacific Airlines for all dozen or so of my readers. This is right up there with the time I ordered a mocha at Au Bon Pain and had to wait slightly longer than usual because of a problem with their espresso machine, and was promptly given my money back and a large mocha when I'd only ordered a medium when I hadn't even noticed it was late. What's a bit sad is that I remember too well from my fast food days how the people who get most such attention have no real complaint, are being rude for the sake of being rude, and get lots of extras just so they'll shut up. Be nice to your server!

I still wouldn't pay for first class. But it was a nice glimpse beyond the curtain of "it used to be a better meal, now it's a better life."

He's on his third drink before the wheels of the plane leave the ground...

Five months of 13-hour days, coping with culture shock and adjustment, learning how to teach, working Saturdays...yep, I'm ready for a vacation.

I'm off to Singapore and Malaysia for a week, starting tomorrow. I'll try to check in now and then while I'm off, but no promises. I do, however, promise to post some news of the trip once I get back if I don't do so before then. See ya!

Nuts to you, nyah!!!

How's this for a Generation X moment? I was called in this morning at the last minute to teach some of our just-out-of-kindy kids for an hour, with no prep time. The activity involved acrostic poems with the names of animals starting with each letter in the kids' names. So the first thing we had to do was brainstorm for animals starting with each letter of the alphabet.

The kids were pretty good at this (although a few of them didn't get that I only wanted animals, not just any words starting with each letter), but we got stuck on N. Sure enough, I don't think our kindergarten program includes teaching them any animals that start with N, as I realized while standing there at the board trying frantically to think of one myself. What to do?

Fortunately, an old favorite of my own very young childhood came to mind right then. Remember Sweet Pickles? I had a complete set of the books once upon a time, and loved to read them again and again back when I had just learned to read. It hadn't even occurred to me in years to wonder if they were still in print; apparently they're not, but that Amazon link seems to indicate that they are still to be had one way or another. Quite a memory to come at me out of left field while in a tight place on the job.

Of course, remembering the books was only half the battle. I still needed to remember which animal they used for N. Soon enough, it came to me: Nightingale. I misspelled it on my first try and I'm sure the kids couldn't even begin to pronounce it, but it was good enough for the moment. Good old Nasty Nightingale - the title line of this post is her signature phrase.

That misty memory also came in handy on Q(uail) and U(nicorn). I did, however, decide aginst using Xerus for X (I went with Fox instead, as is more or less official school policy for that one). I seem to recall some debates with grown-ups when I was a kid as to whether there really was such a thing as a xerus, even after I found an encyclopedia article complete with a picture of a real one. That, of course, would not be the only time I got the final word from a teacher on something I knew she was wrong about. (Hey, doesn't everybody know "RSVP" stands for "Respond Soon Very Promptly"?)

Besides, even if we are going for animal words, I still tend to go with the immortal advice of Shel Silverstein: "X is for xylophone, because X is always for xylophone!"

Edited to add: Um, yes. I am indeed aware that if I didn't want to use Xerus because some people don't think they're real, I probably shouldn't have used Unicorn either. But hey, unicorns are fun to draw and kids usually know what they are. Can you draw or explain a xerus?

Those were the days - six months ago

In a happy update to the last message, I found my receipt for last month's rent this morning. When I got to work and recounted that stroke of luck to my colleagues, one of them said he thought maybe the call from the realtors was really intended for him anyway. He didn't say whether or not he had actually paid his rent on time (but it sounded to me like he hadn't!).

While looking for the receipt this morning, I found a journal I hadn't written in in a few months, which made for a fun impromptu trip down a fairly recent Memory Lane just before I took off for work. The journal included some of my very first thoughts on Life In Taiwan, which I wrote down before I'd even arrived here.

I wrote the first entry in the departures lounge at the Baltimore airport, when the journey was barely underway - although I had already accomplished the single hardest part: dragging all six of my bags from my old apartment to the cab, then into and through the train station in DC and off the train in Baltimore (with a lot of help from some generous Amtrak personnel) and from the station platform up to the bus-stop for the shuttle to the airport. I recall a lot of carrying two bags ten feet or so, dropping them and running back for two more, and so forth until I got to the bus-stop. Whatever emotional process I was sorting through on that morning of my departure from DC after six years was pretty much drowned in physical exhaustion and attention to the unpleasant task immediately at hand. When I finally got to the check-in, I was told just what I had expected: there would be an excess baggage fee for my luggage. No problem. I'd have happily paid three times what they charged me at that moment.

All of which is my rather wordy way of saying I was too stressed and sore to be wistful or nervous about the trip. Not until I got to the gate and settled down for the three-hour wait for boarding with my blissfully light two remaining bags, anyway.

But there lies the surprise. Re-reading the entry I wrote that morning, I was surprised at how un-sentimental I sounded about it all. There are a couple of reasons for this - no matter how many wonderful memories DC held for me, my recent experiences there had been very, very unhappy for the most part, I was delighted to be going to Taiwan no matter what I was leaving behind, I had a feeling I'd be coming back sooner or later anyhow, I was nervous about learning how to do my new job - but still, it all didn't sound much like me.

What's really funny is that I still remember writing that first entry (it has, after all, not really been that long!), and even then I knew that it was one of those experiences that would turn into a wonderfully misty memory soon enough. But even given that awareness, I can recall gazing out onto the tarmac in the chilly noonday sun and feeling...not much. I knew I'd miss my friends, of course, but several of them were also leaving DC before long anyhow (one of them was taking off that very afternoon, no less) and I'd been the one staying behind on those goodbyes dozens of times before. So there was no sense of leaving the nest or anything. No, right then, the closest I had to a profound thought was wondering how much warmer it would be in Taipei.

Sure enough, I do have some pretty fond memories of those first hours. Reading about my fears and concerns this morning, I was pleased to realize that things have worked out better than I'd dared to hope at the time. But what I recall more than anything about that day is thinking I should have some sense of being in the midst of a truly earthshattering moment of my life, but failing to work up any such thing.

That, and being glad I'd finally stowed those four bags!

Such is often the case with the really big changes in life when we're already aware that they are taking place, I guess. That sense of momentousness I was looking for must be part surprise, and there was no surprise that morning.

More thoughts on this tomorrow, unless y'all think I'm already being too indulgent! (My memories of those last hours in the USA have become quite fascinating to me, as you can see...)

Random grousing

So I head downstairs around lunchtime to clock out of kindy and into language school (the books for the two are kept separately), and the receptionist tells me Century 21 called. "You need to pay your rent for July."

"No, I don't, because I paid it three weeks ago on the day it was due."

"But they call."

But they call. The language barrier strikes again, since I can't just call back and tell them I specifically remember handing the money to the woman behind the counter and showing her my envelope with the address written on it in Chinese so she could write the receipt.

And then doubt seeps in. Did I get a receipt at all? I think I did. If I did, then I know exactly where I would have put it, but did I? At the moment, I can't even run home to check as it's raining too hard to venture home. Besides, there's the principle of the thing. Why should I inconvenience myself over their mistake?

If I didn't get a receipt, let 'em just try to screw me on the rent without being able to talk directly to me (only one guy in the office speaks English). This would happen just when my finances were starting to look really good, now, wouldn't it? I know it'll probably all work out fine, but it's a hassle I really didn't need on a Monday.

At least it's a pretty good Monday. I got some really good writing done yesterday for the first time in a while, and my plans for next week's big trip are finally starting to take shape (and precedence over my GRE practice, which is finally showing some results!).