Justin said something this morning that really hit home: he was glad that ours is the type of friendship where you can go without seeing each other for a long time and still be able to pick back up where you left off when you finally do reconnect. And he’s right—that’s exactly what we have. It made me think of Erin Robbins and how she and I will just always be best friends, regardless of how long of a gap might go between our visits. Justin and I are both taking this as a good sign.
Another good sign, we managed to get to Kuala Lumpur without any problems! Nice bus, easy ride, and they even showed “The Gods Must Be Crazy II” on the bus (although I don’t think the Malaysians on the bus really picked up on all of the humor; Irene and I were basically the only ones laughing).
There is, however, an urgent matter to attend to: SHOPPING. Trust me, I hate shopping as much as the next guy (literally, I’m NOT girly in this respect), but there are some essentials I want to pick up here where it’s cheap, specifically rain gear and a new point and shoot camera. Since I’m only in the rainy season a couple of weeks a cheap jacket will suffice, but I will have to drop some coin on my camera, unfortunately. It’s a bit sad; my Sony CyberShot has been an all star these last 5 years or so and I’m sorry to see it go.
Anyway, we’re in KL and settled now and ready to just wander a bit. We hit Petaling Street market (several lanes of stalls where the men call out and try to entice you to buy “designer” purses, sunglasses and watches) to see what we can find. There are big barrels of roasting chestnuts, pirated DVDs, fruit stands selling only a few things I recognize, tiny teahouses with giant copper cisterns, and boatloads of tourists (many seemingly from the Middle East). It’s not really my scene and Irene and I aren’t finding what we need so we decide to head towards the Petronas Towers so Irene can see them again and we’ll try shopping there.
I cannot recommend the towers highly enough. I think they are two of the most beautiful buildings on Earth and it’s absolutely hypnotizing to stand at the bottom and look up. I have no idea how they managed to make the lights at the top so brilliantly, dazzlingly white that it makes the buildings look like cut diamonds. It was a nice chance to experiment with the panorama mode on the new CyberShot I bought in the mall under the Towers (Sony: well done, love my new camera already).
We went back to Petaling Street for a simple dinner and to let Irene try her first batch of roasted chestnuts (the guy who roasted them outside my condo in Singapore did a better job, unfortunately). We also had a nice cuppa at the little tea house we’d seen earlier. We had a few bowls of five flower tea, munched on chestnuts, planned what to do tomorrow, and basically just relaaaaxxxxed. Then we ended our night by watching the sixth Harry Potter movie on Justin’s computer (which only Irene managed to stay awake through, but I promise I meant to).
Even though this is the kind of day where it seems like nothing really happened it was still really enjoyable because I had such good company. I would have been a bit disappointed if it were just me, myself and I, but everything’s better with a friend, right? :)
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