6th., final day in KL

Finally, it comes to the end. The last day in KL.

After dropping by at my condo’s management office to settle whatever matters still remaining, my cousin Emma took me to KL Sentral. As a gift from Malaysia, we got involved in a “honking argument” with another fellow Malaysian driver on the way up to the parking floor of KL Sentral. Not only hoking involved, but also fingers and shouting. Oh … I miss that. What a stupid girl. She stopped exactly in the middle of the entrance to the parking floor. She basically blocked us and everyone else from entering, and she absolutely refused to budge! The honking exchanges between us + other motorists blocked and her went on for quite a while before it was finally concluded with a few “finger signs”. That’s life in KL …

Faradina (a former colleague from iNet Solutions) and Imran (her husband) came down to see me before I took off to KLIA. We had dinner at my favourite Chicken Rice restaurant. Faradina was looking good after all these years and two children (in case you guys read this, it’s a compliment to both of you :)) and Imran is working hard on his diet (mesti mau maintain handsome mah …).

At KLIA, just as I was about to enter the shuttle train to the boarding gate, I bumped into Tom, a former colleague from KL who’s now based in Jakarta. It’s good to see him again. The last time we met was in Baden a few months ago during an “all Malaysians + Tom” dinner at *James’ restaurant.

Bye-bye Malaysia … see you again in October!

*James is another Malaysian who owns a restaurant in Baden.

5th. Day in KL

It is ironic that today Shahana was the driver and I was the passenger. We went out for lunch at Karyaneka and on the way back to the office she dropped me off at Wisma Genting to settle some personal matters at the Maybank branch there.

When I was still in KL more than a year ago, I used to drive Shahana to the Ampang Park LRT station after work almost everyday. Towards the end of my stay, she told me she was getting herself a Kelisa with modifications for disabled driver. Today I saw with my own eyes how competent and comfortable she was driving her little purple car. What an amazing girl.

After work, I quickly went to see Sharleen again at SOGO LRT station to pass her the bank drafts I’d prepared for the unit trust investments. From there, I took the LRT straight to PWTC to meet Dr. Badrul (my former university colleague in Surrey, who is attached to the Institute of Medical Research). We had a quick dinner at the Mall.

As my meeting with Fauzi didn’t happen last night, we set up another appointment today. Fauzi and Ann fetched me from the hotel at around 9 and we shot off to Brickfields for yet another dinner for me. The place is called B-Station if I’m not mistaken - a mamak (Indian) restaurant specialises in Southern Indian cuisines. The talks were pretty much all about life in Switzerland. There were some opportunities within my current company which I’d forwarded to Fauzi and he was interested to find out more. In the end, we came up with the conclusion that although working in Switzerland sounded exciting, it won’t be a comfortable life for everyone, them included. The reasons being:

1. Although the salary may sound quite good, he has to consider that the wife may not be able to work or may find a job but not in the same seniority and profile as she currently is.

2. As a result of 1, the household income will most likely be less than their combined income now. Even if it’s more, it will not be so much, and with the high standard of living in Switzerland, it will not help.

3. A young family like us will find our life now more comfortable than it used to be in KL. We don’t mind living in a small flat now since we never experienced anything a lot better anyway. Using the Swiss public transports is also not an issue. Some minor inconveniences are not such a big deal. But, the same may not apply to everyone.

4. Bear in mind that Swiss are very strict with social rules - no toilet flashing after 10 PM, no laundry on Sunday and all these shits! Can you take it???

5. For those who are used to having domestic maids (pretty much every middle class and above in Malaysia) it’ll be a big bigggg change. Unless you earn a fortune (like 30K Swiss Francs or more a month), don’t even think about having a maid. The minimum wage here is 3K Swiss Francs, and that does not include her insurance etc.

6. Life in Switzerland is definitely less colourful than Malaysia. For the past 4 days, my day ended at around 1 AM. In Switzerland, you should expect to sit in front of TV not knowing what else to do at 7 PM latest every day. Swiss in general go to bed at 9 and wake up at 4 or 5. Shops close at 5 everyday except Wednesday, and on Sunday nothing is open even clinics. How much more boring can it be?

7. Even if they move to Switzerland, I’m pretty sure they want to keep their property back home. That is an additional commitment and may eat up quite a bit of his income.

The same sort of thing I was telling another colleague this morning who was also contemplating moving to Switzerland. Honestly, for middle-class families, life is much more comfortable in Malaysia. Even the Swiss agree.

4th. day in KL

After work, I met up with Sharleen at Starbucks in KLCC to register for Public Mutual unit trust investment. We have some savings and thought it’d a be a wise idea to invest them rather than letting them making peanut profit in bank.

Sharleen is my wife’s former housemate in Mahsuri and Intan apartments in Setiawangsa before we got married who has recently re-established herself as a unit trust agent. She’s a Sabahan and still single. Anyone?

Finally I got a good lead to find the replacement strap for my Timberland watch. A shop in KLCC gave me the number for the Timberland watch service centre in MidValley. I called them up, and it sounded promising that they might have the strap for my model. Good. The only question is, how the hell can I find time to go there…???

Once the stuff with Sharleen settled, I caught Putra LRT to Setiawangsa to have dinner at the famous R&K satay restaurant with Shaikh. Shaikh was my senior during my student days in Glasgow, Scotland in 1994. He was, if I’m not mistaken, from the first batch of Petronas scholars who were sent there to do the so called Scottish International Foundation Programmed (SIFP) at Langside College. I still have vivid memory of meeting Shaikh for the first time upon arrival from at the college from Glasgow airport before being taken to our foster families. I happened to live in the same Pakistani populated area as Shaikh and a few other senior guys. Their flat was our usual lepak place in the evening or whenever there was a sudden urge for nasi and kari (rice and curry). Staying with foster family forbade us from cooking :(. — that’s why once I and my flatmate (Nashrul Hadi) were fed Pepperoni pizza! Our first taste of pork produce. Yikes!

3rd. Day in KL

Thinking that meeting was scheduled for 9 AM Malaysian time, I agreed to meet my colleague at his hotel’s lobby at 8.30 AM this morning to walk to the office. I got it totally mixed up. The 9 AM agreed with other participants was 9 AM Swiss time which is 3 PM Malaysian time. Alamak. What lah …

Nevertheless the morning was quite productive. It was good that the meeting was at 3 PM. We had the morning to do some preparational work.

The new office was really nice (they just moved in about a week ago from another premises). Food is a bit of a problem. Having had been in the centre of everything, from food to post office to karaoke lounge, the people needs a bit of time to get used to the new surrounding, unless if they used to work in the Technology Park of Malaysia in Bukit Jalil (those who’s been there before should know what I mean).

For lunch we had kari kepala ikan (fish head curry) at a nearby Chinese restaurant. My goodness, it costed us (of should I say costed the company … claim, claim, jangan tak claim) more than 200 Ringgit just for 5 people.

The afternoon went by very fast. The night was tuuuuut…….

2nd. Day in KL

What a nice, comfy bed in Crowne Plaza hotel. I overslept until 11 AM!

I walked to KLCC and took the Putra LRT to Ampang Park to send my M&S suit trousers for an alteration. From there, I took a cab to Kampung Baru to visit Nani, an old friend from UK who’d been attacked by stroke plus diebetes, resulting in blindness and her left arm kind of semi-paralysed. What a perfect timing, by the time I reached her place, the rain started pouring heavily turning into a thunder storm.

About Nani: I knew her through another friend Asnidah (who is now in Canada), during my uni time in Surrey. She used to come visit her cousion who were doing Masters in the same uni and from there I got to know her. Although I was in KL from a number of years upon returning from UK, I only met her a few times, the last one being during the lunch I had at he stall in the food court of BSKL (Bursar Saham Kuala Lumpur) about 2.5 years ago. May be less. About six months ago, I received the news about her condition from Asnidah. It was a shocking news since she’s only 36 years old. What was more shocking is the fact that the siblings, nephews and nieces who live in the same house totally ignore her, and none has the sympathy to help her going through the suffering. From the first day of the stroke attack until now (it’s about 9 months now), she has to get taxi and help from neighbours to take her to hospital for check-up etc.. A few times time she stumbled while getting of taxi. With only one arm usable, you could imagine how diffcult for her to stand up. No one bother to cook for her - once she had to look for food from a cousin living next door. The mother is the one person in the house who has been taking care of her for the past 9 months. At the age of 72, it was understable the worries going through her mind. It was touching when she in tears expressed her concern over Nani’s fate once she’s no longer in this world. She’s been praying that Nani would soon recover, and her advise is for her to leave the family and look for a new life in another country. What they’ve done to her is worse than animals!

Once the rain subsided, I left Nani’s home and headed to Bandar Kinrara to my sister’s. About 6 something I took the LRT back to KL.

A colleague from Switzerland was also in town. So, we decided to have dinner together at Restoran Seri Melayu (famous for huge selection of buffet dishes and traditional dance performance). The weather was improving, which was good.

Having heard a lot about the famous Beach Club, my colleague suggested that we visit the place afterwards. OK, if you wish so. What we experienced later was quite shocking. The GROs (or more precisely prostitutes) working there were so daring that they did anything to get you to agree to take them back to your hotel. One guy from Doha Bank (his T-shirt suggested so), was getting free “a*s-on-d*ck” treatment form a chubby Filipino girl with one of her hands playing with his balls on the dance floor. Shit! It was a shocking act considering how open the club was. I would rather not explain their modus operandi on me. But nothing happened - I left the place alone and slept alone in my big king size bed. My colleague … ? He happily abandoned me at 12 AM. Whether he slept alone, I don’t know ……………… zzzzzzzzzzzz. Another late night.

Six days in KL

After just over a year in Switzerland, I finally got the chance to go back to KL for a few days for work. I took the opportunity to arrive on Saturday morning so that I could have a couple of days to attend to some personal matters. At exactly 5.30 on Saturday I touched down in Sepang. Straight away I called Jet, my cousin, who works with the company managing the connecting shuttle train between the main terminal and boarding gates (which I think is probably Malaysia Airport itself), and sat down for an early morning coffee. It’s better to do this than going straight to reclaim baggage - KLIA has probably the longest waiting time in the entire world. It’s so long that they are now considering reducing the frequency of the shuttle train, or slowing it down. I don’t know how less frequent it needs to be to solve the problem … once every hour?? Or they could make make it run at 1 km/hr. OK, I’m exaggerating a bit here, but believe me, it takes ages!

I took a cab to my sister’s place in Bandar Kinrara. Hmmm …. the taxi drivers these days are quite techno savvy. Mini TV onboard. Dr. Mashitah was giving a kuliah subuh.

I reached my sister’s house at around 7. My god! I was gobsmacked seeing the younger of my two nephews - Zaim. He’s big! So, what the mother’d told me earlier about him growing into a small giant was true. And with a couple of half-emerged font teeth, he needs some makeover.

The day was hectic. 9 AM I was at my condo in Duta Ria in Jalan Dutamas Raya something (see, no mention of “Segambut”:) anymore). They recently gave the street a new name. The old “Jalan 1/38B Off Jalan Segambut” was a bit unglamorous and being a new Hartamas / Kiara / Duta area, it had to go. A welcoming change to most residents in the area including me:). The high water bill for the past 10 months turned out to be nothing more than actual usage by my tenants. The recent increase in the cost had also contributed to it I would think. So, they will pay the outstanding amount. The condition of the peeling floor tiles was worse than I had expected. About 30 pieces had simply came off the concrete foundation. Pretty bad indeed. Ranjit, the management office guy, came to take a look and his response was “this one biasa lah. Other units also have the same proble“. OK .. that’s “very comforting” to hear. And indeed it was a common problem in the condo as I later found out. A friend who’d put in laminated floor when he first moved in had it even worse. The tiles underneath all of sudden just popped up and broke his wooden floor. Since I had no time to really think it through, I just agreed with the maintenance office’s suggestion to replace the broken pieces. It’s not a permanent solution to the problem, but it’s probably the best considering the fact that I don’t leave there now. If I were to do it properly, I would probably need to spend more time and money the get all the tiles removed and new ones installed.

Saifol, my tenant cum friend drove me to the Crowne Plaza hotel after we all agreed with the next steps to solve the water and tiles problems. KL looked pretty much the same as it did one year ago, except for a few new hotels under construction. After checking in I headed straight to Bukit Bintang to look for lunch. For whatever reason, the temptation to have good Malaysian food died. I felt a bit pening(dizzy) and didn’t have the usual apetite for my nasi (rice). In the end I settled for KFC in Sg Wang. Since I knew I had only a few hours before shooting off to Taman Tun for family dinner, I decided to quickly go for a quick massage at my favourite massage centre along Bukit Bintang road - Liang Xin. Aaaahh it felt good .. “one hour relaxation with a happy ending” as my dear friend Mathew likes to put it, BUT not with the same meaning he has (you know what I mean). For those who despise being massaged by men (damn! I felt gay when I tried this before) or old women with a thousand wrinkles and hands like the “toyol” (sorry I don’t remember the character’s name) in Harry Potter movie, this is the place to be. Although the common massages they offer are Chinese, try Balinese also - it’s really good. The ambience is so nice. And it also opens late until 3 AM.

After getting myself a new power supply unit for my PC and a new hard disk from Low Yat, I went to meet Mat Rat, a friend from the same boarding school, in Sg Wang. We spent some time finding the things my wife asked me to buy and then he drove me to Taman Tun to my Auntie’s place for a family dinner at a nearby seafood restaurant. Azmir, a friend from the first company I worked for in Malaysia came to fetch me at 11 and we ended up hanging out next to the Beach Club (cuci mata) until about 2 in the morning … I was so knackered by the end of it. And the worst thing was I missed my dental appointment the next morning.

Summer

Summer of last year was great. We got sun from morning till 10 PM pretty much everyday. The temperature was the highest for many years. It was a big contrast to the current situation. Less heat, less sun and wet almost everyday. Something, somewhere is not right. With the recent mud slide in Switzerland and the flood in the UK, the mother earth is definitely not in a good shape.

One thing that is always the same every summer is the Sales. Everything seems to be reduced by at least 50%. We are talking good, branded stuff here - designer
watches, sun glasses, shoes, clothing etc.. So far I’ve managed to get two pair of watches - CK for myself and Certina for my father. The latter was reduced by 50% from 300 CHF and the former down to 100 CHF from the original price of 265 CHF. Although I was not a watch person before, I think I’m changing into one after looking at how cheap these watches are. I’m in fact considering getting two more pairs for myself - one digital for sports and one plain, analogue casual for work - and one for my father in law. Ever heard of Navyboot? Yes, a brand associated with quality, expensive leather products, epecially
handbags and shoes. Before Saturday, I had never though of buying anything with “Navyboot” stamped on it purely because of the rudiculously high price.

Hidden from other major outlets in Baden is a shop that sells Navyboot and other branded shoes at really low prices. The choices may be limited but the prices are so low that you feel like grabbing any one of them. And .. finally, I got myself a pair of Navyboot
shoes - was CHF 165, and sold for only CHF 29.90. It couldn’t have been better!