Malaysian Food
One for Kathleen, who loves reading about food (you should see how many cookbooks she owns): EatingAsia: KL.
Fri, 31 Mar 2006
Rooster Attack
A story for Kathleen, who hates chickens (best bits in bold):A four-year-old girl has been airlifted to hospital after a savage rooster attack left her with a collapsed lung.
"She had been pecked quite savagely on the face, the neck and it appears it did pierce her windpipe," said NRMA CareFlight helicopter spokesman, Ian Badham.
Grace Angel, who lives on a farm near Mudgee, was airlifted to Orange Base Hospital last night before being flown on to Westmead Children's Hospital in Sydney.
Her uncle, Ben Angel, told smh.com.au that Grace and her two sisters were "feeding the chooks" when the rooster went "berko".
"It's gone off its tits. I don't know what it was doing. You hear of cranky roosters but I've never heard of one actually attacking anyone like that," Mr Angel said.
"It's just a dumb bloody white rooster. I didn't think roosters were that violent actually."
He said Grace's father would have wasted little time in destroying the rooster.
"I don't think the rooster's alive. Knowing my brother, he would've smashed it."
CareFlight Central West regional manager, Ross Larsen, said the attack left the girl with an open wound to the throat and a partially collapsed lung.
"That was causing concerns with a lot of swelling around the face area and a concern about blockage of airways."
She was in a serious but stable condition and will undergo surgery to rectify the collapsed lung.
Thu, 30 Mar 2006
Am I Technical After All?
In addition to the other day's iPod volume fiasco, where Kathleen had to show how to change the volume on my iPod, last night she had to show me how to rip a CD to MP3 using iTunes.
In my defence, she was reading the instruction manual, and it wasn't really clear how to do it, and I did have to mess around with the settings to convert the CD to MP3, rather than the default AAC, but still.
Tue, 28 Mar 2006
iPod Volume
Kathleen and I bought an iPod on Sunday. It's one of the 'big' ones - with about 7Gb of space for all the CDs we own.
Initial thoughts - yeah, it's nice, and handy to be able to shift between about 20 different CDs instantly, rather than messing about with changing the actual CD itself, like I have to with my Discman.
But the major problem I had was that I couldn't find the damn volume control. I'm on the train, and I'm struggling to hear the default volume, and thinking, "I can't believe there's no way to crank this thing up!"
Fast-forward to today, two days later, and Kathleen is sitting on the lounge playing with it and she asks how to turn it up.
"You can't," I say. "At least I couldn't work it out. Maybe I should read the instructions."
She looks at me in disbelief. "What? There's no volume control?"
Five minutes later, she shoves it under my nose. Her little thumb whizzes around the dial on the iPod's face, and I see the volume control indicator on the screen move up and down.
"Ha ha ha!" she laughs, enjoying my embarrassment. She found out how to do something on a new device before I did.
I have to hand in my geek badge tomorrow.
One of the niftier things about it is that it picks up the hiragana and katakana from the Japanese MP3s. That's cool. My Discman just displays mojibake.
Wed, 22 Mar 2006
A Night At The Roxbury
I heard What Is Love (go on, you remember, 90s one hit dance hit by Haddaway) on the radio twice (on different channels) on Sunday.
A Night At The Roxbury, which had the song as it's 'theme', is on TV tonight.
And two minutes ago, Rhythmbox shuffled through all the songs I have stored on this computer and picked out...
What Is Love.
Someone's trying to tell me something...
What is love?
Baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more
What is love?
Baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more
What is love?
Baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more
What is love?
Baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more
What is love?
Baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more
Baby Clothes
Spent my lunch hour wandering through the baby department at Myer (no, NOT for me) for the people across the hall who've just had their first kid.
It took about 30 minutes before I found something that was the right size (I can't believe babies outgrow their clothes every 3 months!) and something I thought Kathleen would be all ga-ga over - a pink Peter Rabbit bunny suit.
Oh God, I feel so gay just saying that.
And I'm standing in line hoping the sales assistant doesn't ask me how I am today - because I'd just have to answer: I'm a 28 year old man standing in the baby section at Myer holding a pink bunny suit. I feel emasculated, that's how I feel.
Tue, 21 Mar 2006
Ice
Kathleen and I were watching a 4 Corners doco about crystal methamphetamines. Apart from being really scary in the I-can't-believe-someone-would-actually-get-addicted-and-become-as-freaky-as-these-people way, it was a bit of a scary moment to recognise the apartment block opposite our old place in Surry Hills.
Quotes such as these:
Ice is filling emergency wards with psychotic, dangerous patients, to the alarm of doctors who thought they’d seen everything. "They’re the most out of control, violent human beings I have ever seen in my life - and I’ve been around for a long time," says one. "It makes heroin seem like the really good old days."
don't exactly make me want to move back to Surry Hills in a hurry. There were a lot of strange people to bump into in the street there. I wonder how often I passed someone under the influence of something like this.
Ice isn't only a cheap drug for hardcore addicts. It’s also big on the party circuit and is used across the social spectrum. "Jason" used to be a computer engineer earning good money. Now, he’s trapped between the ice he needs to get himself going, and the heroin he uses to settle himself down.
Seriously. How could anyone do that to themselves? Part of the documentary dealt with this guy's attempts to get onto a detox program and get clean. And he ended up relapsing after falling in with his old, bad friends. And his girlfriend, 8 months pregnant, who herself was addicted, hoping the birth of the baby, which wasn't his, would make him change. And it didn't.
And it was just horribly, horribly depressing.
Sun, 19 Mar 2006
Sup Faan
http://stepheva.blogspot.com/2006/05/stephs-chinese-name.htmlFri, 17 Mar 2006
Kathleen's New iPod
Kathleen's brother gave her an iPod Shuffle the other night. We went through a bit of pain getting it set up with some music - it was originally formatted as a Mac iPod, so we had to re-install it to work with my work laptop which has Win2K.
So I filled it with some of the songs I downloaded the other night and presented it to her as we were waiting for the train at Wynyard (12 minutes is a loooong time to be waiting for a train...).
I reckon that for 80% of the songs, she gave me one of her patented "What the hell were you thinking?!" looks. Only a few met her approval.
When she learns how to put music on it, maybe then she can get away from my musical tastes. Until then, she's at my musical mercy! Bwa ha ha ha haaaa!
Thu, 16 Mar 2006
Home Cooked Meal
Tonight will be the first meal I've cooked at home since I got back from Malaysia last Sunday. In fact, it will be the first home-cooked meal I've had in about five weeks.
One of the things I didn't do over there was eat enough fresh fruit and vegetables. Especially at the end of the stay, where there were a few long days at work, I really felt it. Can't do that too often.
Tue, 14 Mar 2006
Back Home
It's good to be back home.
Had a relaxing weekend - a nap on Saturday afternoon to catch up on the sleep missed on Friday night's flight, and we went out for dinner in a big group to Artarmon to Genki Ramen. It wasn't spicy Malaysian food, but it was Japanese, and in Australia, that'll have to do.
Then on Sunday, we went down south (Caringbah? Hurstville? Oatley? Ah, who knows!) for a picnic lunch, enjoying one of the last hot days we'll have this summer.
And now back to work. At least there's air conditioning, and enough space so I'm not tripping over cables or coworkers.
And it goes without saying I have a beautiful wife waiting for me here, too.
Mon, 13 Mar 2006
Customs
I appreciated the friendliness of the Customs officers at Sydney Airport on Saturday morning. I've never found people so interested in my work before. At least 3 of them asked me, on different occasions, what I did, what I was doing in Malaysia, and what type of IT consultant I was. Thanks, Customs! I must say that I really didn't do their questions justice. An 8 hour overnight flight with no sleep tends to do that to you.
Also, a big shout-out to Malaysia Airlines, who had the foresight to seat me right next to the toilet, where I was guaranteed a night full of doors opening and closing, toilets flushing, and lights going on and off. At least they didn't put me in the exit aisle seat, which has a bulkhead and less leg room than a normal seat, this time.
Wed, 08 Mar 2006
Can
One of the endearing things about the Chinese Malaysians I work with is the language they use. My favourite is the way that the Chinese grammar slips into English usage.
The most common example is when I ask someone whether they can do something for me.
"Hey, can you check the files for me?"
Almost invariably, they will reply:
"Can."
rather than "Yes" or "No".
Chinese grammar for questions usually goes "Verb negative-verb action", for example asking someone whether they've eaten yet would be:
"Lei sik m-sik maat ye a?"
which translates directly, rather than meaningfully, into English as:
"You eat/not eat yet?"
And you'd reply to this with either "Eat" or "Not eat" as the case may be.
And so, "Hey can you.." from me becomes "Can!" from them.
This is sort of funny, but at the same time, I keep in mind the fact that a lot of these guys will speak one or two dialects of Chinese, probably a fair bit of Malay, as well as amazing English. I'm in awe.
Tue, 07 Mar 2006
Lunch
I've decided out of the places we go to for lunch, my favourite is the Indian mamak restaurant underneath Kerinchi station, near work. Mamak means Indian Muslim, and it's almost a mix between traditional Malay nasi campur and Indian food, complete with curries.
It's also pretty spicy, and I can guarantee that there's never another Westerner in sight. I like feeling like I'm the only foreigner brave enough to try most of these foods and eat like a local.
Seriously, it's great to be able to go out for lunch, try something you've never eaten before, and be constantly amazed at how spicy and tasty it is.
Most days we end up at the Menara Telekom building, which has an air-conditioned cafeteria on the third floor. Given the heat, that's often the deciding factor. They have a lot of little outlets, the food is cheap (around RM5, or $2 for main meal-sized portions), and I don't think I've had the same lunch yet in the almost two months I've worked over here. I don't think I could say the same about any food court in Australia.
Sat, 04 Mar 2006
10 Ringgit
It's usually 5 ringgit from Bukit Bintang, in KL's Golden Triangle, back to my hotel. When the meter's running that is.
At night, sometimes the taxi driver doesn't want to use the meter, wanting me to pay a higher price, which usually works out to 10 ringgit.
We have a little bit of haggling, and negotiation goes something like this:
Me: Darby Park, on Jalan Binjai?
Taxi driver: OK, 10 ringgit.
Me: ...OK.
Most guide books, and the tourist authorities here, recommend just saying no, and walking away when a taxi driver doesn't want to use the meter. That the more tourists refuse to play that game, the less likely taxi drivers are to try and do it. And I've no problem with laughing it off if someone is quite clearly trying it on - I've had taxi drivers in Jakarta try and get 1 million rupiah for a 50,000 rupiah journey from the airport to the city. That's plain extortion.
5 ringgit, though, is less than $2. I don't really have the energy to try and save $2. Especially when it's a Friday or Saturday night, and taxis are hard to come by.
Roadside Sweets
These guys sell Indian and Malay sweets by the side of the road near the train station:
Fri, 03 Mar 2006
Jalan Alor
Last night I went to Jalan Alor, which is one of KL's main eating streets, right near the "centre of town". It's a whole street of Chinese open-air restaurants, hawker stalls and road-side vending carts, with local and traditional Chinese food.
Most nights here, I'm eating alone, but sometimes there's so much happening around me that I forget I don't have any company. Like last night.
First, I ordered, or at least thought I ordered, a pork and noodle hot pot soup (and which I was really looking forward to eating). The dish that came out wasn't a soup at all, but a dark soy-glazed mass of meat. It wasn't so bad, just not what I was really wanting to eat.
I will say that it's probably a sign I'm not eating enough vegetables over here when the lettuce that was the garnish looked good and was the first thing I ate.
Second, there was the Tiger Beer girl wearing the white dress who would top up my beer everytime I finished my glass. Beer only seems to come in one size on Jalan Alor - a one litre bottle. And most of these outdoor restaurants (and most bars in KL) have a beer girl, dressed in white if she represents Tiger Beer and green if she's from Heineken, whose sole job seems to be re-filling beer glasses. She must have been doing a good job - a table of three middle-aged Westerners near me had 7 of the empty bottles on the ground under their table. Or maybe it was just the evening's humidity requiring a lot of liquid.
Thirdly, the number of interruptions you get, especially if you're a Westerner. People with white faces seem to get hassled a lot more over here by anyone who reckons you're rich enough to be able to spare a couple of dollars. There was the guy hunched over and pretending to be crippled, walking by each table with his hand extended for money, lingering longer if you looked at him. There was the woman collecting for a "children's charity", who tried to shake me down twice in the space of five minutes. And finally, the two young girls, who looked no older than 10, wandering between the tables trying to sell packets of tissues.
Most people seem to be able to ignore the interruptions. I'm still learning, which makes me a bit of an easy target. Ignoring people trying to get my attention feels a bit rude. Must learn to get over that.
And finally, the Chinese taxi driver on the way home, who wanted to discuss world affairs, particularly with regards to Middle East issues.
It was an interesting night.
Wed, 01 Mar 2006
Brian vs. The Guard
As we were leaving the Telekom Malaysia building yesterday around lunchtime (the food court is on the 3rd floor and we go there for lunch most days), Brian had to stop by the ATM.
A couple of bank workers were busy re-stocking one of the two available ATMs with money, with the front panel wide open. A security guard, wearing an army-style beret and looking more like a hardened soldier than the usual "security guards" in Malaysia, stood nearby, brandishing a shotgun and casting a watchful eye over the crowd.
Brian made the mistake of passing a little too closely to the bag of money in front of the open ATM on his way to the available one, and the security guard pivoted swiftly in his direction.
A slight chik-chik, as the guard pumped the shotgun, and we all jumped back about 5 metres! Luckily Brian averted his course accordingly, and the guard didn't shoot him!
