House Hunting

How do people do it? Move OS with a pack on there back find work, start a new life etc etc. I only ask because looking for a job they want to know where you live, applying for accommodation they want to know where you work. We decided finding a place to live was our biggest priority and the agents looked at us a little funny when we said we had no jobs. So I decided to take a different tact. “What if I pay 6 months rent in advance?” There eyes lit up and they grinned and said “yes that should speed up the process”. It’s funny being on the other side of the renting process, having never formally rented a property before I can see why so many of the tenants I interviewed all seemed disheartened before they even walked in the door. We are competing against a university semester starting, greedy landlords renting out there 500 a month places at 300 a week to festival goers and a slim vacancy rate. Luckily we can commit to 6 months which is considered a long lease and not many students are in a position to offer up that sort of cash in advance.

It’s not all doom and gloom, we managed to find a decent estate agent, instead of the usual 'meet you at a place at a certain tim'e he was nice enough to drive us to two places. The first place was a bit out of the city but it was a great flat, one of the best views I have ever seen (looked over the firth of fourth, love saying that) had an en suite (very rare in these parts) a lounge room with big double doors to close it off and a spare room for the many guests we expect. But we decided it was just too far out and looked at the second one, not as nice, no real view to speak of but its location was pretty good 12 minute walk to the city centre, huge supermarket across the road and next to a major train station. It also backs on to what they call an entertainment centre which has a huge cinema (prices are actually cheaper then Australia) a gym, a brewery, a casino and 8 minute walk to what was described as Edinburgh’s 'girly corner'. We put in an application and hoping we are successful tomorrow. We also looked at a little 1 bedroom flat that smelled like an old shoe that a cat had used as litter tray and was rather green, dingy and had a drier in the middle of the single bedroom. We are looking at some more tomorrow in case the other one falls through, but we are hopeful, apparently it is up to the landlord not the agency, but as a landlord somebody offering to pay me 6 months in advance would often get the house.

I’m now transferring a large sum of money into our British bank account to cover what is needed to pay the rent in advance. One of the sad things is if I had transferred the money only 4 days ago it would have cost $400 less, amazing how quickly currency values change.

It is odd we are both sunburnt, I even put on sunscreen both days and still got pink, no body here has a hat either. All in all it's not going to badly.

House hunting in a strange land

We made it to Edinburgh on Friday night, three hours later than expected mainly due to traffic delays. Particularly memorable moments include the roundabout with traffic lights that took half an hour to navigate, a 4 pound toll charge, and getting stuck halfway up the Royal Mile because the bollards weren’t shown in the street directory. All the way up the M6 we got half-hourly traffic reports from the BBC, chirpy news reporters telling us that traffic was ‘pretty banked up’ and to ‘take another route’. It was a strange thought, that this country is so small that the one radio station can reach everyone caught in traffic, anywhere. Half the country was stuck in traffic on Friday afternoon it seemed. At least we were not alone.

Navigating the city traffic on a Friday night was as hellish as one would imagine; of course once we finally found the hire car place, there were no parks left. We left the car in a pay parking spot and hoped someone would be arriving at work early enough in the morning to move it before we got a fine. It could be one of many fines; there were no posted speed limits on the motorway, but plenty of signs warning of the presence of speed cameras. I guess we will wait and see.

Because I’m not very good at reading maps and we were both tired, we walked too far up the street from the car and got on the wrong side of the castle. It was going to be quite a walk to the hostel with our packs (not quite as heavy as the ones we brought over, but heavy enough, plus a supermarket bag full of snacks and a giant atlas map I’d let Margaret give me), and we’d quickly discovered that Edinburgh is essentially a collection of small hills. It was an easy decision to hail a cab once we’d realised this, and we found the hostel with no troubles. Our room is at the top of a renovated terrace house; it has a slanty ceiling (which I love), a wrought-iron bed with lumpy pillows (less love) and a rickety old wardrobe we haven’t used. The window looks out onto the back garden, which is set up nicely with tables and chairs and a collection of bicycles and motorbikes which the owners appear to be taking apart, playing with, and putting back together (I am not thinking about the possibility that the hostel is just a legitimate front for some illegal backyard stolen parts business) (I have been reading too much Inspector Rebus). We’re not sure but the hostel appears to be run by a group of unfriendly, unsociable French people. Just what we were expecting to find in Edinburgh.

Once we’d recovered from our driving and map mishaps we headed out to explore the neighbourhood and find some dinner. The Thai across the road had a pad thai for 10 pounds. No thankyou, not even for the best pad thai in the world which is unlikely. There was a pub on the corner where we probably could have gotten a bowl of chips, but not feeling particularly social we were more on the lookout for something to take back to the hostel. We eventually bought 8 pounds worth of groceries at a little supermarket, which I had to pay for with my credit card because the ATM didn’t like my bank card. At the hostel we boiled up some tortellini with tomato sauce and ate it in the little conservatory, watching odd BBC wildlife documentaries. The tortellini was surprisingly good, which is lucky since we bought 2 packets of it (there was a special on) and so will be having it again sometime.

Saturday morning we headed out armed with our Lonely Planet and a notebook to write down addresses of flats we liked. We saw lots of ‘to let’ signs on apartment buildings, with a different real estate agent on each one. There appears to be a massive number of companies doing rentals in Edinburgh; hopefully they are all much of a muchness when it comes to fees and service. I bought a copy of the Scotsman, hoping for a big Australia-style weekend edition complete with jobs and property guides. No; I went through the whole paper and finally found the bit that said the jobs were on Thursday and the houses were on Friday. Bugger.

In the midst of all this, of course, we were checking out Edinburgh itself. The vibe of it, I mean, as they’d say on The Castle. It would be a lie (a nice, romantic lie) to say it immediately grabbed us, shouted, ‘YOU BELONG HERE’, and bid us to make ourselves comfortable. But we didn’t dislike it either. I get the feeling it is the kind of place to sneak up on you; there is so much to see and explore and I think one day you’d see something and all of a sudden you’d know that you in the right place. It is certainly beautiful, and impressive. It’s also very crowded right now; we haven’t heard many Scottish accents, but plenty of English and lots of different languages including an Italian woman who was yelling at her kids over our heads today (I think she was pissed off that they didn’t want to sit with her in the park) (I wanted to tell her it was probably just a phase) (but maybe not if she kept yelling at them in public like that). The buildings are amazing, and so is the sense of history. If nothing else I love the idea of living somewhere so old; everywhere you turn there is something that has been there hundreds of years. I like it, I find it soothing for much the same reason as I feel comforted by the ocean. Which is so big it always reminds me that in actual fact I am very small, my place in the universe is very small, and in the grand scheme of things my life is rather inconsequential. I know some people don’t like that feeling, but to me it’s very therapeutic. History is the same. I also love Edinburgh’s literary past which I hope to learn more about; last night we walked past a terrace house where Arthur Conan Doyle lived; there is a Writer’s Museum, a Literary Pub Tour (which I intend on dragging my father along on, when he visits next year); and of course I am constantly on the lookout for Ian Rankin even though I don’t know what he looks like.

After lunch (2 pound sandwiches from the supermarket, eaten on a garden wall – we are on a budget) we walked up Calton Hill, which is sort of Edinburgh’s acropolis. There’s a scattering of monuments up there, and a great view to Arthur’s Seat (old volcano), to the castle (over 9 pounds to visit, which explains why we haven’t yet) and over the water. I like the idea of living near water too. We found a sheltered spot (very windy) and looked over the water and thought ‘is this our new (temporary) home?’

Edinburgh's shame

There were tears of course, mine I mean, because I’m a wuss and a worrier and it would be nice to say that house hunting in a strange city is just exciting and wonderful but it’s not just that; it’s scary and unknown and I have never been in such dire need of somewhere to live before. Although my father reminded me, I could just ring some Gibsons and McKinnons from the phone book and convince them I’m a long lost cousin. But the tears dried up of course because Toby is not a wuss or a worrier and always manages to convince me why I should pay no attention to those traits of mine, and instead focus on the positives. Which isn’t difficult with a wonderful man by my side and an intriguing city full of pubs and restaurants to explore.

We spent the afternoon in a pub called the Jolly Judge which had free wi-fi with any drinks purchase. It was down a little alley (they call them ‘wynds’ here, according to the Lonely Planet, although until I hear a real Scottish person pronounce that I’ll stick to alley) where we’d seen a ‘to let’ sign. It would be a great spot to live, just off the Royal Mile, and I do like the idea of saying to visitors, “Just look for the Jolly Judge”. Anyway we checked a lot of the real estate agent websites and sent emails and put asterisks next to the ones we really liked the look of. It felt like a perfectly natural thing to do in a pub. Well not really, but being in a pub down an alleyway in Edinburgh on a Saturday afternoon certainly felt natural.

After our usual late afternoon rest back at the hostel (complete with cup of tea of course) we headed out to find some dinner. Daylight saving means that it doesn’t get dark until after 10pm here, so heading out at 8:30 didn’t feel late at all. We found a little clutch of restaurants near the university, about 5 minutes walk from our hostel, and got a table at a North African/Mediterranean restaurant. Which seemed like an odd combination until I remembered that North Africa is on the Mediterranean. We had a good, filling meal for less than 30 pounds (except that with a tip it was exactly 30 pounds). Bargain. It was raining when we got out, and we were really quite full, so we just headed home after that.

Today we had a lazy morning eating our breakfast in the courtyard and tackling our first Sudoku together. Well it was my first Sudoku, but our first one as a team. After that we headed out again, this time in the opposite direction to the city to seek out some of the apartments we’d seen online. We found a really great stretch of road full of old buildings, shops and restaurants, but unfortunately it appears to be out of our price range. The ones we found in our price range nearby were not as nice-looking but are still possibilities. We gradually made our way into the city, taking note of ‘to let’ signs and what handy things were nearby, like shops or restaurants. Also how safe/dingy the street felt. Edinburgh is not the cleanest city I’ve ever seen; the bins are out on the streets and there is a lot of litter. From my reading of the newspaper it appears there is a current campaign to clean it up a bit. Personally I don’t know why you’d let your street get to that state; don’t people want to feel good walking to their house? We decided we’d be prepared to spend a little more on rent if it meant living in a nicer street where people cared. The weather is going to be depressing enough; we don’t need to be wading through rubbish to get to our front door.

We ate supermarket sandwiches in the park again and had another go at the Sudoku. We’ve been very lucky with the weather; so lucky in fact we are both sunburnt, me more than Toby because he brought a hat. (Me: ‘It’s Scotland, my skin’s been waiting for this my entire life, what do I need a hat for?’) He was very nice today and shared it – now we’re both pink. So it was a lovely day to sit in the park and struggle over numbers in little squares. And to walk the Royal Mile, again, which in the build up to festival time is overrun with tourists and also sporting a lot of artists; we’ve seen musicians, those statue guys, some circus acts, a “illusion artist” in chains, and hippies running stalls that appear to be the same worldwide, selling Celtic art and doing henna tattoos and braiding hair and reading Tarot cards. If it’s like this now I just can’t imagine what it will be like in a week’s time when the fringe festival begins (although apparently it’s now bigger than the actual festival, leading to the question what is it the fringe of?).

After a bit more of a walk we’ve come back to the hostel for more internet research (and a rest), via a bakery which had everything half-price after 3pm. Which is lucky because it wasn’t very nice, certainly no Dobinson’s. But it was sweet and went well with a cup of tea while we watched Scrubs. The wi-fi in the hostel isn’t working very well so we haven’t managed a lot of research unfortunately; Toby is having some more fun with the Sudoku. I am typing this on Word and hoping when we get the net working again I can post it (complete with photos) without too many hassles.

After so much walking and a bit of sunburn we’re not feeling particularly energetic or fabulous and so will be heading out soon to the supermarket to buy something for dinner that we can cook in the kitchen here. Tomorrow we will be calling real estate agents and I will call some job agencies, although we’ve agreed a house is really the priority. It’s not much point being given a job unless I have somewhere to live (I doubt the story would end as well as Will Smith’s did in The Pursuit of Happiness). Not sure what we’ll do if a house isn’t available for a couple of weeks, which many aren’t; we always assumed we’d go back to Oxford and stay with Margaret, but Toby is violently allergic to her house (i.e. her cats) and so it’s not really an option for more than a few nights. We had a look at Ryanair flights out of Glasgow and last night I did some research on Poland, but at such short notice in a peak period the prices especially for flights are not great. We might just have to get a hotel in Glasgow. But it all depends on when we can find a place; please keep your fingers crossed as we are hoping to do it sooner rather than later.

I will sign off now and make sure Toby does the next entry; I think this blog needs a good dose of testosterone.

A cute little wynd

Leaving KL,and the irony of floods

View of 7 floors of the Starhill Gallery mall

Our final night in KL was spent in the amazing hotel-cum-mall. The pictures do not do it justice. We explored it a little before dinner, on every level would be little collections of chairs like you find in a hotel lobby, but with a theme, like white leather and purple cushions, or old-fashioned mahogany and burgundy. On one floor was a little coffee kiosk surrounded by funky patterned tub chairs clustered around small tables on which lay games like chess or cards. Each level itself had a theme as well, like the 'Pamper' level full of beauty salons and cosmetic surgeries, and the 'Muse' level made up of art shops and galleries. The 'Relish' level was the undergroud 'food court', which is where we headed for dinner. We ate in a very trendy Indian restaurant, with the highlight as far as I was concerned being a round of bread with a similar texture to naan, only denser, with a topping of honey, coriander, garlic, and pepper. After dinner we had a drink in one of the bars, this one had massive columns of glass bottles going up to the ceiling which was also decorated in lots of coloured glass lanterns. It was staffed by young Chinese women in impossibly short black dresses which the older male tourists (and some younger ones...) seemed to appreciate, although in Australia they would be a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. You really noticed them especially given the high number of Muslim women wearing full hijab who were walking past.

Toby with his drink in the trendy restaurant, a coconutty, gingery thing with what looked like pesto on top. Mmmm, trendy.

Which brings us to probably the most overused cliche in travel writing - the 'land of contrasts'. It's an awful phrase but suits KL well. Take Bintang as an example, which was a lot like Surfers Paradise, especially at night, only with more Muslims. Which meant a conspicuous lack of little skirts and high heels, and a lot of flowing black and colourful headscarves which are clearly as much a fashion accessory as shoes or bags, carefully chosen to suit one's outfit. The scarves are treated like hair - girls re-do them in bathrooms and rearrange them before having photos taken. Another example would be the workmen we walked past after getting off the monorail one day, who were squatting on the ground below that multi-million dollar piece of infrastructure, patiently chipping away at the concrete footpath with chisels. Monorail? Check. Jackhammers? Only for wusses.

The next morning we left our lovely hotel and got a taxi to the airport, which is about an hour's drive away. Thus began our 20-hour journey to Heathrow, which for the most part was uneventful although riddled with frustrations as these are. Like the shops near our departure gate in KL not selling lollies, tissues or water. WTF? Poor sound on the flight, although the individual tv screens meant I could watch 5 episodes of Grey's Anatomy in a row. Missing the bus at Heathrow because the English don't believe in signs. We made it to Margaret's about 9.30 that night. It was a lovely summer evening that reminded us of home. Margaret fed us and we promptly went to bed.

And no, we haven't floated away down the Thames. The floods are obviously the biggest news item here right now. The media's loving it, especially the irony. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink!!!! Today I read that Rhianna's 'Umbrella' is at the top of the charts, the longest number 1 since Wet, Wet, Wet. I don't know if that's true, but it makes for a good story. I'm not sure the people wading through their streets clutching bottles and buckets on the search for clean water are appreciating the irony.

Luckily the area of Oxford where we're staying is unaffected by the heavy floods currently soaking England. But the area where our bank sent our account information was. The corner of the road where the bank was had flooded. It was blocked off by bollards and there was a police van full of police sitting there, but I'm not sure what they were supposed to be doing - they certainly didn't try and stop anyone walking or cycling through the water. The lady behind the front desk at the bank was filling in for the usual staff, who apparently couldn't get in. So everything took quite a long time, but it's done now. Ready to earn some pounds, just as soon as someone hires me.

Man cycles through flood, determined to get...somewhere.

Today we came back into town for a wander around Christ Church and more internet cafes. I am typing this in Pie Minister where we ate rather overpriced pies (with mash and gravy, of course) but where the wi-fi is free. The prices in the UK are a disappointment, especially after KL. Everything costs the same in pounds as it did in ringgits, only instead of dividing by 3, you multiply by 2.4 to get the conversion. The trick I think is to just start thinking in pounds, otherwise we will get too depressed.

Gardens around Christ Church college.

I do like Oxford very much, I said to Toby it's a place that resonates with me. He thought that was strange but it's true. I feel very at home here. Unfortunately the rental prices here are way out of our range. Tonight we are buying Margaret some Indian takeaway, and then tomorrow we are off to Edinburgh for a week.

Margaret's lovely English house, in an English lane. Very Jane Austen.

Monkeys, Museums, Butterflies and Movies

Kuala Lumpur is turning out to be a great city. It is somewhere between Tokyo and Bangkok, cheap things if you want it, classy exciting new technology around the next corner. The twin towers are amazing, at night they look sensational.

We ventured over to the monorail yesterday towards the Lake Gardens, got a little lost then found a huge Mosque, I was not that keen to go in. I feel funny about going into places of worship when I have no intention of worshipping. We did end up going into the museum of Islamic art, very pretty. Amazing architecture and interesting to see how Islam has spread over the world around various Asian countries. Also very sobering to be once more reminded of religion's incredible power to inspire people to create and imagine such beautiful things, with the other side of the coin being its power to encourage hatred, discrimination and fear. We continued to walk up the road and noticed a monkey in the bush, then more monkeys, then monkeys everywhere across the road, people were pulling over to see them and one guy on a scooter pulled over and put food on the side walk and they came out to eat. Very cute I wanted to go over and play with them, I wish I had some food to give them. We continued up the road and went to the butterfly habitat. So many pretty butterflies and the gardens that had been setup were quite spectacular. It was hard to take their photos as they kept on flying away, very inconsiderate of the tourists.

We kind of felt done with museums and gardens and walking, so we found a cab, a funny Indian guy was driving who was quite chatty and quoted us a price to get to Chinatown. Just before arriving he said, you people are good tourists and good tourists tip. I said “I assumed the initial price you quoted us included a tip”. He murmured something and we got out. Chinatown was just like walking through Bangkok markets, not quite as pushy, but the prices and merchandise were all very similar, I was regretting bringing any clothes over at all. For Dot who hasn't been to Bangkok it was very much like how one would imagine an Asian city - noisy, dirty, crowded and poor. We found our way to a makeshift mall and I bought a power cable for my laptop (turns out Malaysia uses the same power point style as UK). It cost $3.00. We also found a great lunch that left us very full and cost us $5 each. When we walked out it was pouring. The markets were flooded and there was water on the ground a few inches deep. People didn't really care, just waded through in their sandals and bare feet in some cases. It felt like real travelling, making our way through the temporary river that had formed at our feet. Chinatown is not well serviced by stormwater drains; we walked past several mechanic workshops that had been flooded. We found the monorail again and returned to Bintang, a great area near our hotel which was not flooded; a clear sign of where KL's municipal services money is being spent.

If you are ever in KL you must go to the shopping mall in Bintang that is attached to a hotel. It is like a mall inside the Hyatt, or like the Hyatt inside a mall. Marble floors, marble toilets, classy shops and the food court has to be seen to be believed, very hard to describe but each little restaurant has its own theme, some of them had glass bottles up to the ceiling others had sails to separate them from the other shops, words can’t do it justice. It was like an underground dungeon full of fancy restaurants. We checked out the prices and promised ourselves we'd return on our last night for dinner. We headed back to the hotel and used the newly bought cable to watch Dodgeball from the laptop.

We headed back over to the mall next to the twin towers for a cheap dinner, it was not too bad, then on a whim we decided to see a movie. Dinner and a movie plus a Sprite cost us $12 each, begging the question, why are we moving to the UK for a year? We queued up to get our ticket and this woman ran past the queue and demanded the salesman's attention and just bought a ticket, it was one of the rudest things I have ever seen. On a par with Parisians really. They were out of chocolate at the candy shop, this was sad as we wanted some kit kats. We watched Dead Silence by the guys who did Saw, it was pretty scary, except in the movie phones were ringing, phones being answered, rustling of bags and candy being eaten loudly (which we did not have). Would have been much scarier had the noise been less, if it is a horrible rainy day we might go again today. We got poured on going home (again) and then just snuggled up and went to sleep bitching about the rudeness.

This morning Dot slept in and then we headed back over to Bintang to have breakfast (yesterday we found out the hotel would charge us over $30 for breakfast, not too bad in Australian terms but around here it's a rip off) and then went back to the Chinatown district. This time we went straight up to Central Market, claimed to be 'KL's centre of arts, music and culture.' The prices weren't as good as Chinatown but it was a more relaxing (and air conditioned) environment. Except for the Gwen Stefani being piped through the complex. Dot had her heart set on buying a bracelet of some kind and ended up with a silver bangle she didn't even need to haggle on, because the salesgirl gave a discount right away. We had lunch in the food court (less than $2 for Dot's plate of fried rice, $3 for Toby's beef teppanyaki and vegies on rice) and also visited the Independence Square, where Malaysia was declared independent from Britain. This year is the 50th anniversary of that occasion so everywhere you go you are reminded of that. Next to the Independence Square was the National History Museum which cost us 30 cents each to visit. It was a good if brief (and slightly biased) introduction to Malaysian history, which appears to be complicated and violent for the most part. We have now returned to our hotel to have a cup of tea and relax (yes we are old) and maybe a swim/visit to the gym, before heading out again to the amazing mall-in-a-hotel food court for dinner.

The last few days have been easy, we just seem to have become adept at travel, it's not scary, we get lost we add it to the adventure, we find our own way very well and we don’t fret about ordering strange food either. I think our trip to Japan turned us into more hardened travellers. We are certainly avoiding the tap water this time around.

Greetings from Kuala Lumpur

Well here we are in KL. I like to say KL because I'm afraid I'll pronounce it wrong (koala lumper anyone?). As could be predicted, it's hot and humid here. We just spent some time at the bar in our hotel by the pool, a very civilised way to have a beer and some chips until a tropical storm blew in. Even then it wasn't so bad. Things you would never put up with at home become bearable when you're on holidays. When in Rome.

We arrived late last night and quickly realised our lack of preparation for our time here was, while unavoidable, a good recipe for feeling out of one's depth. For the first time we have arrived in a foreign country without (a) an idea of what we'd like to do here, or (b) how to say hello or thankyou. We have previously found that these two words are the most important to have in order to come across as polite. Instead we have found ourselves like bumbling strangers, without any social graces, simply nodding our heads and murmering thankyou everywhere. We have since looked up online how to say those words, but have yet to try them out properly.

After a lazy morning we ate breakfast in the hotel lobby (lazy, but easy when one's brain has shut down due to lack of fuel) and then headed off to see the Petronas Towers. They are about 10 minutes walk from our hotel. When we glimpsed them from the taxi window last night they looked pretty, all lit up in silver lights, and reasonably impressive, but seen from the ground level in the daylight they were massive. And beautiful, all curves and squares, not your average skyscrapers:

At the foot of the Towers is a shopping mall, of course. Seven levels of window-shopping, because (a) we don't have any room in our luggage for more stuff, and (b) we couldn't afford a lot of it anyway. Which is a shame as we both had some very exciting moments in the mall. The first was when we saw a real-life Jimmy Choo boutique. I have never seen Jimmy Choos outside of TV or magazines so this was a moment where dreams became reality for me. I only saw a few pairs from the window as I wasn't really dressed for browsing, but suffice to say they were as gorgeous as you would imagine. Toby didn't share the amazement but his time would come in the toy shop a few levels up when he spied a miniature monster truck with 5 horse power. Apparently this is about on a par with our lawn mower at home, even though it looked like a toy. There was a sign on it saying THIS IS NOT A TOY. I found it hard to imagine the point of it, but Toby tells me boys would understand.

Other interesting things in the mall included the creepy mannequins (little boys making faces and holding their fingers like guns, small faces with noses but nothing else), Muslim women dressed in full garb, the pink laptop I was almost tempted by in the Sony shop, and job vacancy posters in shop windows which would not be allowed in Australia ('cashier needed, female only'). The mall was full of expensive designer outlets, so there must be a good bit of money in KL, although the busiest section was the market area down the bottom with jewellery and knick knack stalls. It's amazing you can fly on a plane for 9 hours only to find the same shops selling the same things.

We are having a relax this afternoon since the weather's not good and we think we deserve one. Plus I found a Malaysian soap opera on TV, I'm not quite sure what the story line is but from what I can tell the young handsome doctor is involved in an illicit affair, possibly with the headscarfed woman old enough to be his mother. His real mother is a real drama queen who doesn't stop shouting. They have an innovative plot device on the show which consists of playing a scene twice - once for real, the second time with one of the characters replaying it in their head, like a memory montage.

Tonight if the weather clears we'll head off to Bukit Bintang, KL's 'premier shopping and entertainment district' for dinner etc. If the weather stays like this we'll go downstairs, since the hotel has a reasonable looking Japanese restaurant. Tomorrow we're hoping to head out to the Lake Gardens to check out some museums, markets and the Independence Square where Malaysia was declared independent from Britain 50 years ago, followed by dinner in Chinatown if we can last that long. Should be a good day.

I will end with a final picture of what I like to call the scooter jungle. This is KL's efficient and sensible solution to parking shortages in the city.

The night before

This is more of a test than anything else. Tomorrow morning at 8am we will be piling into our hire car (a Getz, white, nothing too flash or solid, here's hoping holiday traffic isn't too aggressive) and heading off to Sydney. Our flight is at 14.20 tomorrow afternoon. I confirmed it today. She asked if I had any special dietary requirements. I wanted to say, 'I only like edible food,' but she probably wouldn't have understood. Tonight we had our last supper in our favourite Italian restaurant. My mum started to cry when she hugged me goodbye, and that almost set me off. But I feel okay now. It is still unreal, hard to imagine what we've got ourselves in for. That's another part of the adventure.

This is a picture of our storage room in the house.