Adakah kita ketagih ke shopping?

Outside a shopping mall, I was accosted by a TV3 crew asking me this. I stammered in my pathetic academic Malay. I'm sure I got edited out of the segment.

Today:
- breakfast of capati and dal
- visited my grandma and eeked girlhood stories out of her
- went swimming at the club, with the whole pool to myself because everyone else is at work or on the golf course
- two films back to back - Centre of the World and 21 Grams
- old music I haven't heard in years - track 3, track 5, track 10
- watched my mum making sweet and sour pork ribs (will I ever make this in Budapest?)
- a walk around the playground near my house with people burping in chorus - BUT NOT ME

On Saturday, I went to a Malay wedding and saw some mesmerising silat, a kind of Malay martial arts, being performed for the bride and groom. And got kissed by strangers.

On Saturday night, I drove past 4 police road blocks. On beer, wine and cosmopolitans. Without any bribery. Go Sze!

Lake Kenyir

"These people from KL are Pelik."

Those sandals were bought in Bali. Meant for strolls on boardwalks with perhaps a smattering of sand in between the toes. Not wading across pebbled rivers.



On the smaller falls below, we sat on ledges of rocks, and the water on our backs made for cool massages. Tip: do not wear a bikini when faced with strong currents. Stick with a one-piece instead.



My almost permanent view, but lest you think I was a lazy cow, let me assure you I was busily multi-tasking: listening to PJ Harvey, reading Cloud Atlas, drinking Milo, all interspersed between my many napping engagements.


At night, we watched the World Cup. Some realisations:

• I don't really care who scores the goal. But it's terribly frustrating when teams pass and dribble beautifully, and then don't finish the job.
• The Australian team are thugs.
• Commentators are half the fun of watching the game:
  "He has oodles of talent."
  "He steals it, he dribbles it, he treads over it."
  "I found myself sitting next to an inflatable kangaroo on the train."
• I think I like the Czech Republic. And Croatia (Who would've thought? The countries closest to where I live nowadays)
• Liverpool fans are slightly irrational - on a fuck-up: "See, that's what happens when you have a Chelsea/Manchester United player on your team..."

Are there really 3 weeks to go?

Doha airport

I've had a few stints in Doha airport now, a frustrating and fascinating place.

Lord knows what Qatar is all about, but the airport has become a busy hub for flights in Asia and the Middle East. It's too tiny for the number of flights it gets (they should switch KLIA with it; that airport is like a resplendent ghost town), and so everyone is climbing on top of each other.

There's a real potpourri of people milling about. Or maybe potpourri is the wrong word since most people smell distinctly less fragrant. There are the tour groups representing the middle class middle-aged retirees of South East Asia. These are almost always women, identifiable by high-pitched exclamations and compulsive grabbings of interesting ethnic toddlers to have their pictures taken with.

Around the cluster of chairs on the 1st floor right outside the cloistered business lounge, there are the groups of large families from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman. The women are in burqas, though their toes peeking out at the bottom are varnished if they're not wearing platform shoes which could break one's neck if one fell off them.

The seats are also filled with thin, nervous-looking men clutching colourful rafia bags. Presumably, these are the contracted workers from Bangladesh and Nepal on their way to richer Asian countries where their cousins are unwilling to be waiters, petrol kiosk attendants, cleaners.

Some tips about Doha airport:
- there's free wi-fi
- if you need an electrical socket, they are hidden below the public phones
- avoid the food at all costs
- don't wear anything half-revealing - some very deprived-looking men around

Oh, and I'm home. It's hot, humid and wonderful.