I've been collecting little bits of random curiosities, and this seems like as good a time as any to share.
Tonight's tidbit: it's amazing how universal an experience it is (at least for me) that when something is unavailable or forbidden (as in a diet), my brain tends to focus on it to a high degree. In the past it was things like sugar, dairy, sweets in various permutations, carbs in various permutations, even fruit (stupid strict no-carb diets...) Recently, it's been.... pork!
Now, as most of you who know me, know I'm not a huge pork fan, though I've definitely been known to order bacon on things (veggie burger with bacon being a favorite). Not at all to say that bacon or pork is not available here - it's just a little harder to get at sometimes, it being a Muslim (and thus Halal) country.
It's not a big deal, but sometimes you just crave a) something that's a bit verboten, and b) bacon! salami! actual honest to god sausage (not this lame-ass beef/chicken shit that's everywhere). [yea, yea, I eat chicken shit sausage when I'm at home... but you're missing the point. :) ]
Tonight I discovered my local grocery store's non-Halal section. I am now happily munching on Hungarian salami. To be fair, I hadn't really looked before, and it's not that it's hard to find... I just discovered it today. It's nice to get such joy from the simple things in life.
In a similar vein, this being a Muslim country where all things Jewish are verboten (separate post on that potentially later on), I simply could not resist the following blurb on a book jacket at my local half-price book store: "A charge philosophical novel that ranges across centuries to examine where things went wrong (and sometimes right) in history for the Jews... a Dan Brown novel done right, full of wit and mystery".
They had me on all points - historical, philosophical, Dan Brown ++, wit and mystery... The book is a hefty tome called "The Elixir of Immortality" by Gabi Glechmann. I grabbed it after having been so utterly disillusioned recently by my standard thriller titles, where not only is the writing crap (which I can normally easily overlook for a juicy story), but repeatedly I'd get a promising start that would peter out into a "why do we even care about any of this??" deflating and disappointing - nay ire-raising - reaction by the end. I thus ventured into the "literature" section. So far, Julian Barnes' "A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters" is delivering nicely - both on decent writing, and engaging dry wit.
Some random observations on local life:
I've been surprised to find that people tend to eat with their hands (i.e. no utensils), even messy things with sauce and rice. Even at work when folks eat at the communal desks or in the kitchen. When we were at a client site 3 hours from here, in a less international area, the take out chicken had a chicken quarter in a paper bag, along w cardboard container of rice. A fork was thrown in as an afterthought, just for us, and a knife was not even part of the equation. With that, napkins were still at a premium - just 1 per person. I valiantly tried to pick at my chicken w/ a plastic fork, to no avail. It was delicious chicken, though! I'm not sure if the here in the city it would be any different, given that there are so many international tourists. But yea, locals definitely are comfortable just digging in sans utensils.
Tonight's tidbit: it's amazing how universal an experience it is (at least for me) that when something is unavailable or forbidden (as in a diet), my brain tends to focus on it to a high degree. In the past it was things like sugar, dairy, sweets in various permutations, carbs in various permutations, even fruit (stupid strict no-carb diets...) Recently, it's been.... pork!
Now, as most of you who know me, know I'm not a huge pork fan, though I've definitely been known to order bacon on things (veggie burger with bacon being a favorite). Not at all to say that bacon or pork is not available here - it's just a little harder to get at sometimes, it being a Muslim (and thus Halal) country.
It's not a big deal, but sometimes you just crave a) something that's a bit verboten, and b) bacon! salami! actual honest to god sausage (not this lame-ass beef/chicken shit that's everywhere). [yea, yea, I eat chicken shit sausage when I'm at home... but you're missing the point. :) ]
Tonight I discovered my local grocery store's non-Halal section. I am now happily munching on Hungarian salami. To be fair, I hadn't really looked before, and it's not that it's hard to find... I just discovered it today. It's nice to get such joy from the simple things in life.
In a similar vein, this being a Muslim country where all things Jewish are verboten (separate post on that potentially later on), I simply could not resist the following blurb on a book jacket at my local half-price book store: "A charge philosophical novel that ranges across centuries to examine where things went wrong (and sometimes right) in history for the Jews... a Dan Brown novel done right, full of wit and mystery".
They had me on all points - historical, philosophical, Dan Brown ++, wit and mystery... The book is a hefty tome called "The Elixir of Immortality" by Gabi Glechmann. I grabbed it after having been so utterly disillusioned recently by my standard thriller titles, where not only is the writing crap (which I can normally easily overlook for a juicy story), but repeatedly I'd get a promising start that would peter out into a "why do we even care about any of this??" deflating and disappointing - nay ire-raising - reaction by the end. I thus ventured into the "literature" section. So far, Julian Barnes' "A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters" is delivering nicely - both on decent writing, and engaging dry wit.
Some random observations on local life:
I've been surprised to find that people tend to eat with their hands (i.e. no utensils), even messy things with sauce and rice. Even at work when folks eat at the communal desks or in the kitchen. When we were at a client site 3 hours from here, in a less international area, the take out chicken had a chicken quarter in a paper bag, along w cardboard container of rice. A fork was thrown in as an afterthought, just for us, and a knife was not even part of the equation. With that, napkins were still at a premium - just 1 per person. I valiantly tried to pick at my chicken w/ a plastic fork, to no avail. It was delicious chicken, though! I'm not sure if the here in the city it would be any different, given that there are so many international tourists. But yea, locals definitely are comfortable just digging in sans utensils.
Now that Chinese New Year is over, they took down those decorations on the "concourse" (lowest) floor of the work-mall, and just today installed a bunch of musical instruments - a bunch of accoustic and digital pianos and keyboards, a drum kit, a wall of guitars... Getting lunch today (salad bar at the Japanese supermarket) was slightly cocophanous! I wonder what they have planned for all that.
I got to play, I got to play! A few weeks back, the work-mall was hosting Yamaha in the lower-level center area. This is an area that rotates various promotional booths, everything from perfume to jewelry, etc. The complexity of the displays varies, but for Yamaha they went all out and brought in a whole bunch of grand pianos, digital pianos, drums, guitars, etc.
Given that I (yet!!) can only play from sheet music, having been trained in strict classical style, I actually printed out a bit of music at my hotel the night of this new development, and brought it in early the following morning. The security guard said he was new and couldn't allow me to go in, but I was like please please I'll not use any electronics, don't need lights, just the acoustic piano...
Must have been my white-girl smile. 20 mins, twice through the piece I printed at the hotel, some wrong notes, but a load of pleasure. I forget how much I enjoy this, often lost in the tedium of hard work that practice entails. But also, after 20 mins, old injuries come back - I was hurting for the rest of the day... But... Yay! (12 hrs of pain in shoulders, arms, wrists, hands... but a boatload of pleasure.)
I got to play, I got to play! A few weeks back, the work-mall was hosting Yamaha in the lower-level center area. This is an area that rotates various promotional booths, everything from perfume to jewelry, etc. The complexity of the displays varies, but for Yamaha they went all out and brought in a whole bunch of grand pianos, digital pianos, drums, guitars, etc.Given that I (yet!!) can only play from sheet music, having been trained in strict classical style, I actually printed out a bit of music at my hotel the night of this new development, and brought it in early the following morning. The security guard said he was new and couldn't allow me to go in, but I was like please please I'll not use any electronics, don't need lights, just the acoustic piano...
Must have been my white-girl smile. 20 mins, twice through the piece I printed at the hotel, some wrong notes, but a load of pleasure. I forget how much I enjoy this, often lost in the tedium of hard work that practice entails. But also, after 20 mins, old injuries come back - I was hurting for the rest of the day... But... Yay! (12 hrs of pain in shoulders, arms, wrists, hands... but a boatload of pleasure.)
I'm repeatedly seeing parents with strollers containing kids who appear to be entirely too old to be there - like 4 or 4 years old. What up...??
Looks like the only Malay I'm going to learn is: "keluar" which means exit and is written everywhere; and "praitmatan pingkat lain" which the elevator says when there's a delay, and which means that it's serving other deck (these are 2-deck lifts!)
I also learned "turun", which means down (also from the elevator-lady-voice), and what I thought sounded like "nine", meaning up. But last week I was joking with some guy in the elevator that I'm learning Malay from the elevator voice, and he said that "up" is actually "naik". Dumb elevator-voice-lady!
I also learned "turun", which means down (also from the elevator-lady-voice), and what I thought sounded like "nine", meaning up. But last week I was joking with some guy in the elevator that I'm learning Malay from the elevator voice, and he said that "up" is actually "naik". Dumb elevator-voice-lady!
Several times I've seen a "VIP" sign in front of one of the lifts going up from the 42nd floor, with the door open and lights out. For a while I was actually (for real!) wondering if "VIP" means "out of order". But today, found out that the sign on the lift that looks broken really IS for VIPs! At lunchtime saw a gaggle of security holding that lift, and eventually some guy, with another gaggle of security, got on. Huh!
Then my American self started showing, as I had the thought "what makes him so special that we have to wait for the next elevator??" Ha!
Then my American self started showing, as I had the thought "what makes him so special that we have to wait for the next elevator??" Ha!
I can see my apartment from the 75th floor windows! Navigating by other larger and taller buildings, I can spot the pool on the 22nd floor roof and everything. Neat.
And on that note - it's pretty nice having a pool on the roof. After a long crazy workday yesterday, I got home around 8, went to the gym, and then into the pool for a bit. S'not a bad way to live. :)
I got to walk the walkway between the towers! It's super cool, but unfortunately our work passes don't allow us access - we can only use it if we go with one of the client team members. (On our own we have to go all the way down, cross over through the lobby, and then go back up...)
Learned 2 cool things: first, you have to use your key-card to get in AND out of the walkway, and apparently (at least in theory) this is timed so that if you spend too long on there guards come to investigate what's going on. (We were joking with my client counterpart that we should walk very slowly and see what happens... I mean, what if people meet someone and have a chat? And I imagine it would take the guards a little while to get up there?) In any case, that was interesting. Also - there's a skylight in the middle of the walkway, through which - if you stand right under it and in the middle - you can see the tips of both towers. Neat!
They don't use pennies here! All bills get automatically rounded to the nearest 5 cents, and there is no penny coin. Well done, Malaysia!
I am continually and repeatedly surprised at just how incredibly rude the Japanese tourists are here. Don't shoot me for speaking in racial generalities, but I had the perception (confirmed during my visit to Japan in 2010) that the Japanese are extremely nice and welcoming, at least outwardly. Perhaps it's when they're tourists in other countries that this switches diametrically? So far, pretty much guaranteed that if someone cuts in line in front of me, or cuts me off while walking, or if that gaggle of 20-somethings screaming around the pool - yup, they're Japanese. Very surprised, but it keeps happening... to where the one time an older Japanese gentleman held the lift for me it was significant enough to be noteworthy. Not sure if it's a generational thing (like, under 40 or 50), or an out-of-the-country thing... but significant rudeness, even by Western standards. Weird!
And on that note - it's pretty nice having a pool on the roof. After a long crazy workday yesterday, I got home around 8, went to the gym, and then into the pool for a bit. S'not a bad way to live. :)
I got to walk the walkway between the towers! It's super cool, but unfortunately our work passes don't allow us access - we can only use it if we go with one of the client team members. (On our own we have to go all the way down, cross over through the lobby, and then go back up...)Learned 2 cool things: first, you have to use your key-card to get in AND out of the walkway, and apparently (at least in theory) this is timed so that if you spend too long on there guards come to investigate what's going on. (We were joking with my client counterpart that we should walk very slowly and see what happens... I mean, what if people meet someone and have a chat? And I imagine it would take the guards a little while to get up there?) In any case, that was interesting. Also - there's a skylight in the middle of the walkway, through which - if you stand right under it and in the middle - you can see the tips of both towers. Neat!
They don't use pennies here! All bills get automatically rounded to the nearest 5 cents, and there is no penny coin. Well done, Malaysia!
I am continually and repeatedly surprised at just how incredibly rude the Japanese tourists are here. Don't shoot me for speaking in racial generalities, but I had the perception (confirmed during my visit to Japan in 2010) that the Japanese are extremely nice and welcoming, at least outwardly. Perhaps it's when they're tourists in other countries that this switches diametrically? So far, pretty much guaranteed that if someone cuts in line in front of me, or cuts me off while walking, or if that gaggle of 20-somethings screaming around the pool - yup, they're Japanese. Very surprised, but it keeps happening... to where the one time an older Japanese gentleman held the lift for me it was significant enough to be noteworthy. Not sure if it's a generational thing (like, under 40 or 50), or an out-of-the-country thing... but significant rudeness, even by Western standards. Weird!
At the opposite end are the Malay who, whether in the Muslim majority or Chinese or Indian minority, are all incredibly sweet and nice. (Well, except for that one cab driver who was extremely rude to me when, after a particularly tiring day at work, I refused to pay his extortionist requested price to take me home and instead insisted that he turn on the meter - as he is technically required by law to do - and threatened to report him if he didn't... That was one extremely unpleasant (though happily isolated) incident. "Exception that proves the rule", whatever that actually means, perhaps).
"Soft-boiled egg" means something entirely different here than expected. In my (ongoing) search to find decent breakfast options at the work mall, I tried getting a couple of soft boiled eggs - and this is what I got after cracking them. Apparently this is a common Malay thing, where they dip bread into essentially mostly raw eggs. Wasn't expecting that! :)
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