It’s been a mere 7 months since I’ve started blogging. When I first heard about blogging, my first reaction was:

Ppl who blog must feel so self-important that they think that ppl would want to read about their lives.

Then one fateful day waiting for an ADSL central splitter to be installed in my house, I decided to kill some time and try it out.

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Long story short, here I am now. It has definitely become a hobby and a core part of my lifestyle. I’m a blogger. It has changed some aspects of my life. Just from the mere fact of looking at the world through my digital camera has revealed things to me that would otherwise be missed.

Putting my life events into words have also helped me remember those events in a more articulate and memorable way. Recording my life with words and photos will allow me to see how much I’d have changed over the years or remained the same despite everything that would happen.

My blog has allowed me to voice my opinions on things that stir up my emotions, especially racism, tragedies, disasters and death; dealing with them cathartically by blogging is a pressure relieve.

Blogging has allowed me to connect with ppl that I would have never connected with. My life has been enriched immensely – this holiday trip that I’m on now is testament to that.

Delving into the behaviour of other bloggers and the politics involved had also preoccupied my blogging in the past year. I’ve sounded out their poor choice of words, their hypocrisies and their myopic and insular views. I especially loath the common excuse of “if you don’t like it, don’t read it”. To be an adult means you take responsibility for your words, spoken or otherwise.

If you don’t like it, don’t read it? I’m more mature than that.

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To old readers and new, have a safe time celebrating the New Year. See you in 2006. Remember to drink lotsa water!

Continued from KL Update 1, KL Update 2, KL Update 3 – Mambo @ Velvet (Zouk), and KL Update 4.

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Friday
Lazed around the house again till lunch time when we went out to get some take-away yong-tow-foo for the entire clan. The area that I’m staying in – Ampang, is famous for this cuisine.

Around 5pm I got picked up by a primary-school friend of mine. There was gonna be a gathering of 4 to catch up over dinner and drinks. But first we had to battle peak-hour KL traffic. It took us one hour to travel I dunno, 10/15 kilometres?

We dropped by Low-Yat Plaza because my friend wanted to trade-in his old PC for some cash. This place is similar to the Sim Lim Square in Singapore. Both being a tech buyer’s paradise full of computer and electronics shops.

The second-hand dealers we visited did not give my friend a good price and we were just about to give up when a man overheard us. He offered my friend to buy his old PC. Sweet! ‘Cos by then we were really buggered from lugging the PC and monitor around for close to an hour.

Dinner was at The Overseas Chinese restaurant in Imbi close by. Fabulous Chinese food. We also saw a teacher from our primary days who is now the principal of the school. He didn’t see us. My friend Philip said that he might be gay. And none of us on the table were surprised even though he wasn’t the flamboyant type. There was just this hunch we all had even back when we were kids.

After dinner we headed over to Lecka Lecka on Bintang Walk for some cold beers. On the way there, there’s an alleyway with a perfect view of the twin towers. Of course, I took a pic.

Lecka Lecka is an outdoor place with lotsa palm trees, and arabic style seats. They even provide sheeshas. The place was definitely a favourite for Middle-Eastern tourists.

The rest of the night was spent catching up, reminiscing, and gawking at the pretty girls that walked by. One thing we all agreed on was that we were still the kids from primary school deep down inside, even though most of us are married. 31? Sure doesn’t feel like it.

Continued from KL Update 1, KL Update 2, and KL Update 3 – Mambo @ Velvet (Zouk).

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Thursday
The night before (Wed) was spent at Zouk. It was fun. Every fun night clubbing sounds the same anyway so I can’t really make it anymore descriptive than I already have countless times on this blog.

Woke up late and lazed around my aunty’s house. She came back at 1pm with Nasi Lemak. Woo. My first taste of it since I got back. I now can sorta understand how Mili can eat it 3 meals in a day. Yes she eats it for breakfast. When she still lives here, she’d cut me short mid-MSN to say, “Wait, I need to go get my nasi lemak.” Yes, she uses the word “need”. Hahhaa!

After lunch, we lazed around somemore before I took my cousins to Sungai Wang (again!). Spending time with younger kids is great, and not only because I turned 31 today. We went to the arcades once more. The end result was that I got blisters on my hand from playing a drumming game. Then we went to a cyber-cafe. The employee there recognizes us now – it’s always this older guy with two younger guys. Wait, that didn’t come out right …

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Met up with YC for dinner. Took her to my aunty’s shop and they chatted briefly about fashion and the like. YC suggested eating at Star Hill. Did you know that they have a concierge for the restaurant section?

Dinner was had at Shook. As far as the food goes, there were no complains. If you have read YC’s blog you would know that she loves to eat. And this will probably make you hate her, especially the women but I don’t know where it all goes. You’ll see in my photos when I get back to Perth.

Our conversation carried on from the night before at Zouk. She asked me about BM and we continued our bitching about certain bloggers. We also talked more about life and family. Can’t summarise it really, our topics were very eclectic – she’d remember something and then we’d veer off on a tangent.

YC told me one thing that puffed up my ego – careful, it’s fragile! It was when her friend had asked who I was when we met at Zouk, and YC had said to her friend, “That’s my blog hero.” Wahahahh. Me, along with BM are YC’s blog heroes. Wah, paiseh paiseh.

But just as soon as my ego was inflated, it was quckly deflated. Heh. The waiter gave me the bill and I handed it over to YC. She insisted on paying lah. I gave the waiter a sheepish grin.

So that was dinner with YC. After that, we took a couple of random pics and she was kind enough to ask her driver to send me home. Might meet up with her again Fri night for drinks. It’s her usual girls’ night out. Woohoo. But no confirmation yet. I’ve told her it’s good enough that we’ve met twice.

Continued from KL Update 1 and KL Update 2.

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Wednesday night
Went to the KL Zouk for Mambo @ Velvet. For those who don’t know, Mambo nights are when they play “Retro” music from the 80s and 90s. Or updated versions of those songs. Who’s taking me? My aunty. You heard correct.

I won’t reveal her age here but I will tell you some details:

• She has had 5 kids.
• Her eldest is 24 and her youngest is 9. The two youngest ones are the ones that I’ve been hanging out with during the past few days.
• She is Reucas’ mom – my would-be rock star cousin who lives in the same house with me in Perth.

And yeah, she parties still.

We had a table reserved for us and got there at 11pm. It was quiet but after only one hour the crowd had grown to the point where it was difficult to walk around the place. Music was fab and lotsa drinks were had. The place is similar to the original in Singapore except roomier in certain parts.

And who did I bump into there but the delectable YC herself. She msged me about our meetup for the next day and mentioned she was in Zouk. I messaged her back and told her, “Me too!” BM, she’s the one you once quoted about diamonds and having the finances to marry.

So we met and chatted and just like BM, the conversation felt effortless transitioning from online and into the “flesh”.

She couldn’t stop being fascinated by my aunty and how she still comes out to clubs. She said that she wishes she would still be as happening when she reaches my aunty’s age. We bitched about certain bloggers and talked about the culture shock of coming from Australia to Malaysia (less so for me since I’ve only came back for a holiday and not to live like her). I got to know a bit more about her “Boo”. And of course, we took some photos. She even did her trademark tongue thing. Woohoo! I’ve got myself a new friend to hang out with in KL.

Will be meeting up with her for dinner the next day. Before that we will be going around Lot 10 taking some photos for an assignment at her job. Swell.

Continued from KL Update 1.

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Wednesday
As mentioned in my previous post, my cousins and I killed time at Berjaya Times Square. Ten freaking floors of shops – who the hell needs that many choices? The place was also not that busy so I don’t know how the poorer-trafficked shops survive. My aunty told me that some shops were offered a 40% (!!!) reduction in their rent.

After wandering around the first few floors, we thought let’s just go to the arcades. Woohoo! That was the single most busy place in the entire building. We played “House of The Dead 4″ mostly and we got a great workout from it – you have to shake the guns to reload your ammo, or when a zombie grabs hold of you.

We also saw some para-para game with this dude playing it. He was really taking it seriously. My cousins and I both agree that he looked “gay”. Hahah!

After Times Square we headed back to Sungai Wang and had dinner. Nasi kandar for me, and roti-canai and maggi-mee goreng for my cousins. Then had coffee at Dome with my aunty and her friends at Dome to wait for the rain to die down. Why? Because when it rains heavily, traffic would just be horrendous. That’s KL for you.

Got home and rested a while. Tonight would be Zouk Mambo.

Today I went out with my two young cousins again. This time we killed time at Berjaya Times Square – another one of those huge, cold and faceless mega malls. As we were going down an escalator we saw an oldish balding man, holding the waist of a much younger looking woman.

I nudge the older of my two cousins (14) and winked in the direction of the couple. I said sarcastically, “Wah, so young huh.” The younger cousin (9) saw what we were talking and sniggering about and said:

“Maybe that’s her daddy leh.”

That made my day.

Even when I’m on holiday I cannot avoid commenting about the latest round of blog politics. It all started when BM said that she does not want to be associated with the other 3 bloggers who will be featured in an upcoming Her World (Singapore) article together with her, purely based on the style and substance of the other 3.

I could see why the other 3 bloggers would take that as an insult. They then lazily used BM’s age to attack her. BM never hid her age, she even jokes about it. She also jokes about her looks. So really, those lazy attacks do not faze her one bit. But they keep on coming …

XiaXue’s latest salvo at BM was that she didn’t have to queue at MoS when BM had to. Big f*cking deal. I was not a local and I didn’t have to queue – purely because a friend knows the marketing manager of the place. So what? Does that make me a big f*cking celebrity? Hell no.

The night BM and friends (of which I was one) turned up at MoS was X’mas eve night and the place was at capacity. We had the connection but no one was getting any preferential treatment because they really couldn’t fit anymore in.

And XiaXue, if getting into nightclubs without queing is how you rate your own “celebrity” then I pity the fool that you are. If you value your worth on the people that you know, instead of your inner self, it just implies that you are an empty vessel.

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It’s amazing what good sh*t one can write when one is meant to be sleeping.