If you ask me, I’ll tell you that you should:
That way you can have a:
You won’t be disappointed. It’s:
Yes, all of these signs are in Kuala Lumpur’s Airport, within sight of each other. Maybe I just have an odd sense of humor, but I got a kick out of them!
Like I said before, we wound up leaving the house late. We had planned on being out the door by 9 am, but there were so many last minute things to check over, pack, and rearrange. We had to put away most of the things in the room, into drawers or the closets, and the closets had to be blocked with heavy furniture. In other words, we had to “cat-proof” the place. It wouldn’t do to come home and find our place completely decimated due to feline boredom!
We got going at about 10:30 am or so and walked up to the shopping center to try to find something to eat. The only restaurant that we remembered seeing at the Budget Terminal at Changi Airport is Han’s, and the prices there aren’t exactly… Budget. Doesn’t make sense right? To put a very expensive restaurant in the Budget Terminal of an airport? The people flying through that terminal obviously are trying to maintain a smaller travel budget and can’t afford to spent 3 SGD for a can of soda, or 7 bucks on a packed sandwich!
So, instead, we stopped at the bakery at the shopping center we usually eat at and selected two breads (hotdog w/cheese and sausage/tomato). We also bought two cans of juice from the discount store a few doors down from the bakery. With food in hand, we stepped up to the curb and flagged down a taxi. We had initially planned to use the bus and then the train to get to the airport, since we didn’t have any luggage to worry about, but we were running out of time.
The ride to the airport was fairly short. My wife was telling me how much she wished she could have McDonald’s for breakfast when we pulled up in front of the Budget Terminal and saw… McDonald’s. When did that get there? The last time we flew out of the Budget Terminal was 3 months ago, when we went to the Philippines. We remembered that part of the building being under construction, but who would have guessed they’d be doing something smart and putting a budget restaurant in a Budget Terminal? There was also a small cafe called Hani’s. I wonder if that’s different from Han’s? We didn’t stop to look at it. My wife was really disappointed, because she wanted a sausage biscuit. I told her to go get one, and I would eat the breads we had bought. She liked that idea. (She hates the idea of wasting food, so was planning on eating the bun she had picked from the bakery.)
With that decided, we jumped into the line to check-in. We didn’t want to miss our flight, and the last time we’d flown out of that terminal, we waited in line for about an hour. This time it was better. We only had to stand around for about 20 minutes. My wife went ahead and got her sausage biscuit while I held our spot in line, and immediately after check-in we sat down to eat. I had a medium coffee and the breads from the bakery, and she had her McDonald’s breakfast.
After finishing up our meal we leisurely walked outside to enjoy a cigarette before our flight. Well, it was leisurely until I glanced down at my watch and realized it was 11:30 am. Where had the time gone!? We dropped our cigarettes and rushed back inside. We were lucky. There was a very short line at customs, and no line to speak of at the security check. While going through the security check, we heard the last call for boarding for our flight. So, we rushed through the small shopping area between security and the departure gates and down the hall. As we got closer to our assigned gate, we saw a large crowd of people strolling in at a steady pace, so we slowed down too. There were quite a few people still going through the door to get on the plane, and they certainly weren’t going to slam the door in anyone’s face. Ten minutes later we were on the plane.
The actual flight was really short. The itinerary said we could expect to be in the air for 55 minutes, but by the time the plane leveled off and I got started on the immigration and customs forms, the descent had already started. I think the total time the plane was in the air was about 30 minutes. When we touched down at Kuala Lumpur Airport we had to wait on the runway for a while. I think the plane arrived early, because there weren’t any available parking spots! It wasn’t long though before it pulled in to a parking area and we were deboarding. Less than an hour after stepping onto the plane in Singapore, we were in Malaysia. I still love that about Asia. Everything is so close together and convenient for traveling to!
Kuala Lumpur Airport itself is a lot nicer than what I was expecting. It wasn’t fancy by any means. I got the impression that the terminals used to be warehouses that had been later linked together as the airport grew. It was clean though, and there were a few shops here and there. Also, the place was packed. There were a lot of locals around and there were even more tourists. We kept a firm grip on our bags and gave everyone around us a careful looking-over before they got too close. No sense in getting robbed at the airport after all, and Malaysia is supposed to be dangerous. Johor Bahru certainly seemed dangerous when we went there last November!
[Update: I was informed that the terminal we landed at was KL’s version of a budget terminal. The bigger international terminal is, according to a friend, very very nice.]
The first thing we did after getting off the plane was to rush to the bathrooms, which are along the left wall in the above image. The flight was so short that there was never much of an opportunity to get up, and the coffee and juice we had at Changi’s Budget Terminal were starting to work on us.
After that, we stepped outside and had a smoke before figuring out how to get to our hotel from the airport.
(Someone didn’t want to be left behind!)
Getting ready for this trip was a lot easier than most of the other trips we’ve taken, probably because it was short and relatively inexpensive. We only spent two nights in Kuala Lumpur, so the packing was easy. We didn’t even pack check-in bags. We just had two medium-sized carry-ons. That was the first time I’ve ever taken a flight and not had check-in bags. It was actually really nice, not having to worry about waiting on the baggage to reach the carousels, and it saved us some money. Tiger Airways charges extra for checked in bags. I think that’s starting to be a fairly common practice with all airlines though. I remember reading something recently about a few airlines in the US taking up the practice as well, which came as quite a shock as it had been free for as long as I could remember.
The first thing we did to get ready for this trip was to book the tickets. We decided to take Tiger Airways because it offered the lowest price. Some people prefer to fly in style; we prefer to save our money so we can spend it at our destination. The flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur is only 30 to 40 minutes, so the quality of the seats or service on the plane wasn’t really a factor anyways. How much comfort do you need on such a short flight?
The next thing we did was find a hotel room to book. I’d never tried to book a room over the internet before, so I wasn’t sure where to begin, or what site to trust. The first website I came across mentioned a cheaply priced hotel called Hotel Chinatown 2. It had a lot of customer reviews on it. All of them said the place is a good deal for the money you spend, that the rooms seem a bit small, and that the air conditioning is cold. Some also complained about thin walls. We thought about it and realized that we were only going to spend two nights there. And it really would just be the nights. During the day and the evening we would be out and about, checking out Kuala Lumpur, so who cares if it’s a bit noisy, or a bit small? At least the air conditioning would be cold, right? We did a little more research (i.e. Googling) to assure ourselves that the hotel was actually real and not just some rip-off, and when we were both satisfied, we found a booking site that uses secure transactions and paid a 10% down-payment and a booking fee of 2 USD.
The next thing, and last thing, that we had to worry about was our cats. We love them, but every time we want to go on a trip, they’re a problem. I had sent a text to the lady that normally watches them for us, but she hadn’t responded. On Sunday, the day before our trip, my wife also sent a message, but again, no response. Not wanting to wait until the last minute, hoping we’d get a reply to our texts, I went ahead and asked the maid if she could watch the cats for us. I was surprised at how happy she was to help out. So, I guess things turned out for the best. The cats didn’t have to be transported to someone else’s house for cat-sitting and we got to save time and money. If you’re not familiar with cats, not having to move them is a good thing because cats really freak out in new environments they get dumped into, especially if there are other cats. It can cause a lot of stress and can even be hazardous to their health.
The night before our trip we were both excited and stayed up late. I don’t think I managed to get to sleep until 4:30 am, and then I was up again at 8 am to make sure we were ready to leave on time. Well, 8 am is when I actually got out of bed. My cats got noisy and woke me up at 6:45 am. I never managed to get back to sleep. I guess they knew something was up and they wanted us to know they didn’t like it. Not a good start right? Even so, I was pumped about our trip and didn’t let it slow me down. (That would come later.) Despite getting up early, we didn’t manage to get out the door until almost 10:30 am, so we had to take a cab to get to the airport in time for our flight.
I remember asking myself this question a few times, but not any time recently.
When the internet first became popular, and I was delving into the world of AOL chat rooms, the people on the other end of the screen names popping up on my monitor seemed… well, impersonal. It was always like talking to a group of random strangers, and the idea of making friends with people I’d never met in person was ridiculous.
Well, that was 13 years ago. The times, and my opinion, have both changed. I’m sure that most people who have grown up with internet access would find it odd to not make and keep online friends. It seems only natural nowadays to stumble across an interesting person, strike up a conversation, and create a lasting relationship.
I have plenty of friends that I’ve never seen in person, but have known for a long time through various methods of internet communication. In fact, one of my oldest friends is a friend I made through an online game called Dark Age of Camelot. We’ve been chatting off and on for about 7 years. I’ve never know anyone else outside of my family for that long. I also still communicate with the people I played World of Warcraft with two years ago.
I suppose you could say, “Well how well do you really know these people?” Sure, that’s a good point. How well can you know someone who you only communicate with via the internet? A person can tell you one thing but actually do another, and you’d never know since you weren’t there. But, I suppose that takes a leap of faith initially, and a little trust. Also, with the more recent explosion of “real time” social networks (think Twitter) it’s becoming easier to get to know a person you’ve never met.
People Tweet about all kinds of things, from what they have in the morning, to what they do at work, to the last time they were able to successfully take a crap. That’s pretty personal. On top of that, people Tweet photos and videos. I think there are even geo-tagged Tweets now? Also, programs like Google Latitude are becoming popular. It’s becoming more and more simple to connect and get to know your online friends.
So, I would have to say that I know plenty of people that I would think of as friends, that I’ve only chatted with online. What’s your take on it? Have any interesting stories to share about meeting people online? Or do you think it’s bad or dangerous?
(Image Source: Kikolani.com)
Just Acia is a restaurant located in the Downtown East Mall in Pasir Ris, Singapore. My wife and I went to the mall to meet up with friends we hadn’t seen in months. Singapore is such a small island, but life gets so hectic that we still seem to only find rare opportunities to hang out with our friends.
When we arrived, the first thing on everyone’s minds was dinner, so off we went. One of our friends already had a place in mind that she said was fantastic, and had a great deal. We’re always keen to find places that are both “fantastic” and have a “great deal”. She didn’t disappoint!
Just Acia is on the ground level, back past a huge children’s play area. We’d probably never have even found it without her taking us to it. I didn’t even realize that the mall had a back area before tonight.
As we walked up to the restaurant I saw a sign that said all “set meals” come with freeflow (as in free refills) ice cream and drinks. That got my interest up, because free refills on anything isn’t common in Singapore. I was extra excited about the ice cream, because ice cream in Singapore is sold for a fairly high price. Most dairy products here are quite a bit more expensive than what I was used to in the US, because it all has to be imported. For those of you who don’t know and don’t care to Google it, Singapore is an island nation and a city-state.
When we got to the table and flipped through the menu, I was surprised again. The set meals were reasonably priced and the food looked really good. My wife placed an order for beef bulgoggi and I got the deep fried chicken, as well as a side dish of steamed dumplings. Right after ordering we were given cups and small metal dishes so we could start getting our drinks and ice cream from a buffet style bar near the front of the restaurant. The drink choices included Pepsi, Mountain Dew, some teas, cappuccino, lattes, and mocha. Again, impressive for the price.
By the time we sat back down our orders were hitting the table. The meal came with a bowl of rice (no surprise, this is Asia), a small bowl of broth soup (standard fare in Singapore), and a small dish of what I think was kimchi, though I could be wrong.
The food was fantastic! The first thing I tried was the dumplings. They were so much better than I had hoped. I’ve had a lot of dumplings in Singapore and these were the best so far. The deep fried chicken was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. It wasn’t over cooked, and it tasted like the oil they used was fresh. My wife and I swapped a portion of our meals and her beef bulgoggi was great as well.
The cappuccino I had after my meal was fairly strong. It was nothing special, but I have no complaints about it either. The ice cream also wasn’t anything premium, but it did have a good taste to it, and I wound up getting three servings.
The last thing I’d like to mention is that the staff is very friendly and very helpful. They were always smiling and always quick to ask if you needed any help. The only drawback I found was that the hostess seemed a bit hard of hearing. She spoke English, but she either didn’t listen to or didn’t understand what I said back to her. When we first approached the restaurant, two of our group had gone on ahead, with the rest of us lagging behind. I tried to explain that we were with the other two people, but she kept saying, “Group of four? Please come this way!” Finally, we just ignored her and walked past her into the restaurant to where our friends were waiting. Later, I stepped out for moment and when I came back, she asked me if I wanted to be seated, as if she hadn’t just seen me 4 minutes previous. Still, this is Asia, so you can’t expect everyone to be as proficient in English as a native speaker, so I can’t even call this a bad mark against the restaurant. It was just a minor annoyance that most foreigners have probably come to occasionally expect while traveling abroad.
All in all, this place serves some great food for a great price, and we’ll definitely be visiting them again.
Recently I heard of a new social game called Spymaster. Well, not so much heard of, as much as suffered from. The game is currently in beta right now, and is something that has been cooked up for Twitter. I can understand social games on Facebook. They make sense, because they’re separate and they don’t interfere (too much) with other people’s home pages. If someone’s updates are annoying you, you can hide the updates from that particular application, to keep your stream from being cluttered.
Spymaster, on the other hand, seems to manage its notifications by posting everything a player does to their Twitter stream. Yes, everything. The problem with that is that on Twitter, you either follow someone or you don’t. There’s no way to hide particular Tweets. So, if you start putting out a lot of spam you give people two choices, put up with it or un-follow you. I’m leaning towards the latter. It’s hard enough to sort through all of the Tweets I get already, without having to scan through crap like “I just did damage to @XXXXX in an attempted assassination attempt!”
Twitter is all about providing useful information to your friends, either in the form of status updates, witty sayings, links, images, video… well you get the picture. In other words, no one is following you on Twitter to read your spam messages from a social game. I mean, who really cares? Other than yourself of course?
I don’t see Twitter games that spam people’s streams becoming overly popular, but if they do, I hope to God that people are smart enough to create a separate account for it. One last thing I’d like to say is, isn’t Twitter already suffering under the current load? Is it really smart to try to build a social game that sends a lot of Tweets when the platform is already regularly overloaded?
It was brought to my attention that it’s been quite some time since my furry little friends got to sit in the spotlight here on my blog, so this post is dedicated to them!
We moved recently, and any move affects not only the owners, but the pets as well. Singapore is an interesting place to live for a foreigner, where you constantly have to look for a place to rent out. Having cats adds to that challenge, as a lot of house owners are either afraid of cats, think cats will damage their property, or just don’t want the added hassle when there are plenty of potential tenants that don’t own pets. So, finding a place that was suitable for my wife and I, and that would allow pets, was something of a challenge.
Thankfully, we were able to find a decent place. The downside is that it’s not quite as cozy for our pets. Don’t get me wrong. The place is clean and they have plenty of spots to nap, but the room we’re renting is smaller, and the cats are confined to the bedroom. The owner doesn’t want them running around the whole house and on top of that, the windows and doors aren’t cat proof, so they would make their way out to the street and get dirty, sick, or hurt. We can’t have that! Vet bills are too expensive, and I don’t want to have to worry about them! So, they are confined to our small bedroom for at least the next 3 months. Then we could go about finding another place, if need be.
Getting them over here wasn’t much of a problem, but at first I think they were under the impression we were abandoning them. When I let them out of their cage, the first thing they tried to do was run for the door every time it was opened. Since then, they’ve settled in and are a lot more relaxed.
What’s kicking their butt is the heat. In the last place we lived, I kept the air conditioner going most of the day, so they got used to a cool environment. Here, that’s not an option, as our bill is all inclusive and we have to respect the owner’s desire to only have the air conditioner on at night.
Some photos of the cats, suffering in the heat:
(Sushi and Dapper passed out on the bed.)
(Thumper, draped over the scratch post.)
In the evenings when we turn on the air conditioner, they’re not used to it and they get cold, especially little Thumper. She likes to sleep by our butts when we’re in bed, and when we’re not she gets under the blanket herself:
If you’re wondering who Sushi is, since I don’t think I’ve mentioned her before, she’s our new cat. One night about a month ago my wife and I were walking home from dinner at the hawker. We had seen her before and given her something to eat, so she remembered us. I suppose she was hungry, because when she saw us she came to us. Then she literally followed us all the way home, right into the elevator, and right into our house. So, she became part of our group. After she ate, she panicked at first when she realized there was no way for her to get back out, but now she likes living with us. She’s a bit funny though. As soon as the food bowl is empty she freaks out, stalking back and forth, meowing, and jumping up onto the furniture to peer out the window, as if she’s afraid there will never be food here again and she has to go out to hunt for more.
She’s definitely not going to be winning any beauty contests!
But she’s very sweet, and when we moved she made sure she was coming with us!
Sushi really knows how to relax!
You may have noticed that there are no pictures of Mr. Muggles here. I guess I never really blogged about it because it was so sad. In fact, that’s probably why I haven’t blogged about cats in a while.
Mr. Muggles got sick shortly after our return from the Philippines. We got up one morning and he was very … still, I guess. Not his usual playful self. When we checked him out he seemed very cool to the touch. The previous day I had noticed him throw up twice, but I didn’t think much of it, because cats do that sometimes. I decided to take him in to the vet. That afternoon, when I got him to the vet, I was told that they would keep him overnight, and that he should be fine.
Well, he wasn’t fine. We never saw him alive again after the photos above. The next day the vet called us and told us he died. I can’t help but feel that those bastards didn’t keep him warm enough, didn’t make sure he ate, and didn’t give him enough attention. We took him to the vet because I thought they could give him better care than I could, and I still think I could’ve kept him alive if I’d put in the effort. Instead, he’s gone. For their “services” they charged us 100 bucks, and then they had the nerve to ask for another 250 for a special cat cremation where we would receive his ashes in a jar. I told them they’d done quite enough, and we went and collected him later that night and took him to the SPCA. It was a bit unceremonious, but we felt the SPCA would be a bit more gentle and respectful of his remains, since it’s an animal welfare organization, and it was much more gentle on our wallets.
I can’t say I’m all that impressed with vets here as a whole. Every time I take a cat to the vet, I get charged a lot of money with little to no results. I think I’ll just start doing things myself, unless it’s something that requires surgery.
If you’re wondering about the title of the post, it has to do with how the house owner’s son pronounces the word. When he first heard we were moving in, and that we have cats, he got very excited, and as we brought each load of stuff into the house, he would run up and ask us, “Where your kets!?”
The boy has developed a real liking for our cats, and on days when he doesn’t have school, he sometimes spends the afternoon up here in our bedroom playing with them, which is fine with me. The cats seem to enjoy the attention as much as he enjoys playing with them.
He says he wants “kets” of his own, but his mother won’t allow it. I can understand that. Cats can be ludicrously expensive when you have to add in vet bills on top of regular maintenance bills (litter, food, etc). So, taking on a cat is a big investment.
So, our “kets” have a new friend, a new place to live, and they seem to be getting along fine. ^_^
Like I mentioned in the last post, having cats can be incredibly expensive, especially if they get sick or hurt and start incurring medical bills. So, you have to be careful about how many you adopt, even if you want to take in every single one you see on the street. As great as it sounds, you could fast find your wallet empty. We do our best to take care the cats we have now. It’s hard not to want to make sure they’re in perfect health when they’re this cute:
The newest affliction to hit my cats is a case of ear mites or ear fungus or something. I’m not entirely sure, but I know it must have come into the house with Sushi. That’s one of the bad things about bringing in strays. You have to give everyone a flea and tick bath (unless you’re using Frontline or a similar product on your other pets) and then you have to fix everything that’s wrong with him or her. Sushi has a bad cough, which has already cost us around 200 bucks in medications. Now I find that all of my cats are scratching at their ears.
I didn’t really notice it until Thumper started going nuts and scratching at her right ear for an excessively long time. When I checked, she had scratched her skin raw and was even bleeding. So, I broke out the ear drops. Applying the ear drops was a bit harder than I expected. Thumper kept trying to get away. Luckily, she’s still small and easy to control. It’s not that hard squirting it in, but keeping them from shaking their heads long enough for me to massage the base of the ear to work it in was a pain in the ass, to be honest. Sushi, who probably needs it the most, was the hardest to deal with. She’s bigger, stronger, and, unlike Thumper, not afraid to use her claws. I wound up having to practically sit on her and squish her between my legs to keep her in position for the application and massaging.
Neither cat was happy about it, but Thumper was especially pissed. She kept her ears lowered for hours afterwards:
By the way, all three cats love that red bed, but Thumper has more or less staked her claim on it.
Living in the US, I got accustomed to central air conditioning. Besides the fact that it’s generally cooler in the US than it is in Singapore, the idea of having your air conditioner on all day long is culturally acceptable in most parts of the country. The air conditioner is simply set to maintain a certain temperature. It’s a set and forget type of deal, and some even have timers that will automatically disable it during the hours when no one is in the house. When someone is in the house though, it’s on, and that’s just normal.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that the same air conditioning usage patterns aren’t only uncommon, but are seen as socially unacceptable, or at the least unusual or a waste of money, in Asia? Doesn’t make sense right? Especially since it’s so much hotter here. Besides that, houses in the US are built with insulation in mind. The buildings I’ve been in here in Singapore and in the Philippines seem to be plain cinder block and plaster, with no sort of insulation at all. That means the buildings build up heat during the day and then maintain it through the majority of the night. The place I’m living now stays at an average of 33 C (91.4 F) all day long, and all night long too. We’ve even come in at 1 AM, having left the window cracked all day, and seen that it still read 32 C on the temperature gauge on the AC remote.
A typical family in Singapore (based on what I’ve seen) will only turn on the air conditioner at night, after they’ve showered, when they’re about to get in bed. During the rest of the day and evening, they simply leave the windows open and use a lot of fans. Also, the air conditioners here aren’t central, with vents in each room. They’re either window mounted units, or they’re the type that mount outside and have smaller ‘control’ units inside the bedrooms.
That’s another thing I wanted to mention. The air conditioners in Singapore are typically only located in bedrooms. From what I’ve seen myself, and heard from my wife, it’s basically the same in the Philippines, if the family even owns an air conditioner at all. The difference there, though, is that most parts of the Philippines are a lot cooler than Singapore.
At my last place, I would run the air conditioner almost non-stop. I wasn’t acclimated to the weather here and it was just so damn hot all the time that it seemed impractical to open the windows. Plus, the air conditioner provided with the room was a piece of shit (see the photo below). Who wants to sit in their own house sweating like they’re in a sauna? Not to mention that high temperatures can’t be good for electronics.
Another thing to note is that I read on Jonna Wibelius blog, SHE in China, that in China they only turn on the air conditioners during certain seasons. It reminded me of the way they did it in schools in the US. I remember days when it was incredibly hot, but the scheduled day for the air conditioners to be turned on hadn’t arrived yet. The same with the heaters.
I’m constantly finding new things that amaze me about the differences between Asian and American culture, what is and isn’t considered socially acceptable, and the way people live here.
