Blog 8: 21st April 2014. A day with the stars

A day with the stars

We slept surprisingly well that night, considering the proximity to the noise of Lorong 18 nearby, and the air conditioning box sitting within the little jutting out bit of the room! We'd found some duvet covers folded in the brown cupboard just in front of the bathroom, heavens knows how long they'd been there or if they even got used by the hotel's normal clientelle!! Ben came to pick us up at half nine. Our hotel didn't have breakfast facilities, so he flagged down a cab to take us to FoodRepublic at a large, sparkly clean shopping mall called VivoCity. After we'd gone around the block due to finding a phone charger and box from a previous fare in the back seat, the driver took us out through the streets of Chinatown and back into the progressively cleaner and urbanised districts of Singapore, out past a huge corrugated metallic dome structure sticking out of the landscape to the right of the car as we passed down a dual carriageway; apparently this was to be a new stadium venue for Singapore, opening soon, complete with what seemed to be a massive sliding roof.

After the skyscrapers of the central business district passed us by, buildings like MayBank, SingTel, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, I think even Prudential scraping the underside of passing clouds of this overcast day, we entered the dockyard area of the island. Ben could have had a job here, he said, but eventually landed a job in the customer service and baggage handling side of Singapore Airport, for a company called dNata, I assumed a play on the Spanish "de nada", no problem. The dockyards rolled by for miles out of the left window, cranes and cargo containers stretching as far as you could see, from companies like Maersk and P&O dotted everywhere beyond the barriers. Above our dual carriageway was a four-lane expressway, supported by multiple concrete pillars, the occasional blue sign visible above as we turned corners.

We arrived at VivoCity's cab drop-off area, the driver producing a chipcard which let us through the entry barriers; Ben paid, despite my protesting otherwise, and we entered the white marble, brightly lit centre. It boasted many names that I recognised and made Emma want to spend the day there. We headed through the central atrium, complete with a light green domed roof, and pairs of escalators coming down from floors above. At this time of the morning there were only a few people milling around the place, even though all the shops were already open. Mostly Chinese, like the rest of Singapore, but a few darker skinned races and the odd white person still seen with their bright strapless tops/t-shirts and shorts!! Emma and I didn't look too different from them. Heading upstairs via the escalators we rounded a corner and saw a darker area of the mall, styled out of wood to have a classical appearance, and the sign FoodRepublic shone down at us in big white letters. The whole place was dedicated to foodstalls, and resembled a very neat version of an Asian food market; fresh vegetables and some meats were for sale along its edges; behind the stalls and via entryways placed strategically amongst them. Wooden seating areas greeted us, bamboo screens separating their sections; we could see numerous food stall fronts greeting us, with dozens of countries of origin advertising their selections of food; Malay stalls with Nasi Goreng, Japanese, Korean, Thai... The list goes on, the selections were endless!! Emma and I chose a healthy looking Japanese stall and had soup noodles each (I forget the name of the type of noodle); Ben chose a Korean place to buy more tasty-looking fried food, and we all sat down at a wooden bench with Pepsi, Ice Lemon Tea and Milo to drink, discussing the geography of France and the Channel Tunnel, of all things! It was a revelation to Ben that you could travel between London and Paris within 3 hours, with a 21 mile tunnel under the sea connecting the UK and continental Europe!

The plan for the day, now we had breakfasted, was to head to the resort island of Sentosa, just south of Singapore's main island, and head to Universal Studios which we had purchased tickets for the day before at the airport. Sentosa island, entirely designed for fun, is accessible by boat, car, bus, train, or cable car. It is a couple of miles long, and contains typical tourist attractions such as the aforementioned theme park, an underwater world aquarium, water park, casino, hotels and even a giant version of Singapore's iconic Merlion fountain; a cross between a mermaid and a lion, hence its name, bright white and standing fiercely and proudly, guarding the entrance to the main port of Singapore just in front of its city hall atop a stone plinth resembling waves of the sea.

We chose to travel to Sentosa by cablecar - how often do you get to do that? Not often, is the answer. Walking through the rest of VivoCity mall we stopped to get our photo taken with a manikin made entirely out of old Nokia mobile phones, at the Nokia shop - very novel! The walk to the cablecar took us out of VivoCity, along some commuter paths taking us past fountains, along covered walkways and across a covered road bridge, down some grey granite stairs and past an architecture firm showing off their next plans for London's Battersea Power Station area! As soon as we'd emerged outside, I looked up - you could see the cablecars soaring far overhead on their threadlike cables, moving smoothly through the overcast sky in the direction of Sentosa island to the south. We entered the ticket office, with its sliding glass doors held permanently open by quite a large queue formed orderly by Tensabarriers. The office made up part of the ground floor of a 50-storey office building whose top served as the cablecar station itself. For the more engineering types, the cables themselves ran on beyond the skyscraper to a further location on a hill to the North, also with cars running to and fro; the station on the skyscraper, whilst a terminus, was merely to elevate the cables - the hill station served as the anchor point for the massive strain required to keep the five-inch thick interwoven cables suspended high above the ground.

Mr Nokia man, a good use of old handsets!

The ride in the stealthy black, tinted-window cablecars cost S$26 return for an adult, and took about 10 minutes to complete. The views of the port and the islands of Singapore and Indonesia further away were stunning! You could see for miles in all directions, in the silence of the cablecar; We shared a car with a family of three, but there was plenty of room for us to get up and take photos from all the windows. Ben chose the moment to reveal his trepidation regarding heights! Oops. Suntec city was visible to the northeast; civilian planes taking off and landing at Changi and a military C130J doing circuits around Payar Lebar airbase also were visible. The road and rail link to Sentosa were visible below to the east, as were the blue-green waters of the port below us. Ships looked like models below, the only sign of them moving against the water being their wakes stretching out behind them, and the V-shaped ripples from their bow waves stretching out either side of them. As the car neared the green yet built-up island, we could see dolphins swimming in the aquarium pools below us, the pools of the water park partly filled with swimmers, and the numerous buildings of the casino, hotel and other complexes. A massive grey concrete Merlion stood proudly from the side of the hill the cablecar station ahead was anchored to, and to its right, directly ahead of us and beyond the station, a metal tower stood with a circular observation booth slowly spinning on its top. We "landed" with a shudder and a bump at the cablecar station, and the doors opened automatically as the car transferred from the main fast-moving cable onto the slow sprocket-driven mechanism of the station itself. We disembarked, and headed for the exit, past a giant cardboard digital SLR camera advertising Canon's product range. Typically, the way out was through the sparkling gift shop. We made a beeline for the Merlion statue, pausing to take shots on the way, and to help a pair of young Danish blonde damsels in distress take a photograph of themselves in front of the concrete Lion/Mermaid. Well, Ben and me couldn't exactly leave them in such a selfie-less state now could we! The Merlion was huge! You could pay to get in, take a lift to the top and stand within its mouth to look out across the bay. We opted not to do so, but instead walked around its north base, an elevated patio with metal handrails and glass barriers above water flowing around the base of the creature from various fountains around it, emulating the rough seas.

Our self-timer selfie in front of the Sentosa Merlion, guarding the bay beyond.

It started raining as we headed from the Merlion and into the main square of Sentosa. Luckily it was covered by a high glass/metal roof; two escalators led down into the bowels of the rectangular area, alongside which flowed two waterfalls, their source being a circular fountain at the top of the moving stairs. Two stone staircases led parallel to the bottom as well, though nobody was on these. The rain cascaded from the edges of the roof onto the floor below as we descended into the dry covered space, opening at the far end into huge water feature with shiny metallic spheres and fountains; shops, restaurants with "outside" seating, a hotel entrance and adverts for the aquarium stood to the left and right of us as we made our way down the escalators and walked through the piazza, turning right toward Universal Studios. Dashing across open ground and back under the awnings of shops lining the right side of the main entrance to Universal, we were stopped briefly by a Chinese marketing man asking how we'd gotten to Singapore, where we'd been, etc., and then made our way to the entrance. It was odd being in Singapore, everyone spoke perfect English; back in Malaysia I would say "come-see-ah" or "xie xie" to Chinese serving me, or "terima kasih" to Malays; in Singapore, you just said "thank you" - it felt odd to do otherwise.

The giant Universal globe slowly rotated on a cloud of ultrasonically generated atomized water, and despite the rain we just had to get several shots of us in front of it. Behind the globe were the metal ticket gates to the studios; above them, the tracks of the monorail connecting Sentosa to Singapore ran overhead, disappearing into a faux-rock tunnel. To the left side of the barriers stood a beige tower, with an open arch forming its middle and a terracotta roof, the tower bearing a "welcome to Universal Studios Singapore" sign. Staff in cartoon-style red coats with extravagant blazer tails and hats stood behind the gates, ready to deal with faulty tickets, and to greet the guests as they entered. At this time of the morning, it was still quiet, there were about 20 people in sight at the barriers as we approached, and crucially, there were no queues!

You just can't help but get the theme tune stuck in your head when you see the globe. Multi-billion dollar, global franchise, and we still braved the rain to get a pic with it!

Our three barcoded tickets afforded us access straight through the barriers, past the fairytale redcoats and into the covered main street of Universal. It was like a fairytale land in itself, a road down the middle of two rows of shopfronts, American double yellow lines down the middle of the black tarmac, a couple of brightly coloured carts selling sweets and drinks. A fairytale princess stood half-way down the road to the left, with a hoard of children lined up near her waiting to have their photograph taken by a man with "Photographer" written on his black polo shirt. We entered the gift shop first, to our left, because in the window grinning at us were a couple of huge minions! Our tickets gave us a discount if we spent over S$50 per transaction, and MasterCard transactions also gave us 10% off; we browsed the shop and came out with three bright yellow T-Shirts with the eyes, mouth and hair of the little critters from Despicable Me printed quite realistically across the front, though only later did we realise the discount was possible, so returned to the shop at the end of our visit to redeem it!

We walked from the shop, down the main street; Ben had been here several times before and had loved it every time, so despite the rain still falling, we hoped that this time would be no different than before! I won't go into much detail of the actual visit to Universal as it's as you might foresee a theme park to be, however I will say that the attractions we visited were very good fun, and suitable for all ages (where height limits did not apply!).

It had to happen. We found a giant panda!

The main rollercoaster was closed but the other attractions made up for this; we saw Shrek 4D in a huge cinema with moving chairs and spraying water to accompany the 3D glasses experience, took a ride on a boat through the shipwrecked cargo carrier of Madagascar and had an adventure with Alex the lion and friends, escaping from the dreaded Foosa; we took an adventure logflume ride through Jurassic Park in a circular dinghy, and got very wet when the dinosaurs escaped their containment area! We barely needed to queue at all for The Mummy's indoor rollercoaster, complete with backwards sheer drops and a huge real-flame grill roasting us alive :/ ! Transformers was an incredible ride, in a high-sided vehicle which doubled as a motion simulator as well as a small rollercoaster - albeit barely moving 20 yards throughout the whole 10 minute ride, we fought off the Decepticons with valour in our total-immersion full movement 4D experience. So realistic in fact that I braced for impact when we were simulated to be dropping vertically, face-first, from the top of a skyscraper! Steven Spielberg's "Sound and Lighting Set" was incredible, we witnessed first-hand the full force of a Category 5 hurricane from inside a New York boathouse, complete with crashing waves, disintegrating building and burning boats flung from the ceiling by the wind. We figured out how to spin our teacups ridiculously quickly when others were sitting being spun in theirs by the passive motion of the ride. We finished the experience with a ride in flying golf carts to outer space, to fight the spaghetti monster with the cast of Sesame Street. Thankfully we won! That was Emma's favourite ride I think.

Nearly all the Singapore family in one place

We left Universal Studios and Sentosa at about 6pm, the same way we'd come in, this time with a stealthy black cablecar pod all to ourselves to move around in freely and take photos of the 360° panorama around us through a hatch in the roof! We found our way back to VivoCity mall and, obeying the no eating or drinking rules, bought a disposable chip-ticket (no magnetic stripes, but still cardboard) and took the impeccably clean and modern purple North-East line train then the green East-West line train from NE1 Harbourfront station to NE3/EW16 Outram Park station, and from there to EW2 Tampines station, passing our Lorong 18 accommodation at EW9 Aljunied station and funnily, a station called EW4 Tanah Merah - a town not far from Kota Bharu in West Malaysia! Also on the EW line was a Dover and a Redhill - it's like they knew we were coming! Singapore's MRT system also boasted NS23 Somerset, CC24 Kent Ridge and EW20 Commonwealth stations, as a reminder of the British influence and quite recent involvement in this small island state's history.

Singapore (the bahasa word singapura means Lion City), according to Wikipedia, was founded in 1819 by the British man Sir Stamford Raffles, as an outpost for the East India Company, and gained British sovereignty in 1824; it was occupied by the Japanese during WWII, and in 1963 declared independence from the British Empire, uniting with other British Territories in the area to form the country of Malaysia but subsequently splitting off on its own as a result of the Malaysian refusal to recognise Chinese nationals as full citizens of the country. It is an island, separated from Peninsula (West) Malaysia by the Straits of Johor, and lies only 85 miles north of the equator. It is one of the smallest countries in the world, at only 30 miles wide by about 15 tall, yet has a population of nearly 6 milllion (England has about 55 million, but with over 180 times the area). Compare that to the Isle of Wight, 22 miles wide and 17 high yet with a population of 140,000! Singapore quickly grew into a very successful industrial and quaternary trading hub. Incidentally the Chinese in Malaysia - even those born there- due to the historical divide, do not receive the same rights as indigenous Malay people (the "bumiputra"), and as such though actively "discriminated" against even today, have gained from this split, as they have to work a damned sight harder and earn lots more money to get places in universities, schools and even get jobs and buy properties in Malaysia. The Chinese chose this fate however, during the formation of Malaysia as a sovereign state, opting to not integrate fully with the indigenous Malays. Arguably quite an oversight!

Map of the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit system (source)

The driverless and spotless Singapore MRT train, tells you which line you're on, where you are (flashing light), and the next stop, as well as which stations you've already been to.

Along with most of the passengers onboard we disembarked from the crowded train at Tampines station, and descending down its exit ramps found cousin Teong Seng waiting for us with mum's cousin, who being a generation above me I should have called Uncle (though I always call him by his name, Thien Sie (pronounced 10-C, as Emma pointed out), by force of habit, me being English and he not actually being my mother's brother, i.e., an uncle!). The Chinese traditionally don't call family members by their actual names, rather confusingly, instead referring to them by their positions within the family, and what side of the family they are on. Positions can be as simple as uncle and aunty, but can even include the birth-order, leading to complicated titles translating as 1st uncle on mother's side, or 4th aunty on dad's side; cousins also are referred to as older or younger, and I think this name also depends on the side of the family.

With a-Seng and Thien Sie the three of us headed toward the huge Tampines shopping mall, complete with bright purple neon logo looking down at us from across the road from the train station. The crossing from the station to the mall was covered by a roof supported on pillars specifically for the role of protecting commuters from the elements. To the right of the mall, across the road from the station, a temporary (we found out later) market had been set up within a white PTFE marquee, and had scores of people buzzing around it. The shopping centre, 4 storeys tall, had a ground-floor glass-fronted entrance, or could be accessed by a set of escalators conveniently positioned at this corner of the building opposite the station. We ascended them, and entered the building, which could have been any other shopping mall in the world, save for the melée of entirely black-haired shoppers bobbing along, doing their evening shopping and finding places to eat. Thien Sie had been advised by his daughter who would meet us later to go to a place on the 4th floor serving Penang food, called Penang Culture. It was a monochromatic themed restaurant, complete with chequered black and white floor tiles and greyscale photos of the streets of Penang Island (Pulau Pinang, off the north-west coast of Peninsula/West Malaysia). Emma and I let the experts do the ordering, and ate our very nice meals; Teong Seng accidentally ordered a kids meal - it arrived, complete with brightly coloured alphabet-themed plate!!! My second-cousin once-removed (i.e. my mum's cousin [Thien Sie]'s daughter) May Ling arrived from her work in the genetics laboratory at Singapore Hospital to greet us and have dinner; I hadn't seen her (or indeed her father) since the 1990's when we'd last visited Singapore! After dinner she took Emma around a food market set up on the green outside of Tampines mall opposite the station, while I waited with the boys and talked about planes! She and Em returned with some freshly squeezed sugar cane drink, green and unbelievably sweet, and some local deep-fried sweet delicacies, all of which were lovely even on top of our full stomachs from dinner!

May Ling, me and Emma in the "Penang Culture" restaurant at Tampines Mall.

We were thankful to uncle Thien Sie who paid for our lovely food, and even came back to our hotel with us to make sure we got there safely in the train and in the cab. I was grateful for a chat about aeroplanes and failure investigations, Sie was an engineer in the Royal Air Force (Singapore) and then Federal Express for many years, so had many stories of death-defying experiences with aeroplanes and thoughts on recent crash investigations. I wished I had more time to chat!

Blog 7: 20th April 2014. A successful failure

The wrong terminal

We had it planned down to a T! Breakfast at 5.30, check out at 6, bus at 6.30 to the terminal, check-in at 7 for our 8:20 flight. We'd then arrive in Perth, Western Australia, to spend two days in my uncle Paul's (dad's cousin) and his partner Ceri's winter house. They'd just left for the British summer, and said we could make use of the house and the car for the weekend, which was incredibly nice of them. We'd go to the beach, have a couple of meals by the riverside, and perhaps trek into the mountains just east of the town on the second day before heading back to Malaysia.

So what could possibly go wrong?!

Turns out, quite a lot. The breakfast was fine, we finished our cereal and toast with plenty of time to spare. The coach was there, waiting, with about a dozen Chinese tourists speaking in Mandarin complete with dozens of suitcases, waiting to board. We turned up, after checking out, with our yellow and black suitcases, complete with shower bobbles. Another break-neck ride to the terminal and we emerged from the lift onto floor 5 of the KLIA departure hall... to find no mention of AirAsia at all, let alone a check-in desk!

Panic.

Never mind, there must be a reason! I got the itinerary out; KLIA to Perth, fine - but wait! What's "LCCT" where it says "Terminal"? It dawned on me. The airport had two terminals - one for the posh airlines like Malaysia Airlines, and another rickety old converted cargo handling area called the LCCT, Low-Cost Carrier Terminal, for the cattle-class airlines of AirAsia, FireFly and Malindo Air. A quick look on Google Maps showed this terminal to be at the other end of the airport!

Bugger.

A plan formed. Seek help! Look for the big "i" in the sky. The lady at the information desk informed us that the bus ran every half hour, but took quite a long time to get there. Maybe a taxi would be better? "Thanks!" we said, darting off to where we knew the taxi booking desks were, at the exit of the Arrivals lounge on the 3rd Floor. Allowed through the security gates the wrong way by a helpful member of the police force (three pips on his shoulder, a sergeant, at least we could pull rank if anyone else tried to stop us), we made it to the taxi booking counters, and paid RM2 for the privilege of a taxi request slip, with the instruction of queueing outside the terminal building to nab the next available cab. Saying thanks, we rushed off downstairs, 2-ringgit slip in hand with "LCCT" written on it in small blue letters.

The entirety of India was waiting for a taxi when we found the rank downstairs. My heart stopped, this could be fatal. Luckily the cohort from the recently landed flight all seemed to be together, and the rank manager pounced at the opportunity to load the second cab in the queue with just Emma and me for the short trip to LCCT, so we were bundled in, and, confirming the destination, headed that way, Google Maps with GPS enabled just in case the driver, who didn't seem overly familiar with the destination, decided to take us the long-way around, or, even worse, the wrong way. We could do nothing but wait now, as the journey took us out of the main airport exit and then around three-quarters of its perimeter (why didn't they just build the extra one-quarter?!). On the way, sun just about poking through the trees after the early morning gloomy dusk, we could see planes taking off to the right - all AirAsia, just to rub it in, and countless rows of palm oil trees passing us by on the left. The map showed that we were approaching a familiar landmark, at least for sports fans - the Sepang International Formula One circuit, home of the Malaysian Grand Prix. We could see its white PTFE spiky-roofed grandstands in the distance above the treeline, behind the giant F1 Sepang Circuit logo made from flowers, angled toward the road. The grand prix had only been a couple of weeks ago - the driver didn't watch it. Traffic ahead of us started slowing for the end of the road; rounding the third and final right-hander, of this unexpected voyage, dead ahead of us lay the single-storey LCCT complex, complete with cargo terminal on the left, its brown sloping roof visible from a distance; bus terminal to the right, under the awnings, and taxi-rank dead ahead of us, where we were heading. RM35; I handed over RM50, and said keep the change. It was only an extra £3, and the guy looked delighted! Only afterwards did Emma say she'd caught him perving in the rear-view mirror a few times. I guess I will never know what it's like to be a western female in a Muslim country!

We raced into the terminal, Emma dismayed that I chose this time to document our travels with a video! One day we'll look back and laugh, I'm sure. We found the AirAsia check-in counters, 31 to 39, to the far left of the departure hall; typically, as far away as physically possible from where we'd entered! There were already queues of white people there, mostly with Australian accents; at least we were in the right place, and we began to breathe sighs of relief. AirAsia is so cheap they don't have people to check you in, instead automated machines where you scan your barcode; after queuing for a while we did this, and our luggage tags were printed for us too. Now at least we were some part of the process toward boarding our flight, leaving in less than an hour from now! Next step - baggage drop, queuing amidst Australian families returning home from holidays in Malaysia, or maybe transferring from other destinations. Finally, it was our turn to get to the check-in desk. We handed over our passports, and put the first piece of luggage on the weighing belt.

And then the world imploded.

"Of course, you are aware that Australia requires a visa for entry to the country" said the man, in a very calm voice. At this point, I wasn't sure if it was a statement, question or suggestion! "You cannot get in without a visa; we can't allow you to board the plane".

S**T!

He hadn't been to UEA's breaking bad news lectures, obviously. He'd checked our understanding, but the warning shot was definitely not fired, and I think the environment was arranged slightly wrong. Where was the box of tissues!?
"If you visit this website ... " (writing) "... you can apply, the process takes just over a week".
"Nah it's OK, don't bother", dejectedly.
"Jimmy! He's only trying to help", constructively.
He handed over the piece of paper with the website address. Shellshocked, we just said thanks, and trundled away, the only two people leaving the area with our suitcases still in tow. They had bobbles on and everything! We sat down to the side of the airport, on two spare chairs in a waiting area with loads of luggage and a big family sitting around. We'd never even considered needing a visa to enter Australia, one of Britain's closest sister countries, ex-commonwealth (like Malaysia) and even sharing our monarch! Emma apparently had mentioned it, but was satisfied by my logic amidst the rushing around of arranging everything else of "if Malaysia doesn't need one, then why should Australia?!". Unfortunately the logic was flawed, and all it would have taken was a Google search to be proved wrong. Instead, £260 down the drain, and a life experience learnt!

We had to come up with a plan there and then; we couldn't stay at the airport for three days! We had options, including go early to Kota Bharu, go back to KL, fly to other places in Malaysia, or I suggested going to Singapore, something we had to cut out of our original itinerary owing to time and money constraints. Now we had the time for something. I rang mum, as is logical in a situation of utter disaster; after the customary "you never looked into getting visas!?" that pretty much anybody would have asked in this situation, she said she'd call us back, after discussion with Aunty Buan about our contacts in Singapore.

Getting up to find a drink, Emma feeling a bit drained, we found a friendly yellow M on a red background, and took at seat outside McDonald's outside the main terminal building, underneath its overhanging ceiling not far from where we'd been dropped off, in a rush, earlier. Not intending to buy anything from there due to the queue inside, Emma questioned the ethics of sitting in the restaurant's waiting area. I admit I said "screw it, they can turf us out if they want to" and disappeared to buy us two cans of Sprite from a neighbouring food stall. Aunty Buan rang while I was up, and said that my cousin Ben could help us out if we went to Singapore, he lived there and had done for about 3 years, working at the airport in customer services. He'd received an award and airport-wide recognition last year for going well above and beyond the call of duty in helping out a stranded elderly passenger. Good lad.

Returning with the drinks, RM4 lighter, in time to hear the roar of two CFM turbofans of what was likely our plane taking off, we discussed Singapore, and used the airport's free WiFi to browse the website of the KTM, Malaysia's train network. Unfortunately the website was, for want of a better word, useless, and the e-booking system didn't work; we couldn't find out prices or times. At this time, Ben text'd, and we rang him. He suggested looking up cheap airlines to Singapore, including AirAsia, Tiger (QANTAS subsidiary) Malindo Air and FireFly (Malaysia Airlines subsidiary). Amazingly after visiting their various ticket desks and websites, and telephoning them, none of the airlines had any seats available to Singapore. Ben rang back a few minutes later - MAS had a flight going today at 1330 with seats - he'd book us two seats on it from his end, and we should get to the main terminal to pick up the tickets at our end ASAP.

YOLO

(I promised I'd never say YOLO again. Oops, there I go again!). We took the inter-terminal bus back to the main terminal. No need for a pervy cab driver this time, save ourselves RM50 - the bus cost RM5 for the pair of us! It took half an hour, its driver an old Malay man. We surmised he owned the bus, an old 50-seater coach with peeling paintwork and the writing KLIA--LCCT Transfers along its side and along the top of the windscreen. Traditional Indian music wailed out of the crackly loudspeaker, occasionally giving way to static hiss whenever we turned a corner or went over a bump particularly hard. We were two of about 20 people on board, scattered throughout, luggage in the racks just opposite us. The driver had to press the radio's fascia against the centre console a couple of times to kick it back into life and re-tune it. I could have sworn the steering wheel wasn't actually connected to the rack-and-pinion mechanism below; he turned it at least twice for any effect to be felt on the road, then rapidly in the other direction to prevent over-steering. This process was repeated many times as we clattered down the dual carriageway toward KLIA main terminal, more of a zig-zag than a drive by any stretch of the imagination! 

We rang Ben to let him know we were nearing the airport at our end; he was on the Singapore MRT to Singapore Changi Intl. too, but we looked like we were going to arrive before he did, so the plan changed to us buying the tickets there and then. Disembarking from the clattery old coach, definitely not MOT-worthy back home, we found our way to the 5th floor departure hall for the second time that day, and queued up at the MAS ticket counter to buy two singles to Singapore - we'd arrange the return flights once we arrived! £400 lighter, yes, pounds - RM2000 left my Amex card that day, we waited around at the airport, eating a nice light soup for lunch, before heading toward international departures and awaiting our Boeing 737-400, quite an old plane, to arrive and whisk us off to Singapore within 50 minutes of departure. We couldn't get a window seat thanks to our late booking, but we did get two together at the front of the plane, which is more than we could have asked for really.

The Island

An hour later, and having passed through customs, waiting to collect our baggage from carousel 36 we spotted my cousins Ben and Seng waving through the glass plated walls of the international arrivals lounge at Changi. It was great to see them again after so long! Introductions were made, hands shaken; Emma's name count of family to remember now up to 4. A-Seng had just come off a night-shift, but had come to the airport to see us, which we really appreciated; Ben, having had a late night at work too, had made similar effort for us having been awoken at 7am by Aunty Buan's call - for this we were also very grateful!! Makan was first on the list of to-do's, so we headed for McDonald's, and I had a Big Mac, Emma having 6 McNuggets. Home away from home to relax us from the stress less than 5 hours earlier. Grubbed up, and having called both parents to update them on our travels, we headed for the tourist attractions counter, and after browsing the selection of things to do, settled on a Night Safari and Universal Studios. Also available were things like Waterworld on the theme-park island of Sentosa (also where Universal Studios was), the Singapore Zoo (hosting the Night Safari in the daytime), and the Gardens By The Bay attraction which we'd eventually see in a couple of days anyway. Next task was to book us a hotel; the crazy money already spent limited our budget significantly - we chose a SG$60 per night hotel in Chinatown, or £15 per person per night. A far cry from the InterContinental hotel in KL, but this was more of a budget saving exercise! 

We had two nights planned in Singapore now. That left very little time to get things done. So, relaxing time over, we had a schedule to meet. The Night Safari opened at 7, and we only had a voucher - not a ticket. We attempted to slow time itself by moving quickly to the taxi booking desk at Terminal 2; it was rammed! Never mind. Staff member Ben had an idea - take the monorail to Terminal 1 - the queues are always shorter there, it was a domestic terminal! Great idea. Toward the terminal we trotted, cases in tow, and arrived at the monorail station. It was a platform separated from a set of tracks by 2 sets of glass doors, but only for the front carriage. Ben pointed out another set of glass doors across the other side of the tracks, this time for the rear carriage - this way, international transfer passengers could be shuttled with those who weren't already air-side, without having to mix with non-transferring (and non-security-checked) passengers. Quite a smart system! The two-carriage monorail train arrived, and we boarded, the doors closing behind us and the driverless train smoothly leaving the station. We glimpsed the main runway as it disappeared behind the terminal buildings, and saw the iconic inverted cone shape of Changi's green control tower, perched high upon a concrete cylinder. Terminal 3 came into view, then 1, as the train headed towards it. Also in view came the splendid, futuristic-looking airport Hilton hotel, a rectangular building with multicoloured glass panels coating its walls. The hotel itself was accessible by pathways from Terminal 1 and possibly other terminals. 

Disembarking from the monorail, we found that Terminal 1 was an incredibly nice building inside. It was softly lit with warm temperature lighting, and beyond some glass screens we saw the transfer lounge, complete with dozens of real trees! Ben said the airport had won an award for its design. I wasn't surprised. Rounding a corner into the main departures hall of the terminal, we couldn't help but notice an immense moving artwork, formed of a grid of hundreds of smoothly ascending and descending polished copper teardrops, each about 3" in diameter. They were suspended from the ceiling above by thin steel wire, and were moving in synchrony with each other, as a mass transitioning into waves, spheres, curves, a seemingly never-ending array of three-dimensional designs. Beyond a lift shaft, an identical set of copper teardrops was doing the same thing, though with different patterns, and occasionally synchronising with the first. Ben said this was a sculpture, entitled Kinetic Rain, and was formed of nearly 2000 motors, cables and teardrops, weighing in at several metric tonnes! While we stood admiring the structure, Ben shot off to find a taxi, and we joined him to jump into the waiting car outside the terminal building in the partially covered taxi rank. 

Getting somewhere

Singapore is clean. Impeccably clean. The roads are smooth, the paint is fresh. Taxis have an electronic voice which talks the amount of Singapore dollars your journey has cost you, and then says thank you for your custom. Electronic gantries over the spotless dual carriageways tell you about traffic information, like they do in the UK. Cars are not more than 5 years old, by decree of national government. Chewing gum is illegal, as is bringing it into the country and having it found on your person. Eating or drinking on the public transport system is an offence - anyone caught doing so pays a hefty fine of several thousand dollars (1 Singapore dollar equals 50p in English money - so not a small fine by any means). Smoking on the system is an even worse fine! And yet as we neared Chinatown, things got just slightly more dusty outside. There was no graffiti, and the roads were still smooth, but the hundreds of spotless high-rise buildings so typical of Singaporean residences due to the land prices slowly gave way to lower, sloping roofed buildings, two or three storeys high; their once bright paintwork fading and peeling, occasionally blackened around ventilation outlets of kitchen extractor fans. There were a few newspapers blowing around in the street, wheelie bins left out on display, a few patches of mud in the road and sand on the pavement. Hundreds of Chinese milled around the pavements, some in the middle of the road, some sitting on plastic chairs reading papers or eating at tables, in groups or on their own. Most signposts were bilingual - English with Chinese characters on them. Some displayed only Chinese. Buildings with wooden-supported corrugated iron awnings lined the road. This, we were told, was Chinatown, the Lorong 18 district of Singapore. The red light district. The dodgy bit of town where things happened and were brushed under the carpet. The bit of town that we'd opted to stay in, for £15 a night per person. Smart move!

The taxi dropped the four of us at the hotel, the "Fragrance Inn", and quickly drove away. We dragged the suitcases into the small lobby, and were greeted in perfect English by a young clerk and the neat, but sparse, faux-marble reception desk. After a bit of administration regarding our very recent online order, we bundled into the small lift to floor 3, and found our way into our room, 312, single keycard in hand. The marble of the reception desk quickly seemed a world away as the lift opened onto floor 3; an overwhelming sense of being back in the '70s hit us - everything was brown. Dark brown trim, light brown walls, light brown tiled floor, and an off-white ceiling complete with with pretzel-shaped fluorescent tubes contained within soft-effect frosted glass lampshades. 

We inserted the keycard into the swipe mechanism on the door; the green light flashed, a motor whirred, and we opened the door. Brown greeted us. Brown with peeling paint, a double bed with two pillows but no covers, and a 20" cathode-ray TV, off, strategically positioned just ahead of us on a jutting out bit of wall to prop the curtains open. The jutting out bit of wall had a door in it, for some reason. On top of a shelf running the length of the back wall to the right, behind the bed stood a small mirror, a kettle, and a selection of tea, coffee, sugar, and two bottles of mineral water. The four of us entered, shuffled around the side of the bed between it and the wall, brought in the suitcases and closed the door, immediately inserting the keycard into the card socket to switch on the power in the room, with a clunk. First job: Air con! Thankfully it was there. The unit on the wall at the end of the bed sprang to life; we put the cases underneath it. In the jutting out bit of wall suddenly emanated the low rumbling sound of an external air-con cube springing to life. That's what the cube was for! Opening the little door revealed the back end of a grey Philips air-con cube, and the outside world! Better keep that door shut. Walking back around the bed, and turning right just before the door was a brown wardrobe dead ahead, and to its right a folding plastic door leading to the bathroom. It was more of a wet room, no curtain or door around the shower, but a shower nevertheless. A soap dispenser attached to the wall of the shower provided soap and shower gel, the sink made a heck of a screech when you turned on the tap. But at least there was a shower, and a sitting toilet. I had half expected a squatting one, so typical of this part of the world. Teong Seng left us at this point, having to get back to his place to recuperate after his night shift, and get ready for the next one. Ben waited for us downstairs while we freshened up. We joined him shortly, and after leaving the hotel hailed another taxi to get to the Night Safari several miles away, via a bureau-de-change to switch our Australian dollars into Singaporean. 

As close to the wild as you can get

A pair of blue cat's eyes looked out at us from a black rectangle, the pupils dark, with a slit-like vertical reflection in each. The words Night Safari surrounding the rectangle above and below. The sign welcomed us to Singapore Zoo, at least the night safari part of it. We exited the cab, paying when the automatic voice spoke the amount to us. About £15. Heading past some grey statues of wild animals marking the entranceway, we headed for the hubbub and crowds we could see around the corner. And what a crowd! A brick courtyard was surrounded on all sides by wooden huts, including a couple of cafes, a restaurant, ticket counter, souvenir shop lit with ultraviolet light and selling glow-in-the-dark night safari memorabilia, and a huge stage, decorated like something straight out of The Flintstones. Flames licked skywards from lanterns lit. The sun was low in the sky but still shining its warm rays across the crowd. Two queues formed from the entranceway from which we'd arrived, and stretched off toward a large wooden hut with turnstyles and guards positioned within it. Ben disappeared off to convert our vouchers into entrance tickets. We stayed in the queue, saving our place for his return. When he did, I took the chance to pop for a loo break, and to buy some ice lemon tea for the three of us. Worth mentioning, the toilet block was equally jungle themed, in fact it was outside, with only a rudimentary wooden roof overhanging, and its walls were densely packed palm trees! 

As we waited in the queue, the tannoy announced the arrival of a group of authentic African performers onto the main stage in front of us, to the left of the entrance gates; gas-powered torches flared bright orange flames either side of the stage high into the twilight, and a thunderous drumbeat rang out, accompanied by a group of dancers wearing Lion King-style leopard-skin clothing performing a "traditional" dance on the main stage. The crowd cheered, camera flashes firing everywhere; every other person held their camera high into the air, squinting at its LCD display to catch a glimpse of the stage. They'd look at this footage later, remarking at how everyone was looking at their LCD displays and not the real thing. I looked at my LCD display, appreciating crowds and the dancers in 300x200 resolution as the queue started moving quite quickly toward the entrance turnstiles. 

Passing through the gates, we headed first for the Creatures of the Night auditorium. A half-hour show was showing every hour, we didn't know what to expect. Walking through the wooden-roof covered entryway we noted a zig-zagging bamboo-fenced path to our left, intended for crowd control, to form orderly queues for a road train which you could take around the park. Emerging from the under the roof, we saw to our right a group of big brown buffalo, complete with massive aerofoil-profile, half-turn twisted horns pointing vertically upwards. Intriguing! A few photos were taken. Onwards, to the Creatures of the Night show, advertised on many videoscreens we found ourselves passing beneath. We rounded a corner after a narrow tree-lined pathway, and found ourselves in a semicircular auditorium, with about 40 rows of concrete steps laid out concentrically in front of a crazy-paving snaking pathway, an s-shaped pond, and behind that, some reeds and a hut covered by palm trees and other vegetation. A huge black rope dangled above the seats, just out of reach. Two sets of stairs divided the seating area neatly into thirds. We took some seats just to the right near the top of the auditorium, and proceeded to spray lots of the insect repellent we'd brought with us to ward off the evening mosquitoes. Successfully asphyxiating ourselves and anyone downwind, we sat patiently as the auditorium began to fill, eventually to the brim, and waited for the show to start. 

Emma, me and Ben waiting for the show to start, in the auditorium at the Creatures of the Night show

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Creatures of the Night show!" a female voice rang out through the auditorium's PA system, with a very slight Asian accent to it. Out onto the crazy paving sprang a tanned young park assistant. Fifteen minutes to go before the show started, she introduced the show, the park; she then went to great efforts to ensure everybody with a flash camera had the flash turned off, even involving the audience, making us shout "OFF!" when she asked what the flash should be set to. She recited this message in Mandarin, Malay, Korean, Japanese and even a dialect of Indian, for the benefit of the dozens of nationalities present in the audience (discovered by a show of hands). Once the flash message had settled in, she introduced three early stars of the show, three very wise, very large, owls. Apparently they can turn their heads over 270°, but not quite the full 360° that it seemed many people in the audience assumed. She talked in great detail about the owls, and their trainers, before they received a round of applause and she announced the show proper about to start. By this time, the sun had set, and it was nearly pitch black.

The house lights went out. It went dark in the arena. A drumbeat sounded dramatic music. A zookeeper out of sight rattled the trees to the right and shouted "aargh!" making a few of the crowd at the front scream. Hah! The black rope hanging down started to move downwards. I saw movement from the corner of my eye, something moving on the rope. Suddenly two green spotlights lit up two huge mammals at either side of the arena, slowly making their way down the rope toward each other - Sloths! Haha, of all the things. They slowly shuffled their way along the rope, introduced by the female voice over the PA system, and beckoned down by some food waved in front of them, they slowly sat down, grabbed onto the rope and hung down, to be received via a big hug by two trainers waiting for them below on the stairs. A round of applause. Clever way to start the show! The spotlights shifted to the hut at the back of the main stage next; three animals appeared, their black heads and pointy ears visible, a vicious looking mouth and two big eyes peering out across the crowd. Hyenas, the laughing type. Scary looking, not quite as funny as you'd think, if you were at the receiving end! Next up were snakes. A few huge beasts, carried out onto the paving by their owners. An Australian lad volunteered to come out front and hold one, and he was left alone holding a snake far bigger than him as the staff pretended to go for a teabreak! The spectacle went on, a young Australian girl was forcibly volunteered by her mother to test the sense of smell of (I think) a meerkat by hiding a grape in one of her hands. Highly trained otters put on a show about recycling, swimming through the pond at the back before placing scattered litter into the correct one of three recycling bins on the stage. Rounds of applause all around, and the end of the show. No tigers, but that was probably a good thing! No camera flashes either, well done everyone.

The next stop was the road train, the zigzagging queue stretching out in front of us as we rejoined the wooden shelter after leaving the auditorium, beating most of the crowd thanks to being at the back. The queue moved quite quickly, trains arriving regularly, their 6 leopard-print orange carriages seating about 12 people each, pulled by a quiet "locomotive". Again, we were told not to use a flash, and indeed, to tell anyone else off nearby for using a flash. The commentator of the vehicle had a keen eye for animals, but an even keener eye for a flashbulb, be it a mobile phone LED or actual strobe. The train pulled away from the station, and headed out into the unlit pathways of the night safari, at times through dense woodland, buzzing with insects and screeching with the real sounds of the jungle. There were no doors to the carriages, themselves really only glorified golf-buggies; they were about 6" above the ground. Ben sat behind Emma and me, in about the 3rd carriage from the front. The tour took a good amount of time, and even in the dim light we could see the huge array of species Singapore Zoo had to offer on this night safari course. They were mostly free-roaming, even the buffalo; only the lions, elephants, hyenas and indeed the tiger were kept behind varying degrees of secure fencing. I couldn't help but think of Jurassic Park - what happens if the power fails to the electric fence! Didn't bear thinking about.

About an hour later, and a really good time with good commentary, we arrived back at the main shelter and called it a night. No souvenirs bought, they were very expensive; the souvenir shop thoroughly scoured for a bargain! Ben hailed a cab, and one arrived, to take us back to Lorong 18.

Emma and a concrete rhino; Rhinos are not to be confused with hippopotami. 

Before the night ended, we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant he'd been to a few times. I have no idea what we ate, but I do know it was very nice. Cantonese style sweet and sour for sure, and various combinations of rice and noodles with vegetables and meats thrown into the mix in the middle of the table. A pint of lager each, Coke Light for Emma, and Ben took us back to our hotel via the 7-Eleven for a couple of litres of mineral water.

Blog 5: 18th April 2014. Birds, spaceships and a gourmet buffet

Fending for ourselves

This day started without time targets, instead the rudimentary plan existed of venturing to the bird park behind the Islamic Art Gallery. We followed our usual regime of going down for breakfast, this time eating outside in the smoking area as a result of the inside being full. We had our usual fruit juice, tea, melon and roti canai, before returning upstairs to the newspaper hanging on our door handle. While getting ready to go out, we read the search for MH370, still grabbing front-page slots over a month on, and the sad news of the recent death of one of the leading figures of the Malaysian government's main opposition party, Dr Karpal Singh, during a car trip to Penang from KL yesterday. Wallet, keys, phone, passports and Emma's multicoloured rucksack in tow, we set off for Ampang Park station.

Looking at a travel map we'd picked up when we'd arrived in KL, we found we needed to take the Ampang Line LRT as far as KL Sentral station, i.e. the opposite direction to which we'd come to the hotel, and then take the Seremban to Rawang KTM line one stop to "Kuala Lumpur" station. The first leg of the journey was from the familiar Ampang Park station, just down the road from our hotel, and we soon arrived at KL Sentral. The KTM departed from a platform beneath the main station concourse, as opposed to the LRT which had arrived one level above it, so we took the escalators downwards after purchasing two return tickets, one of which via an automated machine, the other via a clerk owing to the machines not accepting Malaysia's new plastic (and partially transparent) bank notes! Whilst waiting on the lower platform for our KTM to arrive, we noticed that there would be one carriage of our train entirely reserved for women! Emma and I debated the rationale behind this, Emma taking the view that maybe the women wanted to be away from all the smelly men (quite reasonable); I wondered if the men did not want to share a carriage with women. We'll never know, but it was an interesting discovery and certainly not something that would be entertained by our non-discriminatory West!

No men allowed in this carriage!

The train pulled into the station, preceded by a gush of warm air and its headlights reflecting from the twin rails. It had a polished aluminium finish, with only a thin blue, white and red strip running along its length about a third of the way up. They resembled the trains of the New York metro or American Airlines jetliners. We boarded, and after a short while the train emerged into the grey light of the overcast day. Through the windows we could pick out some recognisable landmarks, and the tall buildings of the city centre in the distance. Standing up for our one-stop journey, we picked out an iconic skyscraper, a tall white monolith with classic Islamic design, in that there were no windows visible, merely a white concrete meshwork of intricate repeating, tesselating shapes stretching up the whole building. Nabila informed us later that this building was an administrative and retail facility, containing offices, shopping mall and post office; it was once one of KL's crowning jewels, that is before the developments of the twin towers had been completed. Next to come into view was the spiked white minaret of the national mosque, and behind it in the tree-covered hillside a huge grey netted area, beneath which many trees were visible - this, we knew, was the KL bird park, the direction in which we were heading. The train sometimes travelled parallel to, and sometimes crossed over many raised concrete highways, and whilst looking out over the concrete-lined channel of the River Klang (Sungai Klang), we arrived at our final destination, the station named Kuala Lumpur. 

Disembarking we headed for the exit, and were guided by a very helpful station assistant manning the barriers to walk over a footbridge, back along the opposite platform and leave the station via Door A (Pintu A), then find our way across the road and head right, before turning left to the bird park. This we duly did, and only once we had exited via Pintu A and left the station building behind did I realise that we had actually been inside the huge white building of the old train station that we had previously driven past! I had a feeling that Emma had already figured this out. We crossed the dual carriageway by walking to the nearest pedestrian crossing, albeit in the opposite direction in which we were heading; the crossing did not seem to respond to its giant silver button being pushed, but we crossed eventually without risking life or limb, and proceeded to walk back along the length of the station, outside of the KTM headquarters building, to the directions pointed out to us by the assistant. We rounded the corner at the end of the buildings and turned left, keeping the national mosque to our right and the law courts to our left. The tourist information signs pointed us up the hill behind the Islamic Art Gallery, so this is the direction we walked. I was intrigued by an artistic but totally useless handrail - a silver cylinder placed at waist-height, but distorted deliberately to look like some sort of huge steady-hand game! All in the name of art, I supposed. 

Kuala Lumpur old station, the white facade and its huge watchtower overlooking the street below.

The giant silver button of the pedestrian crossing! OK, so maybe a bit of forced perspective here...

You could tell we were tourists - there were no Malaysians silly enough to walk up a mile-long hill in the middle of the day! I couldn't believe how far it actually was to the bird park, often double-checking the signs, much to Emma's annoyance who just believed that we were going in the right direction. Of course, we were, and as we climbed the hill further the noise of the traffic behind us gradually abated, giving way to the high pitched electrifying hum of millions of insects in the trees ahead of us, and the occasional loud cawing of peacocks (as identified by Emma, thanks to those on the Bure site), along with other unidentifiable sounds perforating the air. 

The road snaked to the right, a long U-shape hugging the walls of a small valley between two tree-covered hills which joined in the middle. Seeing the entrance to KL's planetarium on the left hand side as we rounded another right-hander, we walked up past a Police Museum, complete with a Cessna 150 overhead-wing light aircraft ceremoniously perched on a metal post, and looking down the embankment to the museum to the right, saw a GPMG (general purpose machine gun) sitting on a gravelly platform, along with various items of the police force's history - more guns, some motorcycles, and a couple of cars, in front of a small beige concrete building, complete with a guard at the door armed with a pistol. The next item of interest was a memorial garden dedicated to a prominent national figure, though exactly who Tun Abdul Mazuk was we did not know. By this time we were nearing the bird park, its green netting clearly visible through the trees to our right, sloping away from us and appearing grey in the reflected light from the sky. We were amused by a yellow diamond warning sign for road users with a picture of a monkey on it!

Beware of the monkeys!

The netting spread out across Malaysia's, if not the world's, "largest covered free-flight walk-in aviary", with the Police museum in the foreground

After another ten minutes of walking, feet already starting to hurt, we rounded a final corner and spread out in front of us, we saw the low terracotta roof covering an outside waiting area and cafe seating area of the bird sanctuary, at the far end of a small car-park. Walking through the car park, noting old style red and white Proton Saga taxis lined up for fares by the cafe, we could see the ticket office ahead, complete with two glass windows for buying tickets. It was a small magnolia coloured hut under one end of the terracotta roof; the cafe building stood at the other end, and a bit beyond the whole structure stood what looked like a wooden house on stilts, but this actually turned out to be a restaurant called The Hornbill.

We bought two tickets for the bird park, at RM48 each (totalling about £20 for both of us), and received orange and white striped wristbands which would allow us through security. For citizens of Malaysia with a "MyKad" ID, it would cost RM25 each. Next to the ticket sales desk we noticed two off-road Segway-2's, and enquired as to how much it would cost and what a Segway tour would entail. We were however told that the cost would be yet another RM50 each, and lasting 15 minutes the ride would not be in the bird park but rather around its perimeter. Prohibitively expensive and, dare I say, pointless, we opted not to go for it. This wouldn't be our only chance to Segway, as it turned out.

After purchasing two chilled Ribena cartons from the cafe, we waved our wrist bands and said terima kasih to the guard at the gates, and prepared to step through a set of green wire-meshed metal gates, Emma with map of the park poised and multicoloured rucksack proudly worn on her front. Stepping through the first gate, Emma asked innocently "is this the wrong time to say I'm scared of birds?". I raised one eyebrow, then the other, then we continued onwards. The gate led us into an air-lock device, with a vertical screen formed of tightly-packed hanging chains down the middle of it, separating the front door from another green gate, and marking beginning of the aviary itself. We were immediately greeted by what looked like a couple of parakeets, certainly some sort of bird from the parrot family, perched on a nearby lamppost.

I won't go into details about the bird park, as you can well use your imagination to fill in the details, only I will say that it was indeed very big, had birds flying around all over the place, yet even more birds walking around completely tame to the humans sharing their land with them. There were a few enclosures for rarer, or maybe predatory species, such as some small eagles and a couple of huge hornbills. Peacocks roamed freely, occasionally showing off their plumage - including one which didn't seem to realise that he had no real tail feathers left of note. I felt he'd fallen off his perch somewhat, and was living in a life of abject denial. Poor guy! We stumbled across an enclosure with a huge long-necked bird, body the size of a small pony, which for some inexplicable lapse of communication between my occipital lobe and temporal lobes I promptly announced to Emma;
"Gosh, that's a big turkey!"
"Are you kidding Jimmy?"
"No, why?" - looking puzzled.
Emma raised her eyebrows. I realised the error of my ways, "Oh... It's an ostrich isn't it?"
"Er, yes". Taxi!

Emma next to a bird whose species shared a pond with the Flamingos. Apparently very rare now, this dopey looking long-legged creature had an exotic name that I can't remember anymore!

Nearing the end of our visit to the park, and having stopped for a rapidly-melting Cornetto we approached a final enclosure filled with pelicans and flamingoes, with a mock waterfall and large water feature, covered again, and with dozens of monkeys of all ages climbing over its netted roof. I felt that the Malaysian nationals might chuckle at obvious tourist types, paying all that money to get into a bird park yet spending half and hour watching their equivalent of squirrels! We left the bird park through its visitors shop, me buying a very stylish T-shirt as a memento, then headed back up the winding road toward the KL Planetarium.

The Planetarium's giant silver dome could be seen from some points as we walked up the tree-covered winding path leading up to it from the winding main road. The sign at the beginning of the path denoted "anda disini" - you are here, next to a big red arrow on a map of the path and complex. We climbed the narrow path, formed from interlocking bricks, and every now and then avoiding holes caused by erosion of the soils below from rain. A storm sewer ran parallel to the path, and we crossed a small bridge and climbed a flight of stairs to arrive at the top, the high-pitched singing insects of the bird sanctuary fading amidst the city sounds further away. To our right we noticed a building marked as being the headquarters of the Malaysian National Space Agency, a grey and white bungalow about 200m in length, with an overhanging entranceway and some black cars parked outside in its car park. A flagpole flew the flag of the agency over the unimposing building.

To the left, and up a gently sloping driveway, stood the white building of the planetarium complex. There were no signs as to where the pintu masuk might be, let alone whether it was open or not. There were no signs of life in either building, so far as we could see, though getting closer to the white planetarium and entering a tunnel beneath its belly we spotted what looked like a security lodge, with dozens of sandals and flip-flops left outside (Asian custom is to not wear any type of footwear indoors, except in hotels and shopping malls). A short but wide set of cement stairs led up to a set of glass doors and a reception desk within the short tunnel under the building; climbing the stairs I found both doors locked, but at about that time a man emerged from a side door carrying a mop and bucket - I asked where the entrance was, and he pointed, with his thumb pressed on top of fisted fingers with arm outstretched, toward the other end of the tunnel and up a flight of stairs, with a tiny blue signpost bearing the word "Masuk" next to it. Climbing the stairs we arrived on an enclosed courtyard, with a few benches and lampposts scattered throughout it. This was a pavement, but formed the roof of the tunnel below. One white tourist sat on a bench in the shade, on his mobile phone. Emma and I wandered around a bit, to the side of the building, trying to look for a door to get in, but found none; We eventually ventured further out into the courtyard and only then saw the glass entry doors and ticket office leading into the building. It cost nothing to get into the planetarium itself, but cost RM10 per person to view a "show" in the main auditorium, which happened on the hour every hour. We entered the darkened exhibition room, squeezing past scores of schoolgirls dressed in white tudongs, the Malaysian national school uniform consisting of flowing white robe and Muslim head dress. Their teacher beckoned them to allow us to pass them as we walked through past them and adjusted our eyes to the dim lighting inside.

The exhibition room was like a miniature version of the Science Museum's Launchpad, it had various hands-on exhibits such as make-your-own tornadoes, demonstration of why the atmosphere is blue, and how lightning is formed; It also had various information boards about celestial features like the constellations and galaxies. A blue neon-sign on the other side of the large black room announced an "Anti-Gravity Room". Emma and I perused the exhibits, having been told to listen out for the announcement for the next show in the main auditorium, situated at the back of the exhibition room as seen from the direction we had entered. To the right, next to the anti-gravity room, stood an odd feature - simply a room, one wall of which was painted with a photograph from the Mars landers, and its front wall had a metal-edged hole cut out of it. A title was placed over a large amount of headered text on this wall, Akhbar Planetarium Negara - National Planetarium News. The large text read No. 1 rakyat Malaysia pertama di Marikh. By the time I'd seen the front wall, Emma had ventured inside the room, and through the little window proclaimed,
"Jimmy, I don't see the point of this, what is it all about?!"
to which I replied "Stay there, let me take a photo".
As you can see below, it turned out that this was a great way to put Emma on the front page of the newspaper of the National Planetarium - by some strange twist of fate, and mostly unexpected as a result of a holiday to Malaysia, she became the first Malaysian on Mars!

With dubious preconceptions, I walked up to the anti-gravity room. My science background never serves me well when I'm presented with such blatant lies! BUT! What a surprise, when I went up to the entrance of the box. From the outside it looked nothing more than the size of a garden shed, with a slide, yes, a plastic blue slide, leading out from the lower right side as you looked at it, beneath the neon logo. What appeared to be the entrance was a darkened passageway, with a black step leading up to a low hole in the wall. One assumed that you had to crawl through this hole into a blue-hued featureless void beyond. Now actually intrigued, I climbed through and found myself in a control room of some kind, lit by an eerie blue light and with dials, buttons and flashing LEDs on the far wall. The thing was, though, is that this room was on an obvious tilt! At the time, still half-in, half-out, I hadn't thought anything of it. However, as soon as I climbed into the room, things got a bit weird!! I now understood why they called it an anti-gravity room. Being tilted at about 30° both longitudinally and axially, yet offering absolutely no visual clues inside as to this being the case, this little rectangular box very successfully confused the heck out of my vestibular system, and I felt instantly giddy, to the extent of taking a while to find my footing and ending up bashing into the lowest wall! I immediately crawled back out of the hatch to find Emma and tell her the exciting discovery, and in doing so spontaneously resumed my sense of balance. Emma dutifully arrived, unaware of what was in store for her arrival, and, like me, was instantly thrown off-kilter by the magic of the little blue room. It was even funnier to have someone else in the room with you - when at last we managed to balance, Em looked at me and said 

"Jim, do you have any idea how funny you look?"

Expecting this to be something do with my hair pointing up at random angles, or maybe a bit of cornetto left on my nose, I replied "Huh?"

"You're leaning at a crazy angle! Here, watch!" she let go of the hand-rail she was holding at the top of the room, and lo and behold, there she stood, perfectly balanced at 30° to the vertical! I tried to walk to reach her but ended up bouncing off the lower walls in the process. Well, we spent ages in that little room sending bottles rolling along a seemingly flat floor, and trying to stand on one leg. Eventually however, time marching inexorably on, and indeed our brains slowly getting used to the conflicting visual and cochlear information, we decided to call it quits and exited the room in the best way possible - the blue slide which had been so kindly provided for us, me filming as we went down and unfortunately thwacking the lens out of alignment of my dearest Casio Exilim camera, although thankfully this was fixable with a bit of elbow grease to a nearly normal working state until we got to Kota Bharu the week after.

After leaving the incredible super-anti-gravity chamber of dreams, its neon lights not nearly advertising its magical qualities enough, we heard the announcement over the tannoy that the show was about to start in the main auditorium, and headed in the direction of the entrance doors, handing over our show tickets to a waiting steward. Climbing a curving pathway, we emerged into the front of another spatially disorienting environment, this time a huge grey dome, with very few visual clues as to its alignment other than about 20 rows of seats gradually sloping away from us, their slope forming the base of the dome, putting it at a tilt. The auditorium was lit with red, green and blue soft uplights, converging to form a mass of white light at the apex of the tilted dome. In the centre of the seating stood a weird looking contraption, a silver ball with dozens of small lenses poking out of it. It looked like the product of conception between R2D2 and a colander. This of course was the total immersion 180x360° special projector. Our tickets told us to sit near the top of the auditorium, behind the projector, but as we were two of about 10 people in the whole place, we elected to take our seats slightly further away from the multi-faceted silver eye, and sat down to await the start of the show, not knowing what to expect.

To our surprise, the dulcet Scottish tones of David Tennant emerged from the room's surround sound system, introducing the show about the future of space and communication technology, by a UK educational foundation; and the wrap-around screen displayed incredible panoramic and total-immersion footage of Earth, mountains, telescope installations in Chile, and the James Webb space telescope, among other things. I was impressed by the show actually, though not a single mention was given to what I expected a planetarium would be like, i.e. the planets, and stars! Still, we were pleased to have experienced it, it was entertaining and educational!

We left the auditorium after the show via the doors marked Keluar, and descending through a non-air conditioned flight of tiled stairs, reemerged on the ground floor exhibition room. We followed signs to the loos (tandas), and via the tunnel leading us there, happened across a second exhibition room behind the auditorium, which contained a mock-up of a lab on the international space station, and a mock-up of a Russian Soyuz capsule (which Em climbed into and posed as an astronaut), along with a real space suit in a glass cage, and an out-of-order gyroscope type nausea-inducing device formed of three concentric rings which spin you in an X, Y and Z direction simultaneously, to really confuse your semicircular canals.

We left the planetarium, and although my sense of direction took us toward the station via an alternative route down the back of the planetarium, it failed to anticipate the lack of a viable pathway to do so, so after quite a long walk in the wrong direction down a hill, and spotting an iguana lazing its way across a deserted car park, we turned around and had to climb back to the planetarium before retracing our steps past the police museum and mosque, back to the old railway station. I suggested trying the pedestrian subway instead of walking to the end of the road to cross at the lights, to get to the station;

"Is it safe Jim?"

"Looks it, but I don't know. Though, that man has just come out on his own, and there's a woman just gone down. Looks safe enough"

"OK, fine, we'll see"

"In situations like this it's always wise to scout out anyone behind you, before you go into a tunnel - the only way to trap someone is by having a person at both ends!"

"Did you read that in an action book, Jimjim?"

We bought an ice lemon tea on the station platform, having crossed back over the footbridge to the KTM platform, noting that the mainline train to KL Sentral would stop here but not for another 90 minutes! We waited amongst growing crowds of commuters, and boarded the gleaming polished metal train to get back to KL Sentral station, and from there the LRT back to Ampang Park and the InterContinental Hotel.

Gourmet Makan

We had no plans this evening, other than a nice relaxing night in a posh hotel. After freshening up, we dressed in our best, and having made a reservation for two down in the buffet, headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant, the Serena Brasserie. Emma had found an offer on the hotel's intranet site, for two to eat there for about RM250, just under £40 in total - turning out to be a five-star four-course all-you-can-eat buffet for two, including fresh oysters, mussels, clams, smoked salmon, beautiful oriental cuisine, and the biggest selection of desserts I'd ever seen in my life. Delicious! Satisfactorily satiated, we retired to our room, and Emma napped occasionally through the The Dark Knight Rises showing on the Home Box Office (HBO) channel on the in-room Astro service. We'd be up early tomorrow for our final day in this beautiful Malaysian capital city.

The fish bar at The Serena Brasserie's buffet; Oysters plentiful, with fresh crab and as much shellfish as you could ever want.

Blog 6: 19th April 2014. Think of the children!

Think of the children!

This was to be our last full day in KL, and it all seemed to have gone so fast! We could have done with a few more days in the city, to really appreciate it and explore the things we never got to do, such as other main tourist attractions like the butterfly park, and visit the Mosque (wearing appropriate clothing), and venture further out to the acclaimed settlement of Putrajaya just outside the city limits, to the south, on the way to the airport. Putrajaya being the administrative capital of KL; its neighbouring town, Cyberjaya, being the ICT focus of the country. I wondered if this would house similar places as General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) that we have in Gloucester.

The day started with our typical melon, fruit, tea and roti canai, this time served outside owing to the restaurant being full. Nabila today was somehow squeezing us in amidst family errands and overseeing the setup of a stall for her company in a suburb of KL just outside its administrative limits, in the neighbouring state of Selangor. She arrived in her timely manner, calm as a cucumber yet surely a million and one things to tick off the to-do list that day! We drove the same way that Carolyn had taken us a couple of nights ago, toward Petaling Jaya (affectionately known as PJ), taking us up a dual carriageway leading over a hill to the east of the city, near Bukit Damansara where the new palace was.

Our first stop in PJ was a camera shop, in a shopping mall dedicated solely to selling technology - a type of mall we don't have in the UK, otherwise I'd be there all the time! After a while of searching around the shop however, and fervently urging on my mobile Internet connection to load Amazon.co.uk, I concluded that the price of camera items in Malaysia for my DSLR were actually more expensive than back home! So, we left the shop with only a couple of batteries to show for our efforts. Back in the grey 4x4, we battled the mid-morning PJ traffic toward our next destination, a facility whose basic concept I had certainly never heard of back home, and Emma was unsure even as to its viability in the UK. The destination was Jaya One, a shopping mall with a difference.

Nabila and her sister run a company called Robotics Learning (website). Its role is selling robotic products manufactured by the American corporation Vex, to schools, in the name of getting kids into programming, product design, development, and machinery. The company already employs several graduate staff, from programmers to website designers and assistants. The aim is to educate children by letting them design their own robot, be it a simple robotic grasping arm, or a fully fledged remote-controlled vehicle.

The School at Jaya One; Malaysia's first enrichment mall, for educating the people of tomorrow. The owner of The School is a philanthropist who has created this project from scratch.

Model of the Jaya One concept, including car park below and main facilities above.

Nabila and Emma with the Robotics Learning company logo, one of many enterprises given a place to retail and educate within Jaya One. The logo incidentally designed by the American penfriend of Nabila's sister Ilylia, and is entitled Roboticist. 

Where the Jaya One centre came in, was that this was an "Enrichment" Centre (which Nabila informs me meant furthering one's knowledge). It wasn't simply a shopping mall. Jaya One, also called "The School" is a huge complex, complete with car-park, situated at the heart of Petaling Jaya; when we were there many outlets were still under construction, but the ones which did exist included enterprises like the Yamaha music store, selling musical instruments but also providing musical tuition to children. The day we visited was an open-day, a promotional day, for the centre; there was loud music coming from a PA system installed on the second floor above where we'd come in, complete with hundreds of balloons displaying the centre's logo; a reception desk requiring visitors to fill out their details and email addresses to get in, in return for two vouchers (for candy floss and a drink), and a balloon on a stick. Some clever balloon artist had manufactured some giant balloon rabbits, complete with grass and flowers around them, which we posed against!

The giant balloon rabbits!

Before entering the main floor, we went to Nabila's shop, still under construction. She took us through the back door, and introduced us to her staff as we walked through. We entered the unit, a workman hammering together strips of tongue-and-groove laminate flooring. The room was a normal size for a shopping mall unit, over 10m long by 5m wide; cables hang from holes where electricity points would finally rest, and the front exit was still boarded up for final installation. A flight of stairs led up to a mezzanine level on the right from where we stood; Nabila informed us that parents would be able to sit up here, watching their children using computers below the mezzanine and programming their USB-compatible robots. We left the soon-to-be store, leaving the builders to do their work, and Nabila said thanks to them and greeted a colleague who was in charge of overseeing the construction.

We signed in, at reception, and received our vouchers, which we each took advantage of by having a huge ball of candyfloss each! Within the exhibition itself were numerous stalls selling and demonstrating their business, including craft workshops, a petting zoo with many rabbits of all different breeds running around, and of course Robotics Learning's stall, toward the left of the area. Nabila introduced us to a couple of her staff, wearing the company logo on promotional t-shirts, and showed us the products, robots and remote-controlled vehicles, all built from scratch, formed out of a metal frame similar to Meccano. Children of about 4-10 years old were milling around, holding the remote controllers in their hands and driving the footlong machines around our feet.

One of the robots, being operated by the children standing nearby!

We then went to a large area to the left of the exhibition floor, we were informed was dedicated to small marketeer startups, stalls selling all sorts from clothes to crafts to food, but run by people who wanted to make a start in the world of selling. We were introduced to Nabila's uncle running one such stall, and chatted a bit before going on to meet the rest of her family who were sitting in a coffee bar upstairs! A delicious cup of iced caramel coffee was slowly consumed whilst talking to Nabila's parents, her mum and her dad in his baseball cap, a successful businessman who played a big part in the Robotics Learning concept. Coffee finished, and in the middle of a tremendous thunderstorm outside, we left the centre, along with Ilylia, Nabila's sister, with the aim of dropping Emma and me at the KL Sentral train station as it was by now far beyond the time we had originally planned to get to the Concorde Inn KLIA for our second of three visits there.

Once in the car, however, the storm still raging outside the multistorey carpark, we decided to have a quick look at KL Central Marketplace, because we hadn't been there yet, and Emma fancied having a look around and seeing some of the clothes for sale there, particularly sarongs and batik items. The Central Marketplace has been open since 1888, according to the sign on its door, meaning its existence since the British ruled Malaya; it is a couple of minutes' walk from Jalan Petaling, i.e. the Chinatown district, and is a two-floor building, completely covered market. Its blue exterior houses a brightly coloured, sensory explosion of cultural diversity; on entering, we were greeted with an Indian-themed street to the left, selling traditional Indian clothing; straight ahead a central corridor had fruit and sweet stalls, and branching off this further eateries and outlets for fashion, materials, craft, jewellery, and anything you can imagine. We took a flight of dark wooden stairs up to the next level, and Emma browsed the scarves and sarongs of the various stalls, being gently questioned by Nabila and Ilylia - "which one do you like best?". Emma, after what I concluded was about an aeon of browsing, chose some form of garment which my limited knowledge of clothing identified as "clothing, potentially green", and to her delight, the two sisters purchased it for her!

Photobombed by a man holding up the doorway; Emma and me outside the entrance to KL Central Market, established 1888.

Downstairs now, in the marketplace, amidst the smells of the sweets and foods on sale, passing by several seating areas for cafes, the sisters suggested to us that we try durian sweets from a store covered wall-to-wall with a huge selection of sweets and snack food. Yes, DURIAN SWEETS! With trepidation, I went ahead; Emma refrained. To my surprise it was a lovely taste! It appears that durians get everywhere, and even in sweets and crisps. I'm not sure if there are durian flavoured drinks, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were. Leaving the marketplace, and getting back into the car, Emma remarked how delightful it was to now share a car with three people having had durian sweets, to her, smelling as if we'd all sat there and munched on a few onions!

The next and final stop for the four of us, well, two of us really, was the sprawling KL Sentral station complex, a few minutes drive away from the marketplace. On the way Nabila mentioned that she had to be at a wedding of a friend early the next day, not as late as she'd hoped but instead something like 9am! She was a responsible member of the wedding party, and her friend needed her presence! No rest this weekend for her.

After making a complete lap of the station to find the entrance, Emma and I said a very hearty and grateful farewell, sad to leave Nabila, her sister and a lovely city. We headed for the KLIA Ekspres train gates, and after boarding the train which eventually arrived, with about 30 others on the platform, we watched the lights and buildings of KL disappearing into the night behind us, and waited patiently, the familiar dramatic drumbeat of the videoscreen adverts playing in the background over the sound of the electric motors driving the train forwards to the south, past Putrajaya and the hills which we knew were there but couldn't be seen in the dark, and onwards toward the island of light that was KL International Airport. Inserting our purple chipcards into the gates at the end, we ascended to the 1st floor and descended the other side of the concourse to await the white Concorde Inn KLIA minibus at Door 3 in the covered vehicle drop off area of the main terminal building. Final day in KL over, we had a small snack at the bar after checking in, and headed off to bed after a single game of pool!