Initially written in my trusty notepad, 26/9/09 - AFL Grand Final day: St Kilda Saints (woo) vs. Geelong Cats (boo).
After hopping on the wrong tram and ending up half way to Brighton (once more proving my dizziness knows no bounds), I eventually arrived in the southern Melbourne suburb of St Kilda. The whole place was adorned with banners in the colours of its revered grand finalists in a sport nobody outside Australia neither knows nor cares about. They were everywhere from the obvious places such as the town hall, to the not so obvious like the Gatwick Hotel - a classical drug den masquerading as a boarding house for the homeless. Not quite sure what a non-classical drug den masquerading as a boarding house for the homeless looks like. Perhaps it’s the same but minus the Greek pillars. Which the Gatwick doesn’t have. So it is, in fact, more a non-classical drug den masquerading as a boarding house for the homeless. But that’s beside the point. A gigantic St Kilda flag (I’ve no idea how they afforded) covered almost the entire frontage of the cracked-up and shit-crumbled building - suck up whatever substance abuse double-entendres you can from this sentence. There’ll be no more. In any case, I thought awwwwww, bless their little syringe-concealing socks!
Anyhow, I was moving to St Kilda from my CBD-based hostel after making a last-minute booking the previous night. Having lived there for over six months back in 06/07 it really feels like my home in Australia. The hilarious local junkies and whores help create a warm and entrancing ambience - a comical rawness other places can only hope/despair at boasting. Not that the council boasts about it that much. But seriously, it’s a cool place, marred by decades of widespread social deprivation, now really pulling itself together and coming into it’s own (and not in a Josef Frizel kind of way). The new hostel I’m in - Habitat HQ - is shaping up to be one of the best I’ve ever stayed in. Ever. Not to jinx it, but it’s really great and pretty much the cheapest too. Even if it does look like the Big Brother house, outside and in. But there’s far less wankers. Which is a good thing.
Right, to refocus: AFL. Aussie Football League. At this point I put my pen down to concentrate on the TV. Although it was mostly a bunch of bodily-obsessed, thick-as-shit Aussie males clad in their mincing sleeveless tops, thumping each other and dampening many a middle-aged Sheila’s crotch, I actually got suckered in. The last 20 minutes were genuinely exciting. Well, a bit anyway. The scores were tied at about 133672 a piece with about 90 seconds to go. People were getting kicked in all over the field, the ball more itself just a spectator, but finally and bastardly, Geelong clinched it right before the final whistle. The Cats’ victory thus ensuring there’ll be trouble at the Gatwick tonight. It’s a shame it’s not quite as rough here as in the US. I’d love to witness a proper sports-based riot with burning cars, petrol bombs and good old-fashioned police brutality. It doesn’t help that cannabis in Melbourne is everything but legal. Someone told me if you’re smoking a joint in the street, the cops might confiscate it. If they can be bothered. Compared to the mandatory three-year prison sentence for possession of any quantity in Malaysia. The point being, everyone of typical rioting age is likely to be high, or starting on someone who is high, so there’s no way a full scale ruckus could ever break out - they’re just too stoned. See Bill Hicks for more on that semi-stolen observation.
Anyway, this one just petered off because I got distracted again. Who knows where it was going, but I stepped off and sulked for an hour in order to recover from my (albeit very temporary) sports-based disappointment.
The hostel remained awesome and I urge any St Kilda-bound traveller to stay there. They’ll also give me 20 cents if you mention my name. So do it!
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Friday, 6 November 2009
So What’s Hippaning?
I figured I’d break from my notepad-transcriptions for one entry to give a little update as to what’s happening in the here and now, rather than the pseudo real-time ramblings of several weeks ago. Which are sort-of working. But there’s notes for around another seven pieces, including what will be a sobering compilation of my cynical late-night, often intoxicated bar writings. It’ll either be a bit funny, or more likely just an embarrassing, horribly depressing read. Postal ballots will be distributed in preparation for its publication.
Anyway, today marks exactly one month of being in New Zealand, and things aren’t going too badly. I’ve got a huge room in a large, detached house in a suburb so cool they based New Zealand’s first primetime TV cartoon series there. Of course nobody outside the country has ever heard of Bro Town, but all you need to know is I’m Morningside 4 Life! And that it’s not actually that funny. YouTube it only if you’re terribly bored. My housemates are fantastic, and I feel genuinely lucky to have found them. One works in TV, another in radio, one is an amazing cook and makes dresses (saving me tons in new clothes), the other two a musician and a skate-boarding student. Or rather a student who skateboards. The former I can only imagine exist only at selected ex-polytechnics. Oh, we also have a cat called Bujha who’s convinced he’s human. And gay. He’s also black. But we’re a tolerant household, so love him anyway.
Next, I currently have 2.2 full-time jobs. The first interview I got within five days of being in Auckland. It was for an electronics store called Bond + Bond, akin to Dixons back in the UK. Alan, who does a brilliantly unintentional Murray from Flight of the Conchords with his morning meetings, offered me the job straight away, but took about two weeks to get the references sorted. Instead of just tapping my foot (although I did a lot of that with the huge amount of live music about the city) waiting for a start date, I kept handing out CVs and scored an interview with Electronics Boutique Games, a store re-branded like so many others in the UK donkey‘s years ago - New Zealand proudly lives the early 1990’s English dream. They called to offer me a job two days after I entered the murky world of commission-based consumer electronics. In my opinion - like the epileptic who takes his medicine - giving honest, untainted advice and working for commission just doesn’t fit. Plus being told to push unnecessary and overpriced shite on people who’ve already agreed to part with thousands of dollars for huge TVs or a MacBook Pro is simply awful. So selling video games to spoilt, irritating kids and chronic masturbators seemed like a better option. With no threat of personal gain on the line, I reckon it’ll be easier to give proper customer service. I say ‘reckon’ because were I 100% definitely taking it, I wouldn’t be starting for another week or so. Telling my boss at Bond + Bond was especially difficult. Quitting a job in sales is far, far harder than quitting the gym like in that well funny Friends episode. Ever the expert salesman, Alan attempted to sell my job back to me, not taking “Just fuck off and leave me alone!” for an answer. I handed over my letter regardless but said, as a favour I’d think on it some more. My final answer is due on Sunday. Gross misconduct would be a far easier way out. Drawing gigantic cocks in permanent marker on all the computer screens or being sick on a 46” Samsung Series 6 would probably do the trick. And in truth both options aren’t entirely off the table yet. I will keep you posted.
On a much, much brighter note, the other 0.2 full-time job constitutes one projection shift a week at an incredibly cute 2-screen independent art-house cinema called the Academy, situated underneath the central library in the city centre. Through the Wednesday Auckland Group CouchSurfing drinks I met Aaron, a loveable Kiwi master’s degree physicist and organiser of the weekly meet/greet/booze-up. We were talking jobs and upon mentioning my years of projectionism, he said “Hey, my housemate actually co-owns a small cinema here, you want me to arrange a meeting?” - Or something like that (Aaron if you ever read this, apologies for any misquoting. And also for saying you’re ‘lovable’ when ‘bastardly’ is clearly more appropriate).
“Hell yeah!”
“Consider it done.”
So to cut a long story medium, I met Gina and she didn’t hate me. She showed me their 35mm projector - a Kinoton FP30D - just one model below what I used back at Odeon. After a trail shift with her head projectionist, they both seemed dead keen to have me, and it goes without saying I was dead keen to accept. But I said it anyway. Sorry.
So, I’ll wrap this up now. One month in things are going pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. I’ve got my first stand-up set this Monday at Auckland’s dedicated comedy club, The Classic. It’s a sort of acts-organised-in-advance open mic night they do every week called Raw. Come, it‘s only $5 entry! If you leave the UK on Saturday, you might just make it. Although there’s a danger I may well use jokes you’ve all heard a billion (or 3) times before, so probably not that worth it.
Miss you all,
Andy/Andrew.
Anyway, today marks exactly one month of being in New Zealand, and things aren’t going too badly. I’ve got a huge room in a large, detached house in a suburb so cool they based New Zealand’s first primetime TV cartoon series there. Of course nobody outside the country has ever heard of Bro Town, but all you need to know is I’m Morningside 4 Life! And that it’s not actually that funny. YouTube it only if you’re terribly bored. My housemates are fantastic, and I feel genuinely lucky to have found them. One works in TV, another in radio, one is an amazing cook and makes dresses (saving me tons in new clothes), the other two a musician and a skate-boarding student. Or rather a student who skateboards. The former I can only imagine exist only at selected ex-polytechnics. Oh, we also have a cat called Bujha who’s convinced he’s human. And gay. He’s also black. But we’re a tolerant household, so love him anyway.
Next, I currently have 2.2 full-time jobs. The first interview I got within five days of being in Auckland. It was for an electronics store called Bond + Bond, akin to Dixons back in the UK. Alan, who does a brilliantly unintentional Murray from Flight of the Conchords with his morning meetings, offered me the job straight away, but took about two weeks to get the references sorted. Instead of just tapping my foot (although I did a lot of that with the huge amount of live music about the city) waiting for a start date, I kept handing out CVs and scored an interview with Electronics Boutique Games, a store re-branded like so many others in the UK donkey‘s years ago - New Zealand proudly lives the early 1990’s English dream. They called to offer me a job two days after I entered the murky world of commission-based consumer electronics. In my opinion - like the epileptic who takes his medicine - giving honest, untainted advice and working for commission just doesn’t fit. Plus being told to push unnecessary and overpriced shite on people who’ve already agreed to part with thousands of dollars for huge TVs or a MacBook Pro is simply awful. So selling video games to spoilt, irritating kids and chronic masturbators seemed like a better option. With no threat of personal gain on the line, I reckon it’ll be easier to give proper customer service. I say ‘reckon’ because were I 100% definitely taking it, I wouldn’t be starting for another week or so. Telling my boss at Bond + Bond was especially difficult. Quitting a job in sales is far, far harder than quitting the gym like in that well funny Friends episode. Ever the expert salesman, Alan attempted to sell my job back to me, not taking “Just fuck off and leave me alone!” for an answer. I handed over my letter regardless but said, as a favour I’d think on it some more. My final answer is due on Sunday. Gross misconduct would be a far easier way out. Drawing gigantic cocks in permanent marker on all the computer screens or being sick on a 46” Samsung Series 6 would probably do the trick. And in truth both options aren’t entirely off the table yet. I will keep you posted.
On a much, much brighter note, the other 0.2 full-time job constitutes one projection shift a week at an incredibly cute 2-screen independent art-house cinema called the Academy, situated underneath the central library in the city centre. Through the Wednesday Auckland Group CouchSurfing drinks I met Aaron, a loveable Kiwi master’s degree physicist and organiser of the weekly meet/greet/booze-up. We were talking jobs and upon mentioning my years of projectionism, he said “Hey, my housemate actually co-owns a small cinema here, you want me to arrange a meeting?” - Or something like that (Aaron if you ever read this, apologies for any misquoting. And also for saying you’re ‘lovable’ when ‘bastardly’ is clearly more appropriate).
“Hell yeah!”
“Consider it done.”
So to cut a long story medium, I met Gina and she didn’t hate me. She showed me their 35mm projector - a Kinoton FP30D - just one model below what I used back at Odeon. After a trail shift with her head projectionist, they both seemed dead keen to have me, and it goes without saying I was dead keen to accept. But I said it anyway. Sorry.
So, I’ll wrap this up now. One month in things are going pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. I’ve got my first stand-up set this Monday at Auckland’s dedicated comedy club, The Classic. It’s a sort of acts-organised-in-advance open mic night they do every week called Raw. Come, it‘s only $5 entry! If you leave the UK on Saturday, you might just make it. Although there’s a danger I may well use jokes you’ve all heard a billion (or 3) times before, so probably not that worth it.
Miss you all,
Andy/Andrew.
Saturday, 24 October 2009
(365) Days of {Spring and} Summer
From my notepad the day after I arrived in Melbourne, 25/9/09.
INT. RUNDOWN HOSTEL LAUNDERETTE, MELBOURNE CBD
It’s cold and raining hard outside. A man sits on a bench, one leg perched atop a washing machine filled with his thoroughly journey-fragranced clothing. A country bumpkin from somewhere south of Bristol & a similarly gormless Northern Irish lass make basic chit-chat about the usual travel topics (“How long‘ve ya been/got left here?”, “Where ya headed next/Where‘ve you flown in from?” etc, etc), but it quickly seems clear to the man they’re too young and naïve to make non-tiresome conversation. The spin cycle sends sensual mechanical ripples through his body, and he’s suddenly the female protagonist in a Mills and Boon novella. He giggles but quickly snaps out of it to refocus on his musings. The young ‘uns were too much work for someone as jetlagged as he. He’s thankful when they leave. Almost instantly they’re replaced by a pony-tailed Italian man who drops some damp cycling shorts in a dryer. He soon exits too. Like a toilet-tag-teaming group of lads in a bar, seconds later some other anonymous bloke enters to collect his still damp, lint-covered bundle of clothes. He verbally abuses the machine and also leaves. Meanwhile the man - probably in his early 20’s - just sits there, scribbling into a notepad, wondering if there’d ever existed a script with such a lengthy, convoluted and amateurish scene-setting intro. But he wasn’t even an amateur - more complete beginner. In fact he’d never even attempted to write a movie script before and hated the third person. Especially if that third person was a [insert racial group of your choosing] man. Which he wasn’t, because of course it was he, himself. He had to try really hard to bust my way out of it. If it had worked on this cold, rainy day in Melbourne, I might have called it (365) Days of {Spring and} Summer. And the last 300 words have quite obviously just been a poor attempt to shoehorn in that non-joke/not-even-topical-anymore movie reference. My apologies. Anyway, the shitty weather is probably just my punishment for banging on about escaping the cold before I left. “Ha!” I said, “No winter for me!” Spring time down under come September! It’s my fault. Gutted.
Anyway, there’s seven minutes of my wash cycle remaining, so I’ve got a bit of time to say anything I want. So yeah…. Laundry! Only six days into my trip too. But you’d be amazed how many clean clothes you’ll get through in a hot, sticky and generally stinky place like Kuala Lumpur. That plus two long-haul flights. I stayed up AGAIN last night, getting to bed around 4am, which on KL time was 2am. I’m getting there. Gradually. Having never had a long distance journey heading west to east around the world, this jet-lag thing is a relatively new experience. Back from San Francisco to London in March doesn’t really count because I was home and straight to bed. I could completely relax and not care about anything besides turning over from Jeremy Kyle or losing at Call of Duty 5 on XBox Live. Now I’ve got to worry about seeing things, meeting people, ensuring my stuff isn’t pinched and doing bloody laundry. Well not too bloody - I’ve yet to commit my first travel murder, just give me a few months. We’ll see what happens when Dane Cook tours New Zealand.
Anyway, this piece just got more dreary than a dull, rainy, very early spring day in Melbourne, where there‘s nothing to do besides cleaning clothes and writing about the experience. So that‘s that. Or this is that. Or that’s this. Delete as appropriate.
My clothes ended up being very clean and I didn’t require another wash until my first day in Auckland
INT. RUNDOWN HOSTEL LAUNDERETTE, MELBOURNE CBD
It’s cold and raining hard outside. A man sits on a bench, one leg perched atop a washing machine filled with his thoroughly journey-fragranced clothing. A country bumpkin from somewhere south of Bristol & a similarly gormless Northern Irish lass make basic chit-chat about the usual travel topics (“How long‘ve ya been/got left here?”, “Where ya headed next/Where‘ve you flown in from?” etc, etc), but it quickly seems clear to the man they’re too young and naïve to make non-tiresome conversation. The spin cycle sends sensual mechanical ripples through his body, and he’s suddenly the female protagonist in a Mills and Boon novella. He giggles but quickly snaps out of it to refocus on his musings. The young ‘uns were too much work for someone as jetlagged as he. He’s thankful when they leave. Almost instantly they’re replaced by a pony-tailed Italian man who drops some damp cycling shorts in a dryer. He soon exits too. Like a toilet-tag-teaming group of lads in a bar, seconds later some other anonymous bloke enters to collect his still damp, lint-covered bundle of clothes. He verbally abuses the machine and also leaves. Meanwhile the man - probably in his early 20’s - just sits there, scribbling into a notepad, wondering if there’d ever existed a script with such a lengthy, convoluted and amateurish scene-setting intro. But he wasn’t even an amateur - more complete beginner. In fact he’d never even attempted to write a movie script before and hated the third person. Especially if that third person was a [insert racial group of your choosing] man. Which he wasn’t, because of course it was he, himself. He had to try really hard to bust my way out of it. If it had worked on this cold, rainy day in Melbourne, I might have called it (365) Days of {Spring and} Summer. And the last 300 words have quite obviously just been a poor attempt to shoehorn in that non-joke/not-even-topical-anymore movie reference. My apologies. Anyway, the shitty weather is probably just my punishment for banging on about escaping the cold before I left. “Ha!” I said, “No winter for me!” Spring time down under come September! It’s my fault. Gutted.
Anyway, there’s seven minutes of my wash cycle remaining, so I’ve got a bit of time to say anything I want. So yeah…. Laundry! Only six days into my trip too. But you’d be amazed how many clean clothes you’ll get through in a hot, sticky and generally stinky place like Kuala Lumpur. That plus two long-haul flights. I stayed up AGAIN last night, getting to bed around 4am, which on KL time was 2am. I’m getting there. Gradually. Having never had a long distance journey heading west to east around the world, this jet-lag thing is a relatively new experience. Back from San Francisco to London in March doesn’t really count because I was home and straight to bed. I could completely relax and not care about anything besides turning over from Jeremy Kyle or losing at Call of Duty 5 on XBox Live. Now I’ve got to worry about seeing things, meeting people, ensuring my stuff isn’t pinched and doing bloody laundry. Well not too bloody - I’ve yet to commit my first travel murder, just give me a few months. We’ll see what happens when Dane Cook tours New Zealand.
Anyway, this piece just got more dreary than a dull, rainy, very early spring day in Melbourne, where there‘s nothing to do besides cleaning clothes and writing about the experience. So that‘s that. Or this is that. Or that’s this. Delete as appropriate.
My clothes ended up being very clean and I didn’t require another wash until my first day in Auckland
Saturday, 17 October 2009
Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne Made Easy
Transcribed from my little black book, 24/09/09
Well after a late one (yet again) last night, I woke around 9:45am with the intention of being all sorted and gone within half an hour. It didn’t quite work out that way. Having to repack my bag again and getting caught up with amusing goodbye chats (mostly with Andy and Joey), it was about 10:45am by the time I left The Reggae Guest House, heading out toward Seni Pensar station, (or Pensar Sani, Pansir Seni, or in fact any combination of those letters) for a quick one stop south to KL Sentral. I hopped on the SkyBus, my prepaid hour-long ride to the Low Cost Carrier Terminal at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Phew, let‘s say LCCT @ KIA if it comes up again, which it won’t. Fortunately I just caught the 11.05, which left me a solid 35 minutes before the check-in desk closed for the 1:40pm Air Asia flight to Melbourne. Either through bad signage or my general idiocy, I managed to wander into the wrong check-in area and spent about ten minutes pressing the shit out of touch screen incessantly informing me my passport wasn’t valid. A politely non-condescending Air Asia official pointed out I needed to head to the other side of the building. Staggeringly, I remembered his directions and lugged my bags over to one of the several large queues at the correct place with about 25 minutes before the cut-off. Fine. So long as people are queuing, surely they wouldn’t close on the dot? Would they? Fortunately, with 10 minutes left I reached the front and handed over my passport.
Click, click, type, type, click. The next thing I expected to hear was the tszzz, tszzz of a printer, then maybe a few more tszzz, tszzzs. Instead the lady enquired if I had my visa to travel to Australia. “What?! Surely I don’t need a visa. Really? A British citizen, visa, what?”
12.32pm.
“Sorry Sir, you’re not on the system as having a visa, so I can’t let you board,” her words the most courteous of daggers in my side.
Shit! Shit! Shit! “Is there anything I can do to board this plane? I have a flight to Auckland booked and a New Zealand Working Holiday Visa? I’m not the world’s least plausible fake-middle-England illegal immigrant, I promise!”
“You’ll have to talk to this guy here,” she said gesturing to the desk next to hers and a man talking at a supersonic rate into an ancient telephone. I thanked her and jumped into next door’s queue. Two people were ahead of me and it was 12:34. Three minutes seemed like three hours as I eventually reached the front, dejected and facing the prospect of spending more time in hot-and-sticky central. The man calmly informed me I could apply for a visa online. Casually scribbling down a web address on some scrap paper, he pointed me in the direction of the ‘Premier Lounge’ - my one shot at Internet-based salvation. I asked if there’s any possibility they’d keep the desk open for me - he said “Maybe ten minutes, but I can’t promise anything.”
Right. With that I hurried, but tried not to run - marking the automatic weapon wielding security personnel - to the other side of the terminal. The place was empty and I charged for the nearest computer. It turned out to be an ETA (Electronic Travel Authority) system, almost exactly the same as required for the United States, and as I recalled back in March my application for that was approved within fifteen minutes. So there was hope. Still there were ten or so pages of the web-form to fill in, and I was paranoid about mistyping. But at the same time, were I to take too long, they’d close the flight anyway, so it was all or nothing. Tap, tap, click. Tap, tap, tap, click, click. Multiplied by twenty. No criminal records, no HIV, no yellow fever, no previous names, no deportations, a promise not to work or overstay, and so on. Tap, tap, and a final click.
*Application accepted. Please note this doesn’t mean your application has been approved yet - we will let you know the outcome within 72 hours.*
I checked my email straight after. Nothing. Screw it, I had to move. Paying to twenty ringgits (£4!) for ten minutes access, I hurried again (not ran, remembering those automatic weapons) back to the desk, where I had to wait in line again. Meanwhile, at 12.52pm, the screens still said ‘Melbourne: Open’, but this clearly mattered little if the visa hadn’t gone through. Finally, a different lady asked for my passport. Gulping I handed it over. More tapping. A sort of tap, tap, click, click, tap sort of scenario, in case you’d forgotten. While the click-tap medley took place, I considered my options. I didn’t want to go back to Kuala Lumpur, so was thinking of hopping on a plane to somewhere random in Indonesia. Perhaps one of the small islands where I’d heard only crazy people live, just for a goof. Or maybe play it safe and head to Bali. The good thing was my New Zealand-bound flight out of Melbourne wasn’t for over a week and a half, so time was on my side.
But such contingencies were happily not required as the lovely lady behind the desk gave me the all-clear. Amazing! I was so elated I could have given her a pound. Maybe two! (That’s some big bucks in Malaysia!) That was meant as a joke, but on re-reading it seems more offensive and belittling - I really ought to edit it out. Not to worry, it’s on my Top Priority To Do List - just like getting through security was seconds after the tzssss tzssss-sounding device delivered my beautiful boarding pass. Of course making the flight wasn’t a done-deal until I got on the plane; turning up late at the gate could still prove disastrous. So inevitably the exit-passport-stamp lines were all massive and, as you’d expect, the one I chose was moving quickly until the guy immediately in front of me. It took five minutes of unconvincing behaviour to warrant the immigration clerk disappearing into a back room with a handful of papers. At this point I did what you should never normally do in a multiple-queuing environment: swap into to one that looks faster. I scanned for a new line with predominantly European-looking travellers - not on horribly racist grounds, but merely from what I’ve observed waiting at immigration in tons of airports all over the world. People from developing countries almost always face extra scrutiny, while a European Union, Canadian, Australian and (to a slightly lesser extent) American passport holder will almost always sail through. And those in my new line did. And so did I, not before glancing back to see my unfortunate former queuemates still stuck behind the shifty chap. They looked set for a long wait.
By this point the plane was boarding and I still hadn’t even joined one of the two 20-passenger long security lines. They were both moving at a snail’s pace. A severely disabled snail minus its wheelchair and carer. I’d already impatiently taken out my computer and removed my guaranteed-metal-detector-setting-off shoes, humming disgustingly after three days traipsing around the almost-equatorial Malaysian capital. Eventually I got through, had time for a quick pee (not that important to the story - or is it? Find out soon!) and by the time I’d found the gate, the final boarding call was being made. Double - no quadruple - hooray!
I think making the flight more than made up for missing the Bradford to London coach five days beforehand, and all the knock-on expense. Corduroy jacket, I forgive you. I hated to even think what not being on this flight (yep, I’m writing this two hours and seventeen minutes outside of Melbourne) would have cost. As another two hours are wiped from my life as I move from GMT +8 to GMT +10, I’m just glad it wasn’t £300 wiped from my bank account because of a stupid clerical oversight. Well that’s me done. I’m pooped. To end on the subject of poop - and by vague extension other bodily waste - the fact I peed after security wasn’t at all significant. Sorry for getting your hopes up.
Well after a late one (yet again) last night, I woke around 9:45am with the intention of being all sorted and gone within half an hour. It didn’t quite work out that way. Having to repack my bag again and getting caught up with amusing goodbye chats (mostly with Andy and Joey), it was about 10:45am by the time I left The Reggae Guest House, heading out toward Seni Pensar station, (or Pensar Sani, Pansir Seni, or in fact any combination of those letters) for a quick one stop south to KL Sentral. I hopped on the SkyBus, my prepaid hour-long ride to the Low Cost Carrier Terminal at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Phew, let‘s say LCCT @ KIA if it comes up again, which it won’t. Fortunately I just caught the 11.05, which left me a solid 35 minutes before the check-in desk closed for the 1:40pm Air Asia flight to Melbourne. Either through bad signage or my general idiocy, I managed to wander into the wrong check-in area and spent about ten minutes pressing the shit out of touch screen incessantly informing me my passport wasn’t valid. A politely non-condescending Air Asia official pointed out I needed to head to the other side of the building. Staggeringly, I remembered his directions and lugged my bags over to one of the several large queues at the correct place with about 25 minutes before the cut-off. Fine. So long as people are queuing, surely they wouldn’t close on the dot? Would they? Fortunately, with 10 minutes left I reached the front and handed over my passport.
Click, click, type, type, click. The next thing I expected to hear was the tszzz, tszzz of a printer, then maybe a few more tszzz, tszzzs. Instead the lady enquired if I had my visa to travel to Australia. “What?! Surely I don’t need a visa. Really? A British citizen, visa, what?”
12.32pm.
“Sorry Sir, you’re not on the system as having a visa, so I can’t let you board,” her words the most courteous of daggers in my side.
Shit! Shit! Shit! “Is there anything I can do to board this plane? I have a flight to Auckland booked and a New Zealand Working Holiday Visa? I’m not the world’s least plausible fake-middle-England illegal immigrant, I promise!”
“You’ll have to talk to this guy here,” she said gesturing to the desk next to hers and a man talking at a supersonic rate into an ancient telephone. I thanked her and jumped into next door’s queue. Two people were ahead of me and it was 12:34. Three minutes seemed like three hours as I eventually reached the front, dejected and facing the prospect of spending more time in hot-and-sticky central. The man calmly informed me I could apply for a visa online. Casually scribbling down a web address on some scrap paper, he pointed me in the direction of the ‘Premier Lounge’ - my one shot at Internet-based salvation. I asked if there’s any possibility they’d keep the desk open for me - he said “Maybe ten minutes, but I can’t promise anything.”
Right. With that I hurried, but tried not to run - marking the automatic weapon wielding security personnel - to the other side of the terminal. The place was empty and I charged for the nearest computer. It turned out to be an ETA (Electronic Travel Authority) system, almost exactly the same as required for the United States, and as I recalled back in March my application for that was approved within fifteen minutes. So there was hope. Still there were ten or so pages of the web-form to fill in, and I was paranoid about mistyping. But at the same time, were I to take too long, they’d close the flight anyway, so it was all or nothing. Tap, tap, click. Tap, tap, tap, click, click. Multiplied by twenty. No criminal records, no HIV, no yellow fever, no previous names, no deportations, a promise not to work or overstay, and so on. Tap, tap, and a final click.
*Application accepted. Please note this doesn’t mean your application has been approved yet - we will let you know the outcome within 72 hours.*
I checked my email straight after. Nothing. Screw it, I had to move. Paying to twenty ringgits (£4!) for ten minutes access, I hurried again (not ran, remembering those automatic weapons) back to the desk, where I had to wait in line again. Meanwhile, at 12.52pm, the screens still said ‘Melbourne: Open’, but this clearly mattered little if the visa hadn’t gone through. Finally, a different lady asked for my passport. Gulping I handed it over. More tapping. A sort of tap, tap, click, click, tap sort of scenario, in case you’d forgotten. While the click-tap medley took place, I considered my options. I didn’t want to go back to Kuala Lumpur, so was thinking of hopping on a plane to somewhere random in Indonesia. Perhaps one of the small islands where I’d heard only crazy people live, just for a goof. Or maybe play it safe and head to Bali. The good thing was my New Zealand-bound flight out of Melbourne wasn’t for over a week and a half, so time was on my side.
But such contingencies were happily not required as the lovely lady behind the desk gave me the all-clear. Amazing! I was so elated I could have given her a pound. Maybe two! (That’s some big bucks in Malaysia!) That was meant as a joke, but on re-reading it seems more offensive and belittling - I really ought to edit it out. Not to worry, it’s on my Top Priority To Do List - just like getting through security was seconds after the tzssss tzssss-sounding device delivered my beautiful boarding pass. Of course making the flight wasn’t a done-deal until I got on the plane; turning up late at the gate could still prove disastrous. So inevitably the exit-passport-stamp lines were all massive and, as you’d expect, the one I chose was moving quickly until the guy immediately in front of me. It took five minutes of unconvincing behaviour to warrant the immigration clerk disappearing into a back room with a handful of papers. At this point I did what you should never normally do in a multiple-queuing environment: swap into to one that looks faster. I scanned for a new line with predominantly European-looking travellers - not on horribly racist grounds, but merely from what I’ve observed waiting at immigration in tons of airports all over the world. People from developing countries almost always face extra scrutiny, while a European Union, Canadian, Australian and (to a slightly lesser extent) American passport holder will almost always sail through. And those in my new line did. And so did I, not before glancing back to see my unfortunate former queuemates still stuck behind the shifty chap. They looked set for a long wait.
By this point the plane was boarding and I still hadn’t even joined one of the two 20-passenger long security lines. They were both moving at a snail’s pace. A severely disabled snail minus its wheelchair and carer. I’d already impatiently taken out my computer and removed my guaranteed-metal-detector-setting-off shoes, humming disgustingly after three days traipsing around the almost-equatorial Malaysian capital. Eventually I got through, had time for a quick pee (not that important to the story - or is it? Find out soon!) and by the time I’d found the gate, the final boarding call was being made. Double - no quadruple - hooray!
I think making the flight more than made up for missing the Bradford to London coach five days beforehand, and all the knock-on expense. Corduroy jacket, I forgive you. I hated to even think what not being on this flight (yep, I’m writing this two hours and seventeen minutes outside of Melbourne) would have cost. As another two hours are wiped from my life as I move from GMT +8 to GMT +10, I’m just glad it wasn’t £300 wiped from my bank account because of a stupid clerical oversight. Well that’s me done. I’m pooped. To end on the subject of poop - and by vague extension other bodily waste - the fact I peed after security wasn’t at all significant. Sorry for getting your hopes up.
Saturday, 3 October 2009
A Little (Indian) Wander About Kuala Lumpur
Once more a pseudo-transcription from my notepad - 23/09/09
Corrrrrrrrr Love a duck! Well actually I couldn’t because there weren’t any at the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park. But I was ready and willing just for the Charlie Brooker/Ray Winstone reference (YouTube “Top 10 Cocks in Advertising” if you‘ve no idea). That’s the pre-emptive intro I started writing when visiting said bird park was on the agenda, minutes before realising I had in fact been there before - three years ago. And forgotten. I think. It’s the world’s largest enclosed aviary with hundreds of species of colourful flying stuff, all squawking their beaks off, and all relentlessly engaged in a turf (or rather branch) war over those comically crucial head-poopable perches. There’s also a butterfly enclosure housing some other colourful flying stuff too. If you’re lucky, they’ll land on you. If you’re luckier still, they’ll treat you to some gross, point-blank defecation. Worth checking out if you’ve a thing for pretty colours and being shat on, but once you’ve seen a load of foreign birds in an enclosure and failed to construct a half-decent tasteless joke, foregoing a second visit is probably best.
Just to set the scene, I‘m currently sat in McDonalds in the middle of Little India. It’s a part of town which, on my basic reconnaissance, seems the same size as KL’s other pint-sized ethnic locale to the south, Chinatown. In practically every Malaysian city you’ll find a Little India and a Chinatown because the country’s population is made up of three main groups, those being: (and you may have guessed the first two) Indian, Chinese and native Malay. But before I get bogged down with interesting facts, I’ll simply say you know you’re guaranteed to find great food in any neighbourhood partly named after a popular British takeaway. Except in Mini Kebabville. That’s just nasty. Now I sense your universal condemnation for being in such a bastardly western fast-food joint when I’m no doubt surrounded by wonderfully authentic Indian cuisine. Well just hold your blinkin’, judgemental horses, alright?! I’m here a) for dessert, having just eaten in one of the wonderfully authentic Indian cuisine outlets, and b) primarily because it’s air-conditioned and it’s hot as hell outside. So give me a break. Plus, of course c) it means I can abuse their flat writing surfaces (tables) to pen this rubbish for the benefit of you - one of the four people who’ll be actually reading this thing. Aaaaaand relax.
Rewind. Minus the crowd saying ’Bo’, and me shouting ’Selecta!’. Instead of the Bird Park, I decided to take the KL Rapid Transit train from my base in Chinatown to have a wander round a different part of the city. It’s been thus far very easy to be touristically lazy - I’ve been to the Petronas Towers (the tallest twin towers in the world, don‘tcha know), been up the Sky Tower (sort of a mini CN Tower in Toronto, but still very tall, offering great views and detailed info about what you‘re squinting at), went to most of the museums and historically/culturally significant places, the Bird Park (I think - coloured birds and poo were involved anyway) We even managed a trip to the Sunway Water Park - welcome relief to the KL climate of hot, sticky, hot, a bit hotter, and a bit stickier. So my routine of hanging about during the day, then drinking beer and eating out in the evening has been achievable relatively guilt-free. But waking up today after another late night, this time spent partly in the Beatles Bar for karaoke and partly in the Reggae Bar (just under my hostel) for leery guys and shockingly shit none-reggae-based music, I felt some exploring had to be done.
I’ll quickly mention last night while I’m sort of on the subject. I met an Aussie guy called Andy and his travel buddy Joey (from San Diego) in my dorm earlier that afternoon. They’d both been working aboard a surf boat - a concept that begged explanation to the none-surf-savvy pencil pusher like me. Apparently around 80km off the coast of Sumatra - Indonesia’s largest western island - lie a collection of much smaller, uninhabited islands that generate some toadally rad surf conditions and some most bodaciously patronising surfer language. Dude. As there’s no infrastructure, the only way to surf such surf is by heading out on an all-inclusive boat from the mainland that drops anchor nearby. For the princely sum of $2500 US you can book your place amongst the delightful company of Andy and Joey, for two weeks of surfing paradise. My immediate reaction was “Shit, that’s expensive - is it mostly yuppies?”
“No, you’d be surprised. And when you think of it, people pay a lot more for two weeks skiing in Europe, and they don’t include your food and booze,” or the sea-sickness. But it was a valid point, and really it sounded pretty damn cool. Unlike the temperature in here: the AC isn’t working any more. Perhaps the vents are clogged with fat, or other more solid attempts at derisory McDonald’s humour.
So it was with Andy, Joey and another Aussie (a girl called Miriam) I headed to the massively inaptly-named Beatles Bar, where such classic hits as Hotel California and Rock the Casbah were being slaughtered by try-hard locals and tourists alike. We had a fun time despite my feelings toward karaoke, as outlined on Improvised…..see the link below. Drinks and good conversation were had, and our two surfer friends had a go with varying degrees of success. Just as I’d built up enough courage (or blood-alcohol content) to blast out a bit of Backstreet Boys in the style of Trey Parker, time was called and my chance of fame and fortune on the Malaysian parody-karaoke scene was lost. So that was that. And I realise I’m completely a million miles from where I intended to be with this piece. I’ll re-focus, just give me sec.
Indian food. Yes. So I took the train a few stops north of Chinatown to Little India and ambled (Ha! Ambled!) around a bit. After going the most roundabout way to reach its centre, walking past tons of street vendors and shops pumping out some extreme bhangra tunage, I eventually found a signage-devoid eatery that had a locals to hapless tourist ratio of about 50:1. After I’d taken a seat. This, I reasoned was a good thing, because if locals ate there, they couldn’t be dishing out the bugs too heavily. Given, it was a buffet style setup with a people who only eat with their hands, so chances are any second helpings would cover the serving spoons with tons of gob and flu of swine. But I just threw caution to the sewer-filtered wind and went for it. It was bloody lovely too. The naan bread was particularly amazing. Baked fresh in a tandoor oven, they arrive on your plate at finger-burning temperatures and make Patak‘s attempts taste like bum. Mass-produced bum. A large plate of assorted veggie curries (chiefly potatoes and chickpeas), rice, two delicious naans and a can of Sprite set me back seven Ringgits, or about £1.40. Hardly got a smile the whole time, and half the staff appeared borderline hostile to my presence. But I was very gracious and didn’t ask for a knife and fork - not that I’d expected any within a square mile. Or a circular one for that matter. By the end, after lots of my smiles, nods and probably unfathomable contentment-indicating gestures, it felt like they’d sort-of warmed to me. Slightly. Which was nice.
So here I am now - initially in search of somewhere to wash the curry off my hands, I spied a McDonalds and figured I’d get dessert. Even if it did cost 75% of what was just paid for the Indian meal. But then they had to be put to the test. If the Malaysians couldn’t muster a half-decent chocolate Cornetto McFlurry, their country clearly has serious problems. Fortunately it was good and the staff in here have been patient enough to allow me to scribble all this down. And looking back over the last page, it really has all turned to barely legible scribbles. There: my irrelevant postscript for your pleasure. Look out for the imminent food-poisoning update - I’ll be detailing precisely how the lovely curry decided to leave my body soon.
I’ll spare the details - let’s just say it all went to plan. Hooray! My views on Karaoke: here. Oh, I also discovered there are a number of duck species in the KL Bird Park, so my intro failed miserably, unless you haven’t read this final sentence.
Corrrrrrrrr Love a duck! Well actually I couldn’t because there weren’t any at the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park. But I was ready and willing just for the Charlie Brooker/Ray Winstone reference (YouTube “Top 10 Cocks in Advertising” if you‘ve no idea). That’s the pre-emptive intro I started writing when visiting said bird park was on the agenda, minutes before realising I had in fact been there before - three years ago. And forgotten. I think. It’s the world’s largest enclosed aviary with hundreds of species of colourful flying stuff, all squawking their beaks off, and all relentlessly engaged in a turf (or rather branch) war over those comically crucial head-poopable perches. There’s also a butterfly enclosure housing some other colourful flying stuff too. If you’re lucky, they’ll land on you. If you’re luckier still, they’ll treat you to some gross, point-blank defecation. Worth checking out if you’ve a thing for pretty colours and being shat on, but once you’ve seen a load of foreign birds in an enclosure and failed to construct a half-decent tasteless joke, foregoing a second visit is probably best.
Just to set the scene, I‘m currently sat in McDonalds in the middle of Little India. It’s a part of town which, on my basic reconnaissance, seems the same size as KL’s other pint-sized ethnic locale to the south, Chinatown. In practically every Malaysian city you’ll find a Little India and a Chinatown because the country’s population is made up of three main groups, those being: (and you may have guessed the first two) Indian, Chinese and native Malay. But before I get bogged down with interesting facts, I’ll simply say you know you’re guaranteed to find great food in any neighbourhood partly named after a popular British takeaway. Except in Mini Kebabville. That’s just nasty. Now I sense your universal condemnation for being in such a bastardly western fast-food joint when I’m no doubt surrounded by wonderfully authentic Indian cuisine. Well just hold your blinkin’, judgemental horses, alright?! I’m here a) for dessert, having just eaten in one of the wonderfully authentic Indian cuisine outlets, and b) primarily because it’s air-conditioned and it’s hot as hell outside. So give me a break. Plus, of course c) it means I can abuse their flat writing surfaces (tables) to pen this rubbish for the benefit of you - one of the four people who’ll be actually reading this thing. Aaaaaand relax.
Rewind. Minus the crowd saying ’Bo’, and me shouting ’Selecta!’. Instead of the Bird Park, I decided to take the KL Rapid Transit train from my base in Chinatown to have a wander round a different part of the city. It’s been thus far very easy to be touristically lazy - I’ve been to the Petronas Towers (the tallest twin towers in the world, don‘tcha know), been up the Sky Tower (sort of a mini CN Tower in Toronto, but still very tall, offering great views and detailed info about what you‘re squinting at), went to most of the museums and historically/culturally significant places, the Bird Park (I think - coloured birds and poo were involved anyway) We even managed a trip to the Sunway Water Park - welcome relief to the KL climate of hot, sticky, hot, a bit hotter, and a bit stickier. So my routine of hanging about during the day, then drinking beer and eating out in the evening has been achievable relatively guilt-free. But waking up today after another late night, this time spent partly in the Beatles Bar for karaoke and partly in the Reggae Bar (just under my hostel) for leery guys and shockingly shit none-reggae-based music, I felt some exploring had to be done.
I’ll quickly mention last night while I’m sort of on the subject. I met an Aussie guy called Andy and his travel buddy Joey (from San Diego) in my dorm earlier that afternoon. They’d both been working aboard a surf boat - a concept that begged explanation to the none-surf-savvy pencil pusher like me. Apparently around 80km off the coast of Sumatra - Indonesia’s largest western island - lie a collection of much smaller, uninhabited islands that generate some toadally rad surf conditions and some most bodaciously patronising surfer language. Dude. As there’s no infrastructure, the only way to surf such surf is by heading out on an all-inclusive boat from the mainland that drops anchor nearby. For the princely sum of $2500 US you can book your place amongst the delightful company of Andy and Joey, for two weeks of surfing paradise. My immediate reaction was “Shit, that’s expensive - is it mostly yuppies?”
“No, you’d be surprised. And when you think of it, people pay a lot more for two weeks skiing in Europe, and they don’t include your food and booze,” or the sea-sickness. But it was a valid point, and really it sounded pretty damn cool. Unlike the temperature in here: the AC isn’t working any more. Perhaps the vents are clogged with fat, or other more solid attempts at derisory McDonald’s humour.
So it was with Andy, Joey and another Aussie (a girl called Miriam) I headed to the massively inaptly-named Beatles Bar, where such classic hits as Hotel California and Rock the Casbah were being slaughtered by try-hard locals and tourists alike. We had a fun time despite my feelings toward karaoke, as outlined on Improvised…..see the link below. Drinks and good conversation were had, and our two surfer friends had a go with varying degrees of success. Just as I’d built up enough courage (or blood-alcohol content) to blast out a bit of Backstreet Boys in the style of Trey Parker, time was called and my chance of fame and fortune on the Malaysian parody-karaoke scene was lost. So that was that. And I realise I’m completely a million miles from where I intended to be with this piece. I’ll re-focus, just give me sec.
Indian food. Yes. So I took the train a few stops north of Chinatown to Little India and ambled (Ha! Ambled!) around a bit. After going the most roundabout way to reach its centre, walking past tons of street vendors and shops pumping out some extreme bhangra tunage, I eventually found a signage-devoid eatery that had a locals to hapless tourist ratio of about 50:1. After I’d taken a seat. This, I reasoned was a good thing, because if locals ate there, they couldn’t be dishing out the bugs too heavily. Given, it was a buffet style setup with a people who only eat with their hands, so chances are any second helpings would cover the serving spoons with tons of gob and flu of swine. But I just threw caution to the sewer-filtered wind and went for it. It was bloody lovely too. The naan bread was particularly amazing. Baked fresh in a tandoor oven, they arrive on your plate at finger-burning temperatures and make Patak‘s attempts taste like bum. Mass-produced bum. A large plate of assorted veggie curries (chiefly potatoes and chickpeas), rice, two delicious naans and a can of Sprite set me back seven Ringgits, or about £1.40. Hardly got a smile the whole time, and half the staff appeared borderline hostile to my presence. But I was very gracious and didn’t ask for a knife and fork - not that I’d expected any within a square mile. Or a circular one for that matter. By the end, after lots of my smiles, nods and probably unfathomable contentment-indicating gestures, it felt like they’d sort-of warmed to me. Slightly. Which was nice.
So here I am now - initially in search of somewhere to wash the curry off my hands, I spied a McDonalds and figured I’d get dessert. Even if it did cost 75% of what was just paid for the Indian meal. But then they had to be put to the test. If the Malaysians couldn’t muster a half-decent chocolate Cornetto McFlurry, their country clearly has serious problems. Fortunately it was good and the staff in here have been patient enough to allow me to scribble all this down. And looking back over the last page, it really has all turned to barely legible scribbles. There: my irrelevant postscript for your pleasure. Look out for the imminent food-poisoning update - I’ll be detailing precisely how the lovely curry decided to leave my body soon.
I’ll spare the details - let’s just say it all went to plan. Hooray! My views on Karaoke: here. Oh, I also discovered there are a number of duck species in the KL Bird Park, so my intro failed miserably, unless you haven’t read this final sentence.
Monday, 28 September 2009
What a Day. Almost Exactly
Transcribed from my messy notepad while in transit. Well, an attempted transcription. 21/9/09
Well I’m a bit tired for masses of textual output right now - I’m currently about ninety minutes from Kuala Lumpur. It’s coming up to 7:20pm local time, I think that’s 11.20am GMT, but I’ve lost track. So that’s twenty hours travel time so far from Bradford yesterday. I’ll jump straight into the action by announcing my stupid jacket ended up costing me a little over £100. Well, I say ‘stupid jacket’ - more stupid me for a) leaving it at my mum’s house, meaning I had to head back there before the bus station, and b) for cutting it so damn fine in the first place. We (my mother insistent she be present to ‘see me off’) got to the bus station literally as the driver was pulling out (of the bay, not in that Catholic kind of way). Waving frantically at him to stop, he was having none of it. How rude: sticking to his schedule and not waiting for me. Asking at the National Express office for advice, the man frowned as he informed me it was the last London-bound coach of the day. However, he suggested by taxi I might be able to get to Leeds before its scheduled departure and just hop aboard. Worth a shot. My mum, of course, had to tag along too, no doubt reasoning a bit of highly-panicked tension would ease the situation. We were making good time, zooming through amber-going-on-red lights, weaving in and out of traffic, ploughing into the occasional cat and small child. The whole twenty minute scene became horribly reminiscent of a sequence from season 3 of 24, but not because of the dangerous driving. Anyone who’s seen it may remember a part where Jack and his squad are stealthily entering a building where they’re certain the baddy (I think his name is Saunders, but without Google I’m lost for verification…which is where transcribing something from a notepad gets tricky - do I look it up right now and cheat? Or do I add a pointless parenthesis-enclosed section to pad out my word count? Who knows? If you do, let me know. Anyway, he’s the Oxbridge bio weapon-toting English villain - now read back before the initial bracket to make sense of what comes after this one) is hold up, and you’re thinking ‘YES! He’s going down!’ as it flicks between shots of their advance toward the control room, and Saunders (I’m sticking with Saunders) being completely oblivious to his impending ass-whooping. The tension builds as they’re about to smash the shit out of the door just in the nick of time. ‘FREEZE SCUMBAGS!’ (or something equally PG-13) is roared as broken wood fragments and a million guys with guns fill the shot. A few seconds later comes the dreadful realisation that they’re at completely the wrong place. To use a Bradford term, they’d been skanked. With two minutes to spare, competent taxi driver man had dropped us at the train station, not the coach station as requested. I was so psyched and ready to run, we just paid the man and ran for the signpost-devoid terminal, so by the time we’d made our own dreadful realisation, he’d already buggered off £20 the richer. Argh! What a prick. Catching up with the coach was now off the table entirely, but ‘it’s okay,’ I thought - Jack always gets his man, eventually, even if he has to pay dearly for it. While forking out £83 for a train ticket to London isn’t quite the same as shooting your boss in the head, wrapping him up and DHLing the body to your local international bio-terrorist, it still stung.
So that was that. It was buy the ticket or not get down to Stansted for my flight at all. Spend £83 to not waste £188 + £45 + £120. It simply had to be done. Oh well, on the plus side, I’d arranged to meet my good friend Jodie initially at 8.30pm when the original bus from Bradford was due in to Victoria Coach Station. By train I’d got to London an hour and a half earlier, so we had more time to catch up. We met at Kings Cross where the decision was made (preventing any further bus-missings) to head directly to my Stansted-bound bus stop, THEN find a nearby drinkery. With my classic directional ineptitude on full display, it took a while to find, but fortunately BlackBerry #2 was on hand to provide some Google Maps action, after #1 had met a Buckley-esque watery end just days before. Combining that with my trusty £1.99 compass, we were able to navigate from Victoria tube station to our destination without too much trouble. It was great to see Jodie again, and the pub we found just across the road was the very aptly-named Traveller’s Inn. We caught up over a beer and a milkshake, a drink not enough pubs offer! Two hours of chin-wagging later (with a small about of talking between), we headed back over the road where, most kindly she watched over my stuff while I went to the toilet - that being the most irritating thing for solo traveller laden with bags. Forced to risk putting your stuff in a puddle of wee while cramming yourself into a tiny cubicle is no fun at all. Promising to keep in touch and send a load of poorly-worded postcards, the bus turned up and we said our goodbyes.
From then it was to be and hour and a few minutes to Stansted Airport. Only there was almost complete gridlock in central London around Marble Arch and we moved barely a hundred yards in forty minutes. Just as I was becoming increasingly certain that some Anti-Me-Getting-On-That-Flight conspiracy was afoot, our thoroughly irritated driver broke free of the traffic and started speeding toward Essex like a coked-up Chelmsford fuckwit after a night at Gatecrasher. We arrived around thirty minutes late, which was perfect timing for checking in and going through security. By 12.20 we were told to advance to our gate for what was to be Stansted’s final departure of the evening. Oh, this wasn’t before I was treated to an intimate body search by (unfortunately) an elderly man pushing 70, not one of those none-existent attractive twenty-somethings working in airport security. Tactfully sliding the back of his hand over my crotch either as the final search protocol or a ’thanks for not being a terrorist’ parting gesture, he waved me through with a cheeky smile.
Since then it’s all been very routine, including my subtle switch back to the present tense. Air Asia seems a very competent and good-value airline. The plane’s upholstery is a bit dated (think fabric from an early 1990’s DFS advert, or that couch dumped on your street) but the leg-room is definitely to western size, not, as I feared, a shorter oriental spec. In fact thinking about it, there’s a good few inches more than on Ryan Air, which means there’s at least a good few inches. And at the risk of sounding like a filthy pervert, the air hostesses are all very easy on the eye. It’s strange because it’s the exact team glamorously adorning the Air Asia front web page, so having been on the site tons of times in the last few weeks to do my obligatory post-purchase price check to (needlessly) assure myself I got a better deal, they all seem oddly familiar.
As this piece runs out of steam, and I out of time before landing, I’ll just note that this is the first plane journey I’ve taken where an entire day’s sunshine has passed me by. Travelling against the earth’s rotation the sun rose and set without about six hours, through which I mostly slept. It’s quite peculiar losing eight hours I know won’t be reclaimed for at least a year. Anyway, while I’ve still got a few minutes before my notepad joins the masses of electronic goods and their related plugs and wires in my rucksack, I’ll just quickly mention the passenger demographics - mind-cripplingly boring as that sounds. It’s a bit of a mixed bag really. Probably a 25/75 split between those (prejudicially, of course) I’d guess were Malaysian and the western-looking people. Of the westerners, It’s predominantly youngsters such as myself - I’d say between 18 and 35 mainly because that puts me far closer to the middle of the range than 18 to 30 would. There’s also something of a middle-aged and grey army onboard, but thankfully I won‘t be making any poor terror-themed jokes about dangerous old weapons. I’ll just say I think setting up such a ludicrously cheap route into the heart of south-east Asia (or at least a gigantic regional hub) has been a really shrewd move by Air Asia. Being able to fly London to Melbourne for £175 - which it would have been had I booked the KL flight a few months earlier - is mental whichever way you look at it. Unless you are a mental, in which case you’re probably a bit preoccupied with crazy stuff to care about the comparative cost of long-haul air travel. But honestly, comfort-wise, this is definitely equal to British Airways on a similarly long flight from San Francisco to Heathrow. All you’re missing is the free food, booze and on-demand video player - but how much does it really cost to get tanked up and fill a bag with Gregg’s pasties before you get on the plane? As for the entertainment, I’ve got an iPod, a book, a cheap notepad and (not so cheap) pen to keep me going.
Now, provided we don’t nosedive into the tarmac in four minutes time, cracking skulls and smashing the faces of everyone onboard, It’s been a long but pleasant journey. Thanks Air Asia! Now give me money for bigging you up to my four entire readers.
P.S. No, we didn’t all die.
Well I’m a bit tired for masses of textual output right now - I’m currently about ninety minutes from Kuala Lumpur. It’s coming up to 7:20pm local time, I think that’s 11.20am GMT, but I’ve lost track. So that’s twenty hours travel time so far from Bradford yesterday. I’ll jump straight into the action by announcing my stupid jacket ended up costing me a little over £100. Well, I say ‘stupid jacket’ - more stupid me for a) leaving it at my mum’s house, meaning I had to head back there before the bus station, and b) for cutting it so damn fine in the first place. We (my mother insistent she be present to ‘see me off’) got to the bus station literally as the driver was pulling out (of the bay, not in that Catholic kind of way). Waving frantically at him to stop, he was having none of it. How rude: sticking to his schedule and not waiting for me. Asking at the National Express office for advice, the man frowned as he informed me it was the last London-bound coach of the day. However, he suggested by taxi I might be able to get to Leeds before its scheduled departure and just hop aboard. Worth a shot. My mum, of course, had to tag along too, no doubt reasoning a bit of highly-panicked tension would ease the situation. We were making good time, zooming through amber-going-on-red lights, weaving in and out of traffic, ploughing into the occasional cat and small child. The whole twenty minute scene became horribly reminiscent of a sequence from season 3 of 24, but not because of the dangerous driving. Anyone who’s seen it may remember a part where Jack and his squad are stealthily entering a building where they’re certain the baddy (I think his name is Saunders, but without Google I’m lost for verification…which is where transcribing something from a notepad gets tricky - do I look it up right now and cheat? Or do I add a pointless parenthesis-enclosed section to pad out my word count? Who knows? If you do, let me know. Anyway, he’s the Oxbridge bio weapon-toting English villain - now read back before the initial bracket to make sense of what comes after this one) is hold up, and you’re thinking ‘YES! He’s going down!’ as it flicks between shots of their advance toward the control room, and Saunders (I’m sticking with Saunders) being completely oblivious to his impending ass-whooping. The tension builds as they’re about to smash the shit out of the door just in the nick of time. ‘FREEZE SCUMBAGS!’ (or something equally PG-13) is roared as broken wood fragments and a million guys with guns fill the shot. A few seconds later comes the dreadful realisation that they’re at completely the wrong place. To use a Bradford term, they’d been skanked. With two minutes to spare, competent taxi driver man had dropped us at the train station, not the coach station as requested. I was so psyched and ready to run, we just paid the man and ran for the signpost-devoid terminal, so by the time we’d made our own dreadful realisation, he’d already buggered off £20 the richer. Argh! What a prick. Catching up with the coach was now off the table entirely, but ‘it’s okay,’ I thought - Jack always gets his man, eventually, even if he has to pay dearly for it. While forking out £83 for a train ticket to London isn’t quite the same as shooting your boss in the head, wrapping him up and DHLing the body to your local international bio-terrorist, it still stung.
So that was that. It was buy the ticket or not get down to Stansted for my flight at all. Spend £83 to not waste £188 + £45 + £120. It simply had to be done. Oh well, on the plus side, I’d arranged to meet my good friend Jodie initially at 8.30pm when the original bus from Bradford was due in to Victoria Coach Station. By train I’d got to London an hour and a half earlier, so we had more time to catch up. We met at Kings Cross where the decision was made (preventing any further bus-missings) to head directly to my Stansted-bound bus stop, THEN find a nearby drinkery. With my classic directional ineptitude on full display, it took a while to find, but fortunately BlackBerry #2 was on hand to provide some Google Maps action, after #1 had met a Buckley-esque watery end just days before. Combining that with my trusty £1.99 compass, we were able to navigate from Victoria tube station to our destination without too much trouble. It was great to see Jodie again, and the pub we found just across the road was the very aptly-named Traveller’s Inn. We caught up over a beer and a milkshake, a drink not enough pubs offer! Two hours of chin-wagging later (with a small about of talking between), we headed back over the road where, most kindly she watched over my stuff while I went to the toilet - that being the most irritating thing for solo traveller laden with bags. Forced to risk putting your stuff in a puddle of wee while cramming yourself into a tiny cubicle is no fun at all. Promising to keep in touch and send a load of poorly-worded postcards, the bus turned up and we said our goodbyes.
From then it was to be and hour and a few minutes to Stansted Airport. Only there was almost complete gridlock in central London around Marble Arch and we moved barely a hundred yards in forty minutes. Just as I was becoming increasingly certain that some Anti-Me-Getting-On-That-Flight conspiracy was afoot, our thoroughly irritated driver broke free of the traffic and started speeding toward Essex like a coked-up Chelmsford fuckwit after a night at Gatecrasher. We arrived around thirty minutes late, which was perfect timing for checking in and going through security. By 12.20 we were told to advance to our gate for what was to be Stansted’s final departure of the evening. Oh, this wasn’t before I was treated to an intimate body search by (unfortunately) an elderly man pushing 70, not one of those none-existent attractive twenty-somethings working in airport security. Tactfully sliding the back of his hand over my crotch either as the final search protocol or a ’thanks for not being a terrorist’ parting gesture, he waved me through with a cheeky smile.
Since then it’s all been very routine, including my subtle switch back to the present tense. Air Asia seems a very competent and good-value airline. The plane’s upholstery is a bit dated (think fabric from an early 1990’s DFS advert, or that couch dumped on your street) but the leg-room is definitely to western size, not, as I feared, a shorter oriental spec. In fact thinking about it, there’s a good few inches more than on Ryan Air, which means there’s at least a good few inches. And at the risk of sounding like a filthy pervert, the air hostesses are all very easy on the eye. It’s strange because it’s the exact team glamorously adorning the Air Asia front web page, so having been on the site tons of times in the last few weeks to do my obligatory post-purchase price check to (needlessly) assure myself I got a better deal, they all seem oddly familiar.
As this piece runs out of steam, and I out of time before landing, I’ll just note that this is the first plane journey I’ve taken where an entire day’s sunshine has passed me by. Travelling against the earth’s rotation the sun rose and set without about six hours, through which I mostly slept. It’s quite peculiar losing eight hours I know won’t be reclaimed for at least a year. Anyway, while I’ve still got a few minutes before my notepad joins the masses of electronic goods and their related plugs and wires in my rucksack, I’ll just quickly mention the passenger demographics - mind-cripplingly boring as that sounds. It’s a bit of a mixed bag really. Probably a 25/75 split between those (prejudicially, of course) I’d guess were Malaysian and the western-looking people. Of the westerners, It’s predominantly youngsters such as myself - I’d say between 18 and 35 mainly because that puts me far closer to the middle of the range than 18 to 30 would. There’s also something of a middle-aged and grey army onboard, but thankfully I won‘t be making any poor terror-themed jokes about dangerous old weapons. I’ll just say I think setting up such a ludicrously cheap route into the heart of south-east Asia (or at least a gigantic regional hub) has been a really shrewd move by Air Asia. Being able to fly London to Melbourne for £175 - which it would have been had I booked the KL flight a few months earlier - is mental whichever way you look at it. Unless you are a mental, in which case you’re probably a bit preoccupied with crazy stuff to care about the comparative cost of long-haul air travel. But honestly, comfort-wise, this is definitely equal to British Airways on a similarly long flight from San Francisco to Heathrow. All you’re missing is the free food, booze and on-demand video player - but how much does it really cost to get tanked up and fill a bag with Gregg’s pasties before you get on the plane? As for the entertainment, I’ve got an iPod, a book, a cheap notepad and (not so cheap) pen to keep me going.
Now, provided we don’t nosedive into the tarmac in four minutes time, cracking skulls and smashing the faces of everyone onboard, It’s been a long but pleasant journey. Thanks Air Asia! Now give me money for bigging you up to my four entire readers.
P.S. No, we didn’t all die.
Friday, 25 September 2009
A Bit On Norway.
Oslo ain’t cheap. But don’t let any Norwegians hear you say that! Before heading there I read that any comments of such a nature could be construed as an attack at their country’s economic prowess - so don’t do it. Vocalising your disdain for whaling or other morally-questionable professions could get you in a similarly awkward situation, although they’d probably talk you round so succinctly, you’d be fantasying about clubbing baby seals in your sleep. See, they’re a proud, practical, and intelligent people, most of whom speak our mother tongue better and with more eloquence than fifteen of your average fifteen year-old mothers in Britain. Put together. Actually, that doesn’t sound eloquent at all, more thick and gobby. But suffice it to say they’ve got some smarts, and they’ll happily argue with a less-informed tourist should you be comparatively thick and gobby enough. So, how expensive is it? Well a pint will set you back about £7, a McDonalds meal around £12 - Space Raiders, £16.50 a bag. Na, just kidding - not even Scandinavians would pay over 15p for such a scuzzy pickled-onion-flavoured corn snack. As much as my friend and I had decided not to keep banging on about price differences between England and Norway, it was impossible. I tapped her on the shoulder whenever the most humdrum of supermarket products was three times the price “Holy shit! Uncle Ben‘s is five quid a jar!” She’d pull on my sleeve whenever something cost almost the same “Ooooh, toilet duck is only fifty pence more than Tescos…I wonder why?” After which we’d exchange complex theories about the potential reasons. Perhaps Norwegians don’t poo so often, or scoffing whales make for cleaner poos, or maybe it’s just subsidised by a government paranoid about poo-stained toilet bowls.
So Oslo. It is a rich city, not just economically, but also culturally and, surprisingly to me, ethnically. I’m assuming all other ignoramuses like me considered Scandinavia to be whiter-than-than-white. Cities the Third Reich would fill their pants over - right before they realised hating everyone else on the planet wasn‘t their thing. However, wandering around the Norwegian capital there’s seemingly hundreds of Pakistani and Indian restaurants, plus a ton of Vietnamese, Turkish and Polish businesses - I understand there’s also a large Swedish and Dane contingent, but then Scands all look the same, don‘t they? Sorry, that was a poor attempt at racism. Nick Griffin would not be proud. From the tiny snapshots I observed, everyone seemed to get along swimmingly.
Although Norwegians (very generally) have a reputation for their direct, almost to the point of rudeness (well if you didn’t know already, you do now - so spread it around so I‘m more justified in saying it), I found the vast majority of Oslo(nian?) folk to be warm and helpful - especially the unlikely middle-aged man in the tourist information centre who noticed my British Sea Power t-shirt and gave me a thumbs up. Bumbling up to several locals while slightly lost hiking near Sognsvann lake - very picturesque and well worth the short train ride to the north - in their perfect English they were happy to point us in the right direction, right direct as it may have been. They’re also not prudish. There’s more naked statues in Oslo than there are euphemisms for nakedness. They mainly congregate in the Vigeland Sculpture Park, tucked inside Frogner Park a little out of the city centre. Not that I’m ripping any of this off Wikipedia, but there’s 212 in the buff, completely starkers, bare-skinned, totally bollock (or equivalent lady parts) naked, bare-skinned, nude figures - and that’s me out of synonym ideas. They display an array of human emotions, ranging from gut-wrenching sadness, to heart-warming loveliness, with some homoerotic and just plain weird thrown in between. In fact, they‘re mostly just homoerotic and weird. When guys aren’t just standing and staring at each other’s genitals, they’re wrestling (while staring at each other’s genitals) or simply striking a pose gayer than Mr Gay UK (while staring at their own genitals), they’re trying desperately to shake off a tiny ninja baby attack, the target of which I can only assume is genital-related. The park’s centrepiece, however, is genuinely impressive: a 30ft (or so) granite column made entirely of intertwined figures, their mass embrace is actually quite moving - in my view, a must-see for anyone visiting the city. If you’re a bit of a perv, it’s even better.
Before this just peters off into a condensed list of other Oslo attractions worth a visit, I’ll write a follow-up at some point, where I’ll no-doubt talk about the Edvard Munch exhibit (he wrote the Scream horror movie series), the Museum of Modern Art and its massive inflatable slide (it’s the tongue of a giant mouth that comes from where women pee out of), and expensive bus station toilets with free sick and heroin residue. Tune in next time for that and tons more! Or if I can’t be arsed, this’ll have to do, won’t it? So there.
So Oslo. It is a rich city, not just economically, but also culturally and, surprisingly to me, ethnically. I’m assuming all other ignoramuses like me considered Scandinavia to be whiter-than-than-white. Cities the Third Reich would fill their pants over - right before they realised hating everyone else on the planet wasn‘t their thing. However, wandering around the Norwegian capital there’s seemingly hundreds of Pakistani and Indian restaurants, plus a ton of Vietnamese, Turkish and Polish businesses - I understand there’s also a large Swedish and Dane contingent, but then Scands all look the same, don‘t they? Sorry, that was a poor attempt at racism. Nick Griffin would not be proud. From the tiny snapshots I observed, everyone seemed to get along swimmingly.
Although Norwegians (very generally) have a reputation for their direct, almost to the point of rudeness (well if you didn’t know already, you do now - so spread it around so I‘m more justified in saying it), I found the vast majority of Oslo(nian?) folk to be warm and helpful - especially the unlikely middle-aged man in the tourist information centre who noticed my British Sea Power t-shirt and gave me a thumbs up. Bumbling up to several locals while slightly lost hiking near Sognsvann lake - very picturesque and well worth the short train ride to the north - in their perfect English they were happy to point us in the right direction, right direct as it may have been. They’re also not prudish. There’s more naked statues in Oslo than there are euphemisms for nakedness. They mainly congregate in the Vigeland Sculpture Park, tucked inside Frogner Park a little out of the city centre. Not that I’m ripping any of this off Wikipedia, but there’s 212 in the buff, completely starkers, bare-skinned, totally bollock (or equivalent lady parts) naked, bare-skinned, nude figures - and that’s me out of synonym ideas. They display an array of human emotions, ranging from gut-wrenching sadness, to heart-warming loveliness, with some homoerotic and just plain weird thrown in between. In fact, they‘re mostly just homoerotic and weird. When guys aren’t just standing and staring at each other’s genitals, they’re wrestling (while staring at each other’s genitals) or simply striking a pose gayer than Mr Gay UK (while staring at their own genitals), they’re trying desperately to shake off a tiny ninja baby attack, the target of which I can only assume is genital-related. The park’s centrepiece, however, is genuinely impressive: a 30ft (or so) granite column made entirely of intertwined figures, their mass embrace is actually quite moving - in my view, a must-see for anyone visiting the city. If you’re a bit of a perv, it’s even better.
Before this just peters off into a condensed list of other Oslo attractions worth a visit, I’ll write a follow-up at some point, where I’ll no-doubt talk about the Edvard Munch exhibit (he wrote the Scream horror movie series), the Museum of Modern Art and its massive inflatable slide (it’s the tongue of a giant mouth that comes from where women pee out of), and expensive bus station toilets with free sick and heroin residue. Tune in next time for that and tons more! Or if I can’t be arsed, this’ll have to do, won’t it? So there.
Thursday, 3 September 2009
An Introduction
Hello! I suppose I'm the Ambling Oak, which is sounding like a worse blog title every time I say it. But for now it'll suffice, and I can always change it later when all my friends start sending me textual giggles and out-loud laughs about the lameness of my choice. In any case, my name is actually Andrew Whiteoak - see? SEE?! Oak. Actually I've decided it's brilliant and should definitely stay - and, continuing the sentence before the first hyphen (-), I quite enjoy travelling. I also quite enjoy writing. Writing about travelling is quite enjoyable too - almost as much as using the words 'quite' and 'enjoyable' four times each in the last thirty-four words. But enough with the schtik! I'm heading to New Zealand for about a year at the end of this month, and felt like my travel scribblings needed a permanent home, so this is it. In the next few weeks before I leave I'll hopefully finish up and post some (as yet unwritten) writings on Oslo (the world's most expensive city) and Norwich (the world's least genetically diverse city - actually that's mean, I love it).
In the meantime though, I have two other blogs to give you an idea of my style, should you feel intrigued (or just daft) enough to take it look:
ImprovisedNorthAmerica.blogspot.com - This blog charts my journey across North America in March 2009, where all knew when I arrived was my flight to New York and first night's accommodation in Harlem and my flight out of San Francisco just over two weeks later. Half the entries were written on my BlackBerry on the road, while the more lengthy ones were written up once I got back. I managed to head down to Mexico and up to Canada along the way, with a whole heap of excitement and sprinkling stupidity too.
AND
GermanToEnglishWritings.blogspot.com - Don't worry, it's not in German. It's a collection of about 160ish pieces written in the past 12 months based on random word selections from of my German To English dictionary. Some work, some don't, but they're all produced quickly and without a massive amount of editing.
Hope you enjoy some of it,
Andrew.
In the meantime though, I have two other blogs to give you an idea of my style, should you feel intrigued (or just daft) enough to take it look:
ImprovisedNorthAmerica.blogspot.com - This blog charts my journey across North America in March 2009, where all knew when I arrived was my flight to New York and first night's accommodation in Harlem and my flight out of San Francisco just over two weeks later. Half the entries were written on my BlackBerry on the road, while the more lengthy ones were written up once I got back. I managed to head down to Mexico and up to Canada along the way, with a whole heap of excitement and sprinkling stupidity too.
AND
GermanToEnglishWritings.blogspot.com - Don't worry, it's not in German. It's a collection of about 160ish pieces written in the past 12 months based on random word selections from of my German To English dictionary. Some work, some don't, but they're all produced quickly and without a massive amount of editing.
Hope you enjoy some of it,
Andrew.
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