An Attempt to Be More Like 25

I pledged myself to be more at my age this weekend. I mean, not only staying in the room, and making myself some martini to survive the day, but go somewhere else. Where the sun is there, with greens, and cold beers. I wish there would be no kids around too, but i guess that’s too much of asking. So okay, I’ll just pretend that kids were not kids, they were only trees.

So today, in my attempt to be more like 25, I was waking up early in the morning. At around 6. But then snoozed my alarm. And resurrected at 8. Hello, it’s weekend. Who the hell is going to wake up too early in the morning? Then I prepared some sandwiches to have later in the city park, took a bath (I swear I took a bath before going out, which was questioned by my girlfriend), then went out at around 8.30.

We headed out to FRIM. It was around 20 minutes driving from where I lived. I read the reviews about the place before deciding to go there. Said that the city park is huge, where you can do several outdoor activities, like running, trail running, cycling, or making out in the wild (no, this one is never mentioned in the reviews).

And yes, even from the entrance, I got the slight impression that I can be lost in that place. The typical equator trees welcomed us, with tall stems that looks touching the sky above. Along with the guy in the guard, which asked for 6 RM for the ticket. Oh yes, there’s no such thing as free lunch!

Before the entrance, there was a bicycle rental stall that puts like a thousands of banners of their place. And I was glad I didn’t rent a bike from that place, because the way after the entrance was pretty steep. Car is always better, you know, especially when you are not all prepared for the hilly track in the beginning.

5 minutes from the entrance, there was a club house where I can find a stall to rent bikes. Cost me 8 RM for an hour ride. I said to the guy, that I may need 2 hours to finish all the track at FRIM.

That’s my love interest. Striking 70s pose (no, i didn’t ask for her approval to put this picture)

Which was wrong. It took me only an hour or so to finish all the track. That also included a stop to breakfast at a place that view the lake. With the sound of birds. I never expected that I was that strong.

Highlight of the day. Not the cycling. The glorious sandwich we made!

Until I got back to home, planning to change my clothes to go to Holi Festival to see some friends there. Yet I overslept for the next three hours, which I was planning for only 15 minutes. No, I am not strong at all.

Resurrected for twice in a day with hunger. Really, if I wasn’t hungry, I might be sleeping for the next five hours.

And no, don’t tell me the youth is a mind matter. No, my endurance shows.

I might have thrown my youth in the water fifteen years ago.

Now, let’s drink. For forgotten youth. Or for anything. Because I still have dry martini. Da da.

Becoming KL People

Currently I am staying quite far from the city. It’s 20 minutes on train to the city central where the twin towers takes place. It’s a cheap apartment, where people stay here seem to ignore aesthetics and all the beauty that supposedly beautify the life, that surely, supposedly hard and bitter. The building looks old, with the color that purely indecisive. It’s not white, it’s not broken white, and It’s not even brownish. It’s just cheap, if there’s even the kind of color. 2 stories below me are all stores. Yes, I stay in the third level. The only technology in the building is lift. Oh actually, there’s also a CCTV for the whole building, you read it right, only ONE CCTV for the whole building. It’s a four stories building, where there are around 20 units on each level. So you can tell, it’s pretty dysfunctional to have CCTV while you can’t even monitor what’s going on to the whole corners all the building. Kid you not, I am sure the management thinks it would hike up the price of the building with CCTV, hence, the useless camera.

The surrounding is quite noisy during nights. People here love to hang out during the night, which I don’t understand why. They seem to never bother to sleep. The worse part is, I don’t have any air condition yet for my bedroom, so I don’t have any choice but to open a half of my windows to get some fresh air during the night. But not only air that I get, I can hear also the murmurs of people below, which sometimes, I think I can just suddenly tuck into the conversation because I understand what they’re talking about. I can give solutions, trust me.

The good thing about the neighborhood is, actually it’s a beautiful area. It’s hilly, with a lot of greens, and also decent and huge parking area. It’s not in the main road, so practically, not so many cars passing through the area. Not far from the residential area, there are choices of food stalls I can go. Since I am not a fan of having meals outside, I barely go to the stalls. There are also medium to high grades of grocery stores I can go. Even better, the high graded store, called Cold Storage sells 30 bucks wine, which I daily consume. It taste too sour sometimes, but the end result is always the same, my head becomes light. So who cares about 30 bucks or 300 bucks (actually I do).

5 minutes fast walk from my house is the train station. But if I wake up earlier abit, I can walk comfortably to the station yet it’s gonna cost me another 5 minutes of snoozing the alarm. When I come home from work, and it’s usually near to the evening, I can see the whole city from the station. The sky in this country is mostly beautiful as not much pollution covers it, that sometimes, I stop for a while after hopping off of the train, and see the sun goes down. But in the morning, the place looks like The Wall where everyone becomes Windlings, and they suddenly screaming Spartaaan. Only I can’t find where the war is. Sometimes when I am not fully awake yet, I will unconsciously get into the train and stand up right in front of another person’s face, which it took me a while to realize how awkward my position is, so I turned back my body.

In the morning, there are numerous elderly Chinese sell foods for breakfast from the junction near to my house until the train station. I have never tried once, but I know all the faces of the people who selling and what they sell. All of them have this friendly face, greeting everyone passing by with good morning. That’s actually a good thing in the morning to get warm ambience from the elder people who still get their ass work.

In the evening, the same areas will serve foods for dinner and also some other raw foods for cooking supply. I am a loyal customer of a lady who sells fresh and gorgeous vegetable for only 1 buck for 2 servings. I can’t even think how she can make profit from what she sells that I start to fantasize that actually she’s doing charity works to people like me, so I can still have good quality food without putting another dent in my dented bank account. Better yet, each time I buy from her, which happens almost everyday, she will also convey me some good luck, sometimes for my health, sometimes for my career, sometimes just general pray for my being.

And tonight, when I sat down peacefully after having dinner and making another food supply for 3 days ahead, very loud classical music started to play around. So loud that I can see people downstairs, which I can see from the windows in my house, started to look around looking for the source of the sound. And it’s really above my house, the source of the crazily loud sound. You know the scene in the gore movie when a killer skins the victims with classics music as background? Yeah, that kind of classics. It’s far from Chopin that stimulates me to work or study. It stimulates me to yell at the house to stop the music, which me and Nikka did. Sadly, our voice might be only like voice of ants compared to their music volume playing.

Once, during the university life, I romanticized the picture of me staying in a cheap apartment, cursing my life everyday as I have to go doing mind numbing job every day, while drinking cheap wine, after home cooking pasta for dinner and tv was on as background. The reality is not far from it, only that I have a person to get dirty with in the kitchen and in bedroom. And my dinner is mostly salad, with grilled fish.

Not Your Lazy Weekend

I love KL. Seriously, when someone said the love thing as their first sentence, you should really question what’s coming next. Just like mine.

Yet, after nearly eight months living, and becoming social butterfly here, I am nearly at my point to feel that the attraction in the city no longer attract me. When I am talking about points of attraction, I am talking about night club, or any hang out places to go on weekend nights. I still have my most favorite place to party though, it’s at Frangipani. Good crowd, with very nice music played on Saturday. But of course, if I go to the place every damn Saturday night, the place would be dull anytime soon.

Yes, that fun at Frangipani!

Mind my overly happy (drunk) face!

As we all know, many growing places around KL and Selangor lately. The rustic, raw theme, with minimal spaces, and sometimes air to breath due to the crowded pack, and also packed seating arrangement, are still becoming the hype. I know the business has to go on, hence, the seating arrangements should be as many as they could be in the space, but I really mind to be able to listen to what other people sitting the next table talking about. It’s like the people in the whole place are my friends, and all of them are talking to me. Do I have that many friends? I can’t recall.

Yet, I still have several places that I love dearly. Like the priceless treasure I found in Chinatown, a cafe who’s the owner is, reportedly, also a math teacher, hence the cafe is named “Einstein Cafe”.

Not that Einstein was known as Math Teacher, of course he’s a Physicist if you happen don’t know, but the nerdy connection perhaps made the owner named it after the Physicist. I love that the cafe takes place on the second floor of an optical store, which makes it so quirky, and also secluded in the city buzz. The natural lights inside the place, not to mention the solid woods that uses inside, the proper seating arrangement. And of course, the coffee and layer cakes they serve. Quoted Radiohead, everything is in the right place.

That red building, on the right. That’s Einstein Cafe.

Just me and my girl taking pic in front of the cafe, yo!

I also have deep affection to a restaurant which serves vintage foods, and surprisingly, it is in Changkat, the center of all bars and night clubs in KL. The resto called “Limablas”, which I grow fondness upon their stingray. The foods are so good, and claimed to preserve the traditions of Chinese-Malaysian foods heritage.

Move on to the list, I happened to find another coffee shop which not only serving good coffee, mostly from my home country, which I love so much, but also serving an electric plug for each table. That’s awesome! White color paints the whole wall, with yellow accents and also natural stone to decorate the space,  I can imagine myself with laptop, sitting and browsing, and maybe a little bit updating my blog the on a weekend. Just like I always do inside my room, that now seems like a batcave.

Anyway, the name is the coffee shop is OJO. i found it funny, since Ojo means “Don’t” in Javanese ethnic language. It’s in Telawi, Bangsar. One of the area in KL that keeps me coming back.

you can’t say the lighting in the place isn’t good!

Nearby, there’s also a place named Alexis. There’s nothing special about their menu there. Yet, on every first Monday of the month, they have jammed session for musicians, which i can tell mostly they are Jazz, RnB, blues, and their allies musicians. It’s so good that you can enjoy good music on the fist night of weekdays’ blues.  Next block of OJO, there’s Jenny from the block (LAMEEEE JOKEEE SOS!), there is a burger place, named KGB, which serves my kind of comfort food, French Fries with mozarella and cream cheese, Kimchi and chilli on top. Seriously, the food is so comfort that i told my girlfriend to go there finding me one day we have huge fights and she couldn’t reach me on phone. Right in front of OJO, there’s a spanish bar called La Bodega. The place used to be me and drunken friends’ favorite place to meet on Thursday; they had free flow liquors on Thursday, hence we were there.

Look at that beauty (for free bae)

But they no longer had it, maybe they finally realize that my group only who consistently came to the place. For free drinks. On the corner of the street, there’s also a place called ROA, which serves Manadonese dishes. Manado is one of the ethnicity of Eastern part of Indonesia. Mostly their dishes are fish-based, with a lot of almost raw herbs and chillies that make them spicy. But it’s not Indian dish spiciness. I always refer the Indian dish spiciness as thick spicy. Manadonese is more of Mexican spiciness, it’s raw, not cumin based spicy. Shit I really love to eat, and hang out, don’t I.

So if you wanna have a Telawi – Chinatown day out on one weekend, you can try those. Hop in and out from one place to another is not so bad since brunch. Then end up at Frangipani in Changkat doesn’t sound so bad at all.

As for me, I just realized that KL has numerous hills and city parks with lake that, in an abundant optimism, I can do trail running, or just jogging and cycling, still have no idea. But I’m planning to go to FRIM in Kepong. No idea what i’m gonna do, maybe just bring breakfast and eat there. Well I just need a change to my lately stay in the batcave routine during weekend.

For now, hasta la vista, baby!