Hot drink for a cold day

Shifting seasons being infinitely more
difficult to adjust to than shifting time
zones, I have been enjoying A LOT of
hot drinks here in Dunedin. The one
pictured, a 'flat white', is unique to
New Zealand...though I'm not really
sure how it's different from any other
milky coffee drink. On the plate is a
chocolate fish - a locally made candy
that comes on the side of every hot drink,
and, so I'm told, is given to new PhDs
(a larger version!) when they submit
their dissertations. Pink chewy marshmallow
coated in cheap chocolate - yum!
Dunedin, New Zealand, June 27 ,2009.

Up, up and away!

Sitting here in the central library (aka: home away from home) at 5:15 on a Sunday afternoon I am happy to see that I am not the only person who stops in with their groceries between the supermarket and kitchen. In fact, it seems to be quite a common practice... :)

When I awoke this morning, without the assistance of my alarm for the first time since I arrived 9 days ago, I thought it was maybe 5 o'clock. It was 7:20. Although I do seem to be adjusted to the time in general, I can't get a feel for the light in this town. It doesn't start to brighten until nearly 8, and then it's not a gradual process like in Korea, but rather an abrupt shift from dark to light. The street lights seem as confused as I am, refusing comically to shut off until well after their utility has vanished in the new sun.

Since I had promised myself last night that I would start today with a good run, I was happy to have woken up a bit ahead of schedule. When I left the house just after 8, the only clouds were festive crowns on the crests of far distant hills (pretty much a constant accessory). The air was fresh and clear. I ran around the perimeter of the botanical gardens, forcing myself to stay on the streets outside instead of on the inviting trails within, so that I could get a better sense of what's around. So far I've run nearly every day, and always on a different route. At the opposite end of the gardens from where I live, Opoho Street makes a looong line from the valley floor up a fairly steep hill. I ran the whole way, 1.1 km, relishing the feeling of accomplishment and expanded lung capacity (seriously, no matter which direction I go from home, everything is uphill in this town!). It was so gloriously bright and inviting at the top of the road that instead of making a downward turn to return home I followed the other bend towards the
viewpoint at Signal Hill and kept on going up.

After 3.5 km of constant climbing I gave up the pretense of running and slowed to a walk. But I kept going up. The sky was blue, the distinctive singing of yellow-beaked black birds filled the bushes around me, and I had the best views of town I've seen yet. At 8:30 in the morning, hardly anyone was moving in the picturesque little neighbourhood clinging to the rising crest of hill. All around were verdant green slopes draped in flowers the creamy yellow of egg yolks plunging to the creek beds in the valley bottom where the bulk of development resides. If you've ever been to Scotland you know exactly what Dunedin looks like. There's a reason why they say it's the most Scottish place outside of the British Isles (other than the fact that
64% of the population can still trace their ancestry directly to Scottish roots).

When the two lane road, well marked with street signs and paint, left the houses behind and narrowed to a country lane I began to notice the descending clouds. My glasses kept blurring with a fine spray of mist. But I'd already come so far! My first thought was that I'd finally climbed into that ever-present crown of clouds at the top of the hill...my destination must be in reach! The flock of curious sheep, fat with grimy winter wool, encouraged me on (my first live, up close, New Zealand sheep!). And then the 'Moa' gardens (moa being a giant bird that the maori hunted to extinction a long, long time ago, I'm pretty sure...). And then the monument at the top of signal hill. At least I think it was the top. By then the mist had become proper rain and the clouds were so thick that I could barely see 10 feet in front of me, nevermind down the stunning vista of slope and shore that (I'm told) lay before me. I'd gone 5.5 km, nearly all up, up, up. And I couldn't see a thing.

The return trip, 4 km nearly straight down the hill (1.5 km at the start being the unneccessary loop around the gardens), was cold, wet and utterly miserable. I'm sure that plenty of people when they run get all toasty and warm and cease to feel the weather. I have never been one of those people. My outer thighs are the first things I feel freezing, usually when they start to get stiff with the chill and cease to glide smoothly. Then everything starts to feel cold. Half way down the hill the rain started pelting so forcefully that the only benefit to having glasses on was the fact that it kept the worst of the drops out of my eyes. Luckily there's no traffic on that road, since I couldn't see a thing. By the time I came through the doors of the house all 3 layers of clothes I was wearing were soaked through, and I could ring a pool of icy water out of my socks. I'd ceased to feel my thighs somewhere up on the hill behind me.

In addition to being deadly serious about their Scottish roots, they are not kidding about the fickleness of winter weather here. Let this be a
lesson to me on future runs! The rain has not let up since then, low clouds and persistent wet being common features of Southern winter. Despite the miserable end, I'm glad I got in the run that I did. Next time I will remember to bring my camera to capture some of those charming sheep and hillsides on the way, and a plastic bag to put it in once the weather (inevitably) changes!

Dunedin Town Hall

Dunedin, New Zealand, June 27, 2009.

Feeding the Birds

Kuala Lumpur's fabulous bird park!
Malaysia, June 15, 2009.

View from St. Claire Beach

Dunedin, New Zealand, June 21, 2009.

Finding the Groove (Dunedin, take 1)

I just came from my first kiwi yoga class. Instead of the hour that I'm used to, it was 90 minutes. Instead of a cozy Korean basement, it was a chilly wooden loft. Instead of everyone lined up side by side, facing the teacher, everyone laid their mats along the walls, facing inwards. Instead of nearly identical uniforms of baggy, traditional style pants gathered at the ankles and fitted t-shirts, everyone wore running tights and layers of hippy accessories. The teacher was a man, transplanted from Scotland light years ago, with an accent so thick I couldn't understand anything he said. THIS is culture shock.

I am no hard core yogi, by any means. But yoga has come to be a pretty integral part of my life over the past 18 months. It keeps me limber (somewhat) and calm (somewhat). And it makes me strong. More than any gym routine I ever did or any sport I ever played. The kind of yoga I have been blessed to find is serious exercise, disguised as serious relaxation. Pretty much an ideal workout in my books. So when I got to Dunedin, finding a space to continue my practice was high on my list of priorities. I tried working out in my room, with a hefty book I carried first from America and then from Korea, and my trusty mat. But I am really abysmal at solo practice...lazy, lazy, lazy! Studio space needed, pronto!

I figured in a place like this (the entire grocery store is FULL of organic, free-range, locally grown, eco-friendly...) there would be a yoga studio on every corner. But if there is, they are well disguised. This place had a flag on google maps (no website, a phone number that no one answers), so after two days of nothing from them, I decided to take matters into my own hands and show up on their doorstep. I got there just in time to stop the teacher from MAILING me a timetable. As in, a paper schedule in an actual envelope with a stamp. This place is such a trip!!

According to the schedule, today's class was a '2' - for people who have sustained a practice for 6 or more months. Right. The class was full of lithe waifs, gliding through each pose like the dancers they surely are. Not that the moves were any more difficult than anything I do in Korea (my sense, after one class, is that my Korean teachers use a far more integrated approach to poses, meaning everyone does a lot of every level of difficulty with a lot of support right from the beginning), just that I felt really inept. When I told the teacher at one point that I couldn't understand what he wanted me to do, having never taken a class in English before, so was taking a moment to see what everyone else was doing, he responded derisively 'the asanas are SANscrit!'

Yet, despite the heavy dose of righteousness that I could have done without, the smiles on the women's faces were warm and friendly, the movements both incredibly refreshing and intensely relaxing, and for the first time in days I feel really at ease. So I will go back. Often. Thankfully the studio has a reduced rate for students, making it about the most affordable thing in this town.

Dunedin is charming. Utterly charming. The main street looks like something out of midwestern America (for those who are familiar with it), with the foliage of Canada's Vancouver Island. I live in a 150 year old mansion, in a great big, bright room with lead-paned windows that go from the floor to the very tall ceiling all the way around a terrific rounded front. Although the kitchen and bathrooms are shared, I rarely have the sense that there is anyone else around, except in that comforting 'people around' kind of way. Most of the other residents are PhD candidates like me, lost in their own worlds of books and research.

The house is at the very edge of campus, across the street from New Zealand's oldest and largest botanical gardens. In the mornings I have been running through the grounds, around 8am when the sun is just coming up (I am really far south here people!), the heavy scent of wild eucalyptus clearing the sleep out of my lungs. I always stop at the peak of the hill, at the aviary, where a flock of wild parrots likes to tease the caged residents by snacking on the shrubbery. The birds have brilliant red heads and electric lime bodies that light up the bushes. Absolutely amazing.

Today I ran through the botanical gardens and out the far side, at the edge of the wildnerness preserve that forms the other border of the house where I live. From there you can see straight down across the water that separates town from the narrow peninsula where sea lions, albatross and two kinds of penguins nest (do sea lions nest?). At that time of the morning the water glistens gold, illuminating every window and making the whole town glow. On the other side of the peninsula is the open sea.

There is more to say (especially about that divine carrot cake...this town is HEAVEN for baked goods), but my stomach is growling fiercely, reminding me that I haven't eaten yet. Time to go home and cook up a couple of those local lamb and mint sausages I got for next to nothing at the grocery store, to go alongside the roasted pumpkin salad that is ubiquitous here and which I am already addicted to. More soon. Much love.

Money Matters (or, Malaysia end game)

It's here. It's got to be here. It's here, it's here, it's here. It's GOT to be here. Oh God, oh God, oh God. It's not here. But it's GOT to be here!

I am crouched on the floor of the incredibly convenient KL Sentral airline check-in, my suitcase and carry on both open and all my stuff spread out on the tiles around me. None of the steady-but-light stream of passengers going through the tape-queues beside me pay me any attention, too intent on their own impending travel plans. The three large men behind the counter are wearing identical curious smirks whenever they look in my direction. I am not the first person they have seen do this. I pick up each item in turn, examine it, set it aside. I unzip,zip,unzip,zip each pocket, compulsively fingering through the interiors. I pat down each bag, inside and out. Once. Twice. A third time. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. It's not here. Oh God.

Not wanting to worry my way through rush hour traffic, which I'd been warned can be deadly, I set out for KL Sentral by taxi about 3 and a half hours before my flight. I already had a ticket from Sentral to the airport by speed train, which only takes 28 minutes, and a normal trip to the station only takes about 10 minutes. No problem. Freshly showered and still glowing from my brilliant massage, yummy street-soup, and wanders through the orchid garden, I was in high spirits. The driver was lively and interesting, an adept tour guide (so wish I'd met him the first day!), who took the opportunity of avoiding traffic on the usual route to show me a few of the sites I'd missed (allbeit on the fly)...like the ASEAN sculpture park and a couple of funky temples. I took his name-card for future excursions through the city, and thanked him profusely at the gate of the speed train for his excellent service. Still over 3 hours remained.

The check-in counters are not well advertised, so it was only when the security guard saw my ticket with Malaysian Air accidentally while I was looking for my return train ticket that he motioned me over to the inconspicous line. 'Wow!' I thought, 'This is so great! I don't even have to lug my suitcase with me on the train...'. And only one person ahead of me in line!

Waiting for my turn up at the counter, I remember my winter coat tucked conveniently into the front pocket of my new suitcase. Don't want to arrive in New Zealand without that! Better get out a sweater for the flight too. Oh ya! My New Zealand cash...better not forget about that!! I reach into the pocket I am absolutely certain I put the money in and...nothing. I motion the person behind me in line to go ahead and dig a little deeper. Still nothing. I set the backpack on top of my suitcase and pull things out of it one by one. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

It's here. It's got to be here. It's here, it's here, it's here. It's GOT to be here. Oh God, oh God, oh God. It's not here. But it's GOT to be here! Oh God.

I have taken everything out of every bag, more than once. Several other passengers have come and gone through the line without paying me any attention at all. The three large men behind the counter are beginning to laugh at the expression on my face. What am I going to do?? I carefully zip each item back into its place, clip every clip and snap every snap. Check in first, can't miss the flight. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. It's not here. Oh God.

The man at checkout is very kind and very efficient. He dispenses with the 'Did you pack these bags yourself?' questions, and goes straight to 'window or aisle?' He has seen absolutely everything that I am taking with me, several times. I go from the counter directly to the pay phones at the back of the hall to call the guesthouse. I distinctly remember seeing the packet of money on my bed there this morning when I was repacking...perhaps instead of putting it into the front pocket of my bag like I think I did I left it there? I know there is no way that it could have been lost between the guesthouse and here, so they are the natural next place to search. I drop my only coin into the machine and dial.

No one is answering at the number I have.

The back-up number is busy.

The first number is not in service.

The back-up number won't connect.

The first number is not in service.

This is ridiculous!!! I drop the coin in again and call Yoga instead.

It goes straight to voicemail. My coin does not come back.

Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. It's not here. Oh God. What now???

I go to the bemused security guard and explain the situation to him. I have left some very, very important papers back at my guesthouse in Bukit Bintang. My flight is in approximately 2 and a half hours. Do I have time to go back to the guesthouse, return to Sentral and make it to the airport in time to catch my flight? He says I do. And directs me through the maze of station to the pre-paid taxi counter where I first met Yoga days ago.

There is a long line of people waiting in line, but for some unfathomable reason a uniformed man at one end of the counter waves me directly up to the counter. Being now in a race with the clock, I don't stop to wonder why. I repeat my story to him, a little faster, and ask if it's possible. He assures me that it is. The taxi fare will be 25RM one way. What??? I stop and stare at him. Is this a joke? It was only 11RM to go 3 days ago, I say. That's by budget taxi, he replies, this is a deluxe taxi, if you'd prefer a budget you are welcome to please join the end of that line... He smiles like a cat that's just eaten a canary, knowing there is no way I can wait. Everyone in the line is staring at me, some of them amused, some of them sympathetic. I pay my 25RM and literally run out of the station alongside the counter man to the furthest cab in the line.

The traffic is much more dense now than it was less than an hour ago when I came in with the other driver. I resist the temptation to lean physically into the oncoming mass of cars, pressing an invisible speed peddle in a vain attempt to speed up. For better of for worse, I am back on the streets of KL. And there is nothing I can do right now. I take a deep breath and consciously relax. The driver knows I am in a hurry, is appologetic when the cars choking the roadway ahead refuse to give way and let us through. I try to look around and enjoy the ride. The whole situation is too absurd not to. When we finally near the guesthouse I ask him just to pull over to the side of the road and wait. He agrees readily, knowing he will get a return fair as well. I run through the back alley back to the guesthouse gate.

Andrew is very surprised to see me back. He welcomes me like an old friend. I am already explaining the situation to him through the bars as he unlocks the gate. He grasps the seriousness immediately. Everyone in the entire place is pressed into service searching for the missing cash. But it does not appear. Mattresses are turned over, garbages emptied, floors swept, even the laundry sifted through. Descriptions of the money and where it was when I last saw it and absolutely everything else I did the entire day are repeated and relayed. Everyone else's daily routine is repeated and relayed as well. It is not here. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. It's not here. Oh God. It's now less than 2 hours until my flight leaves, from the airport 50 km away from the city, at rush hour. I run back down the alley to the still-waiting cab.

A man on the street demands 2RM for parking. I ignore him. The taxi driver ignores him. I am strangely calm. He is surprised when I tell him that I did not find the papers I was looking for, assuming from my demeanor that our trip must have been successfull. He drives me past 'the king's house' on the way to Sentral, makes a point of talking more and showing me more of the sites along the way. I have just lost approximately $500 - nearly a month's rent in New Zealand. But instead of crying I am marvelling at how tiny all the headstones are in the ancient graveyard, and how much gold there is on the palace walls. He thanks me profusely when I give him another 25 RM, the cost of the return portion of the journey, and wishes me well.

I get to the train platform just in time to catch the outbound train - good luck, since there is a 15 minute wait between each one. It deposits me at the airport just before 8pm. My flight is just after 9. I go all the way from the basement to the top of the building, 5th floor, to the departures level, only to be directed by security back down a floor to immigration. After that, he says, I will have to take a train to another terminal to catch my flight. We both look nervously at the large clock at the end of the hall when he says this.

Immigration is fast and easy. The next train shorter than I remember from my incoming trip. Security at this airport is different than in other places, occurring at each gate in addition to when you enter the building, so when I arrive at my gate it's just opening. A lot of people are lounging on the floor against the glass security walls looking tired and cranky, glaring at the incoming security personnel. I get immediately into line, and make it through with minutes to spare.

Exhausted and beginning to worry, I take out my laptop to see if there is any wireless service I can use to send an email in the last few minutes while I wait for the flight. Chasing a bit of wire down into the bag, I discover something incredible...a hidden security pouch on the inside of the bag connected to the main outer pocket. Hello, where did that come from, I never knew that was there before...? What's that inside? MY MONEY!!! It's here. It's here. It's here, it's here, it's here! It's HERE!! Oh God, oh God, oh God. IT'S HERE!

Everyone in the waiting room stares at me uneasily when I begin to laugh out loud, right in the middle of the room. I put my laptop back, and laugh and laugh and laugh.


It's here. It's here. It's here, it's here, it's here! It's HERE!! Oh God, oh God, oh God! IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!!

Last Day in Malaysia (or, a perfectly wonderful day made perfectly boring in print)

(warning, dangerously boring message ahead. this is the problem with writing about things too long after the fact. my mind gets crowded by all the other thoughts and experiences that have come and gone in the meantime and I lose the immediacy of the original happenings. right now, for example, I am sitting at an IT station in the spacious main library of the University of Otago, thinking more about the yummy looking carrot cake in the coffee shop window across the way and this morning's curried mussel pie on the achingly cold beach, and the fact that, for the first time in my life, I am south of the equator, than about any of the very excellent things I did my last day in KL...consider yourself warned. I will not be offended if you just skip this one, really, even though I know you probably won't...)

Last day in Kuala Lumpur, nearly perfect. No, scratch that. Last day in Kuala Lumpur, absolutely perfect.

First of all, kindergarden report cards. Finished. This is not something I anticipated doing (at all, never mind while vacationing in Malaysia), but rather something that was dropped on me too near my departure from Korea to take care of before I left. But they are done, done, done now and I am thrilled. Free! I arrive a little later than planned at the old man's food cart in the middle of the street to find my favorite roti already sold out. This would be very, very sad, except that Yoga's been bugging me to try the banana-leaf wrapped coconut rice since day 1 and there's a pile of them on the table beside me just waiting to be unwrapped. They're not as tasty as the roti (not as oily either, which is probably a plus for my tetchy stomach), but it's always good to try new things. I have a boiled egg and a banana too, alongside my regular tea.


For the third morning in a row, a big road crew is working on repaving the streets on each side of the cart. I use the word working fairly loosely here, since mostly the 8 or so men in fluorescent orange vests just stand huddled in a knot chatting and trying to lure over (unsuccessfully) one of the neighbourhood cats. Some things are the same in every country! But the man driving the compressor is working, cutting off my access back to the guesthouse. Which I need to return to in order to check out of my room before hitting the streets one last time. The knot of men shift from calling the cat to waving at their working companion, and make a little path for me through the hot asphalt. My shoes are steaming by the time I get through the gate.

I put my stuff in the storage room around back and set out for the sky train station on nearby Bukit Bintang (pronounced entertainingly like 'bucket'). I haven't been on the monorail yet, and am eager for the experience. Riding it is perhaps my favorite thing that I do in KL. Very small, each train only 2 cars, it winds its way through the treetops of the city, high enough for an unobstructed view on all sides but near enough to clearly make out the details of everything going by. I pass mall after mall after mall, the derelict remains of an enormous prison (mere blocks from my guesthouse), a myriad assortment of temples, mosques and churches, an overgrown lot where motorcycles apparently go to die, parks, highways, museums...a bird's eye view of the city that gives me a much better sense of the density of experience waiting to happen below. My list of things to explore next time grows and grows and grows.


Back at KL Sentral, the end of the line, I finally see why Yoga was laughing at me when I said how small and quiet the station was. The side closest to the monorail is bustling, crowded, confusing. Luckily, I am an old hand at KL now, so it is not overwhelming as it might have otherwise been. I set out on the same half-well marked walking path to the bird park that I was on the other day, this time bypassing the police museum and other unplanned pitstops of my previous expedition, and going straight to the orchid and hibiscus garden. Yay me!

Clearly I am an animals and outdoors kind of person. Clearly. Nearly alone with the masses of brilliant flowers in the (free!) gardens, I feel completely at ease, completely enthralled, completely happy. It is reasonable to expect that each person's heaven smells unique, but mine is surely full of frangipani (a word as delightful to say as the flower is to look at and inhale). In addition to the frangrant plumeria pinwheels in their various shades of white, yellow, pink and red, orchids of every imaginable configuration of colour, design and scent litter the landscape. Sprays of bold red like blood. Heavy purples with unlikely black tongues. Delicate cream hearts with curly brownish petals that smell decadently of chocolate. Fuscias the size of dinner plates. Delicate lady slippers nearly invisible in the mulchy stream beds...on and on and on. One pond is full of blossoming purple lilies, humming with the accumulated buzz of thousands of tiny bees intoxicated with pollen. The KL Tower and Petronas Towers both gleam silver in the distance, framed by stands of palm trees swaying in the brilliant blue sky.


In the hibiscus garden, there is a flying insect so large that I at first mistake it for a hummingbird. It goes from flower to flower, burying itself completely in the neck of each hanging, white trumpet, somehow not dislodging the fragile-looking buds with his visible weight. I follow it for a long time, trying to get a photo, but succeed only in capturing it's technicolor green wings. The hibiscus is the national flower of Malaysia, and this manicured acre is awash in them. It's unbelievable that there are not more people here. Heaven!!

My plan to continue to the butterfly garden is interrupted by the realization that I have been sniffing petals and chasing bugs for a couple of hours. I walk back to the train station in the blistering heat radiating off the pavement, and return to Bukit Bintang. Where I start with an amazing Turkish-Lebanese appetizer lunch (silky-creamy baba ghanoush so full of flavour that my mind makes a spontaneous little escape to the middle east), surrounded by men in salwar smoking hookahs with multi-coloured pipes. Followed by a return to the Thai massage oasis and Jun's brilliance. Aaaah. She can tell I am gassy from lunch just by the way the arches of my feet feel (I am absolutely certain I have managed, at great personal expense, not to fart). She tells me about her family back in Bangkok, her 13 year old daughter who is also good at massage, and how she misses them but needs the money she earns here too much to return yet. This is a good place to work she says. I repeat...it is worth going to KL just for Jun's massage.


Syrupy, fresh sugar cane juice from a bag on the corner. Refreshing cold shower. Yummy beef noodle soup from a Chinese cart that Andrew recommends, served with a tall glass of icy lime-plum juice. And it is time to go to the airport. And frantically back to the guesthouse. And more frantically back to the airport. But that is another story, more interesting than this one...

Malaysia, Day 3

First of all, a few words from our sponsor (aka. Yoga):

'...the editor in me couldn't resist correcting some of the bits in your e-journal. I LURVVEEEEEEEEE Malaysian food which is composed of mix of Malay, Chinese, Indian, Iban, Kadazan and the other 50 over ethnic groups' food. Just that the Malay dishes that I like are limited because their selection is limiting to start with. And particularly like the Chinese and Indian ones...'

'It was a guy who was driving the fancy car that ran over the Brit's foot. remember the driver sits on the right hand side here.'

'...you just saw that bit of KL Sentral which caters more for passengers who come off the airport train and so don't hang around - its actually
quite big and very crowded.'

And now for the tale of my mediocre Wednesday...

Wednesday wasn't bad, but it wasn't amazing either. It was WAY hotter than it has been...WAY hotter...making it feel like a sauna out walking around. Which is exactly what I was doing. After breakfast et al here, I set out in a new direction to go to China town and little India and all of that.

The best part of the day (which I am going to repeat this afternoon before heading out on the plane) was finding the gorgeous Thai massage place around the corner (about $12 for an hour of heaven). The lady who worked on me was Thai, here only for this place on a two year contract from the Thai National Association of Massage (the creme de la creme...their training program is a year and they have to pass rigorous testing to get their papers). She is worth coming to KL for all on her own!!

After that I came back to the old guy in the middle of the road for lamb, as promised. It didn't taste bad (and I'm sure was totally fine!), but I think my system is about curried out for a while and it made me feel kind of blah all afternoon. Not the best state for extended wanders in scorching heat. Nice to have the cat that looks like Mao begging at my feet and rubbing against my legs while I ate though.

The road signs to Petaling Street (China Town) are what I have come to realize is typical...astoundingly well marked for the first half and then strangely absent just when they become most important (say, at major intersections). The area itself was interesting to see, just because it is so different from everywhere else I've been, but not my style. Very crowded, VERY touristy, very overwhelming. I beat a fairly hasty retreat, without really getting a fair sense of what was there.

Highlight...big pet store where I ogled the bunnies, kittens (stunning smokey siamese, among others) and puppies (even a saint bernard!).

Central Market is even more touristy than Petaling Street, but at least it wasn't crowded and was cool since it's indoors. I spent a long time
discussing the finer points of soap making with a nice woman from Taiwan, representing an artisanal soap maker there who had great stuff and better packaging. Very simple, along the same lines as soapling, but a little further developed. And she knew a lot about the process and the product (they grow their own herbs, which is very cool) so we talked for a long time, then exchanged contact info for the next time I am in Taiwan. Would be interesting to see how someone else goes about the soap business first hand, and Taiwan is a lovely place to visit.

From Central Market I wandered mostly lost along the river until finding the big mosque in Little India. The architecture around there is indeed
fabulous, but by then I was so tired and hot and wretched feeling I just wanted to get into the air conditioned mall and not think for a while. So I took the train back to the towers without spending hardly any time in little India at all, promptly got a fresh juice (fabulous...ginger, apple, pineapple and lime...), and went up to the nail place without delay. Without much delay that should be...I did stop for an enormous praline cookie (that tasted delightfully and dangerously like a largish ball of uncooked cookie dough) and another peruse of the book shop on the way (where I showed enormous restraint in not buying any of the things on my previous wish list).

The mani-pedi was fabulous. They aren't actually very good at the nail care part...Koreans are WAY ahead on that...but the overall experience was about a thousand times better. I got buffed, massaged, scraped, scrubbed, soaked, steamed, masked...on and on. It took a couple of hours in all and went a loooong way to improving the state of my stomach and mind. Plus it was fun to see the reactions of people whenever the cute little worker at the end opened her mouth and rang out in a big, male baritone. Clearly the hormones have not fully kicked in yet. Once you hear the voice you start to notice the manly hands and other masculine features. She must get sick of all the double takes and staring, but her massage skills looked to be absolutely superior (I had another woman work on me so can't say for sure).

From there I walked back to Pavilion for another Jade Love Jelly, which definitely improved my outlook, and went around to that big IT mall again that Yoga showed me the first day. I've been deleting old pictures from my memory card all week, and figured that it would pay to have a new card for my months in New Zealand. I got a super-fast 8G for about $25. When it was in my camera I couldn't believe how much faster I could shoot pictures...added bonus! Then I came back to the guesthouse, read a book for a while, talked with an interesting Aussie guy for an hour (who is here doing the same thing I am...he got a cheap flight through here to South Africa and is on his way home now), had more curry down the street at a great Indian joint (didn't want curry but was too tired to find anything else), watched a bad-but-entertaining-anyway Robin Williams movie (license to wed), finished writing some of the kindergarden evaluations that I didn't finish before I left Korea, and then sat up with Yoga until the wee hours. He didn't arrive until close to 11, coming from a big fashion show he had to cover for work.

Today I'm taking it easy. Gonna get some late breakfast, check out the orchid and hibiscus garden back near the bird park, find some Thai for lunch (probably in the mall...air conditioning sounds good today since my belly is still not very delighted with the world), have that Thai massage, and then head for the airport around 5:30. My flight this evening is at 9:10. Malaysia's been awesome and I am so looking forward to coming back again and spending a lot more time. But for this trip I am ready to move on. Snowstorms are sounding pretty good to me right now.

More good eating

I am embarrassed to admit that for late-lunch, early-dinner yesterday, I ate at the same stall in the same food court that I ate at the first night with Yoga. All of this city's amazing eats, and I go back to the shiny blandness of commercial-ville. Ever since my big go-round with those nasty bugs when I first got to Korea, if I don't eat on a very regular basis, and the right food at that, my system goes into panic mode. Not as in I feel panicky. As in, I lose the ability to think straight. I get moody and aggressive. I can't make decisions well. It's like altitude sickness, without the altitude.

Stupid is not a good way to be when you are alone on the road. So I have learned to recognize the signs and am pretty good at mitigating them. My first line of defense (after the dried fruit snacks perpetually in my bag)...no matter how mediocre (and honestly, the food court food is far from mediocre), always have one go-to place that is easily accessible and which I know is reliable and then focus on it like it's the only edible thing on earth once I realize I have gone too long without sustenance (easy to do in a new city, full of interesting things to see and do). Malay noodles, here I come! Better make that an extra-large...

After the noodles I diversified my mall experience into drinkable dessert. If you ever get the chance, definitely try the 'Jade Love Jelly' at the Taiwan tea house. I have no idea what it was (other than so sweet that it made my stomach cramp), but it is truly exceptional. A tall glass loaded with transparent, barely-jelled fruit jelly, soaked in passion-fruit juice, and then doused with something thick and heavenly and utterly indescribable, slurped up together through an extra fat straw. Yum.

Back at the guesthouse, nearing 10pm, I decided that Yoga must be too busy working (there was a big premier for the luggage brand Tumi at the mall yesterday that he had to cover for the paper he is a feature's writer for) to make it over and was about to head for a shower and to bed. I had been out in the courtyard eating juicy rambutan (related to lychees, with a bright fuscia shell and long, soft spines like overgrown velcro) and chatting with the staff for an hour or so. But I got distracted by Men in Black playing on HBO (2 friendly British guys were already watching it, and I do love old movies on the road...) and so sat down for the film. The main room is much cooler than my room, so it was a nice winding down. And lucky I did, since just 10 minutes or so from the end Yoga appeared in his studly threads from the premier, apologetic about the lateness of the hour.

After chatting for an hour, sometime well after 11, we decided to go get some satay on the food street near the guesthouse. From lunch time on, dozens of carts set up shop and start charging locals and tourists alike exorbitant prices for mediocre food. But it's nearby and even exorbitantly priced food is still reasonable in Malaysia and I don't know what good Malaysian food is yet, so mediocre doesn't offend me. The chicken satay was great, the beef so-so (useful tip from Andrew, one of the guesthouse employees, 'it's not enough to have good meat - good meat with so-so sauce is just so-so satay...'), the sauce so-so. Yoga figured they bastardized it with a pinch of curry powder to make up for a lack of richness in the original ingredients. After the satay, deciding that we were both ravenous after all, we had 2 different kinds of fried noodles (fat, round ones stir-fried with greasy, black sauce loaded with bits of crispy-fried pork fat, and wide, flat ones cooked with meat and egg and seafood), bowls of sweetish amber liquid studded with barley pearls, quails egg, and bits of dried fruit, and tall glasses of 'chika' juice filled with long, black threads of noodle that looked, depending on your angle, like wriggling worms or somebody's hair. Fat and full, we finally groaned our way back to the guesthouse around 12:30 (so great to have a local to wander around with!!).

When I got back, everyone except Andrew was already in bed. He had taken the sofa apart and was busy cleaning the pieces. I had a nice, cold shower (you know it's hot when I like a cold shower!) and then went to bed. I was remarkably wide awake considering to my body it was 2:30 in the morning. Must have been all that deep-fried fat juicing me up (watching me scouring the plate for every morsel, Yoga declared in admiration 'a woman after my own heart!')! But I did eventually get to sleep, and slept absolutely soundly until a little after 7 this morning.

Since Andrew was still crashed out on the sofa when I came out (and indeed still is, snoring softly behind me), I decided to start with breakfast. Gana wasn't there, but a huge crowd of other regulars was. Everywhere I go, someone is happy to strike up an easy conversation. This morning it was a pleasant woman, who suggested I try the sugar-and-banana filled roti (also served with curry - HEAVENLY!!!!! The bananas, which are interspersed throughout the folded square of roti at regular intervals, are bright yellow and tangy-sweet, holding the griddle's heat long after the other ingredients, keeping the sugar crispy-melty. With the spicy curry on the side, the sweet-spicy, hot-cool intersection wakes up every one of your taste buds and makes them dance for joy) along with my tea. Cooking today was the old man's middle-aged son, who speaks better English than the old man and is a better cook. Which is saying something. His roti are so amazingly thin you can literally see through them before he bunches them up on the grill. When you tear them apart, they separate into crispy, tissue-fine layers that cradle the sauce all the way to your mouth. Just writing about it I am salivating all over again...might have to have one more when I finish this, before I set out on foot to Little India, China Town, and whatever else catches my eye.

It was awesome to just sit and watch what everyone ate and how they all interacted with each other. The woman said that she grew up in this neighbourhood and still works here, even though she lives somewhere else now. She's been eating the old man's food since she was a child. She confirmed what Gana said yesterday, that they have been open for '30 or 40 years'. She said all of the people there, except me of course, come every day and they all know little bits and pieces about each other. 20 or more people came and went in the hour or so that I sat there, most of them on their way to jobs that begin at 9am. She said a different crowd comes for lunch - people the breakfast set don't know. Everyone had their own regular drink, set in front of them without any obvious ordering that I could see (only a few people drank the kind of tea I again enjoyed...in fact, I think nearly everyone had something different. Hot, iced, coffee, chocolate, coffee-chocolate, milk tea, plain tea, sweet tea, juice...). Newspapers were passed around. Quiet conversations whispered easily around the edges. Plenty of speculation about me, which they were not afraid to test out to my face, in a playful and highly entertaining way. It felt like an old barber shop in American movies...like the one in Steel Magnolias. Fantastic.

And I haven't even mentioned the soft-boiled eggs...

And now it's after 10 and I want to do a few more things before I set out for the day. So I'd better go. After all, a whole city of food awaits me!

Feathers Flying (Malaysia, Day 1.5)

I love KL. Seriously. Love it! This is one of the easiest cities I
have ever been in. Not only is everything nearby (very walkable), but
it's also incredibly well marked (we're talking big signs with arrows
and walking distances at every corner). And just in case that isn't
enough (are you really surprised that I managed to get lost anyway??),
everyone speaks English and is friendly and helpful and keen to give the
best directions ever. No '3 people' rule here (always ask at least 3
different people for directions to the same place and follow the most
popular opinion, as one emerges...), halleluia!

After writing about yesterday this morning, I made it only as far as the food
stall in the median directly across from the guesthouse gate. It was
not immediately apparent that the thin, old man wrapped in meters of
tattered fabric was actually the proprietor, since a younger man was
sitting prominently in the middle and asked me immediately in English
what they could get for me when I tentatively walked over to see what
they had. The sitting man, a transplanted south-Indian who has been
here for 18 years, was very helpful in walking me through the
(invisible) menu and keeping me in (delectable) tea and eats. He was
also very nice to (continue) chat(ting) with for another hour or so.

The old man has been running the food stall for something like 30 or 40
years. Sometimes he cooks, sometimes his wife does. As fat as he is
thin, she has rolls of brown flesh bulging around the fitted seams of
her sari, and the kind of no-nonsense warmth that many older Indian
women seem to have. She didn't say a word to me, but smiled often,
bustling purposefully through the lunch preparations at his side. Gana,
the man at the table (who it turned out has nothing to do with the
business besides being a loyal patron), said he often admires the two of
them. 'Not like marriages these days, that quit when things don't work
out. This marriage is forever...'.

The tea they serve is sort of an Indian-Thai hybrid, not quite the spicy
chai of the former nor the syrupy-sweet, orange ceylon of the latter,
but rather something in between the two. I didn't manage to follow the
whole process, but I did see that it involved a long sock full of ceylon
powder (as does Thai tea), a succession of cups (for pouring the
steaming liquid between in order to make a tall head of bubbles), and a
large vat of something boiling (milk? water?). And since there was a
crunchy layer of raw sugar crystals undissolved at the bottom of the
chipped glass mug, I assume that at some point in the process extra
ingredients get added. I had two. They were heaven. I could have sat
there and had tea all morning long, and indeed all afternoon and into
the early evening, when the old man closes up. But I didn't. There is
plenty to see in KL, and this was a day for seeing.

(Before I continue with the seeing, however, I haven't mentioned the
absurdly oily little round of deep-fried dough he served, alongside my
tea. It came on its own plate, with a small saucer full of vivid curry
on the side for dipping. Gana suggested I eat it like a steak - cut
into pieces and dredged through the sauce. Which might have worked, had
there been a knife handy. But since there wasn't, instead I tore it
into little pieces with my fingers and then sopped up the sauce that
way. Divine. Truly, truly divine. Just seeing him at the end of his
work day, washing each dented surface meticulously, made my mouth water
in anticipation of tomorrow's breakfast. And I haven't even tried his
specialty yet...spiced lamb!)

It was close to 10 when I finally set out on foot for the twin towers.
Did you know that Petronas is Malaysia's largest oil company, and that
the towers are their headquarters? They tell you all about it during
the freaky 7-minute, 3D promotional video you are forced to watch before
going up to the skybridge on the 41st floor. But since the walk is
free, it seems petty to complain. I didn't actually do the walk itself
until well-passed 4, since they strictly limit the number of people
allowed at any given time. At 10:30 in the morning, that was the
earliest ticket available. Luckily Yoga had warned me about the limits
and the tickets so I was expecting it all and saved myself (and the
volunteers) the lengthy explanations I heard all around me. For the
record, the walk itself is not very interesting despite the pretty view
and historic nature of the bridge (it is the highest walkway in the
world), but the elevator is worth every minute of the wait and the extra
trip you have to take to get the ticket. It goes 3-5 meters per second,
making the 41 storey trip in just under 41 seconds. You can't even
believe how fast it goes. SUPER cool!

Around the base of the towers is a(nother) enormous shopping mall. Even
better than Pavilion, which is the one near here that Yoga and I were at
yesterday. There is a nail shop there that does mud-mani-pedis with
orange sugar scrub massage for about $30 (together), which I am SO
looking forward to. My big plan was to do it this evening after walking
around all day, but somehow I missed the shop on the way out and so will
save it for tomorrow instead. It is beside the bigger, better bookstore
that Yoga told me about, which I spend an hour in this morning without
even scratching the surface. I held in my hands, at various points (not
all at once), about $500 worth of incredible reading and study
material...but limited myself to $10 worth of magazines in the end. I
figured I could think about some of the other items and go back later if
I still want them (especially tempting, 2 sets of Tuttle Korean flash
cards, the same kind as I have Chinese on my bookshelf, which are
fantastic, the 3 sets of Chinese Tuttle flashcards that precede the set
4 that I have, a one-a-day chinese character calendar, and a cook book
entitled 'What Einstein told his Cook'...).

Not to make this totally non-chronological account more confusing than
necessary, but thanks to a toilet emergency that began during my
afternoon wanders not yet described, I ended up using the ridiculously
expensive 'premier toilets' on the 1st floor of the mall. There are
free toilets on the other floors, but circumstances being what they were
I felt it urgent not to wander around more than necessary. 2 ringgit.
Did I say ridiculously expensive? I take it back. I should pay to use
toilets ALL the time. Aside from having the whole immaculate place to
myself, including the helpful services of the bathroom concierge, the
main perks were the large basket full of Body Shop products free for the
using. Probably not so useful in the dead of winter (the only thing
that stopped me from going out and buying a bottle immediately), the
Vitamin C face spritz was phenomenally refreshing (and SPF!). Worth the
2 RM all on its own.

Out of the mall and on with details of the rest of the day.

From KLCC (the train station beneath the towers), it's a quick trip on
the subway back to Sentral, where I started from yesterday. From there
it's supposed to be 1.4 km on foot to the bird park - assuming you don't
get lost, tour around the national museum, the national mosque, the
memorial to somebody important whose name I don't remember and whose
sacrifice I never knew, the planetarium, a jogging park, and a deer park
first. All good things to see, at noon, when the sun is its hottest. I
finally begged for directions from the friendly guards at the national
police museum, who took pity on me, grabbed a spare police helmet from
the back of the guard post, and rode me over to the park gate on one of
their police motorcycles. Whenever we took a sharp turn I didn't know
where to put my hands, since the driver had live firearms strapped to
both of his sides where amateur passengers usually hold on. Fun!

The bird park was amazing. Easily one of the coolest things I've done
anywhere. I am still practically quivering with delight. I hesitated
at the 39RM entrance fee, not knowing anything about the park, but am SO
glad I went in. It's like a huge zoo, but only for birds. And most of
those in the 'wild' around you. The vegetation is lush and totally
natural, the walk through the 4 different zones picturesque and
refreshing, and the birds...WOW! I could write an entire message about
the way the sun refracts off of a peacock's tail, the surreal
double-bills of the myriad Malaysian horn-bill species flying freely
about (one nearly took my head off when it decided to fly over just as I
stood up from taking a picture of a fuzzy-headed pigeon strutting by...
scary!), the vivid ruby plumage of a scarlet ibis, the massive bulk of a
great-white pelican...but honestly it all pales compared to the utter
joy of having a dozen sparkling, shrieking parrots fighting for
sunflower seeds and bits of apple in my hands and up and down my arms.
And of the big blue horn-bill I got to hold for a picture...which I'll
send along later. Awesome!!

And now it's 8:20, only 12 hours after my last message though it seems
like a lifetime. Time to curl up with one of my new magazines and the
big bag of fresh rambutan I bought down the road on my way back to the
guesthouse. Yoga may or may not be here soon. Looking
forward to Little India and the National Textile museum tomorrow, not to
mention more of that excellent tea and that mud mani-pedi. Heaven! Seriously, I love Malaysia!!

Chocolate

Blackforest Bakery, Greenwich,
Connecticut, May 2009.

School Days

Students and teachers outside of a community
school in rural Bihar, India, January 2005.

Juicy

A pile of pomegranates on a Kolkata street corner,
December 2004.

Mmm, Malaysia!

On my way to Dunedin, New Zealand, for 10 weeks of winter...

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is nothing like I expected. Which is mostly a great thing. I thought it would be a lot like Thailand, since they're so near and the traditional clothes on the airplane (Malaysian Air is GREAT!) are similar, and in Southern Thailand they tell you that the food is very Malaysian influenced. But no, they're spectacularly nothing alike.

The plane landed without ever even going over the city, up out of the Sea of CHina and over meticulously groomed palm plantations (coconut I think, too tall to be bananas). Green everywhere, and hardly 10 houses close together as far as the eye could see. The airport is actually set right into one of those big palm plantations, so there are patches of trees right up to the runways. Inside, the airport is this glitzy mass of brand shopping, wall to wall salespeople spritzing you with perfume samples and offering shots of whiskey. Which makes the fact that once on the monorail that whisks you from one terminal to the other in light speed (so much nicer than the new underground at Incheon!!), you can see that all the airport buildings are low, mundane, military-esque hangars with drab green roofs that blend into the trees with such spectacular efficiency that at first I didn't realize they were buildings at all.

Everything moved in the airport with great speed and efficiency. Not to mention how unbelievably friendly everyone was. It was the fastest deplaning of luggage I've ever seen (yippee! My new suitcase survived with barely a dust mark!), though to be fair the plane was 2/3 empty. I had a round trip ticket on the express train into the city before I'd even gotten to the luggage carousel (they make it very easy not to get ripped off by unscrupulous cabs by having pre-paid taxi coupon booths and train ticket windows every few meters). And the nice young man at the info booth gave me coins for the payphone out of his own pocket so that I could call my local friend Yoga to tell him I'd arrived.

I met Yoga sometime around midnight in a dance club in Seoul in my first year in Korea. We chatted at the bar for less than an hour and exchanged email addresses and never saw each other again. And kept in touch ever since. I consider him a good friend, despite our limited real-time contact, and am DELIGHTED to have the chance to hang out with him again. How small the world is, and how wonderful!!

Yoga met me at Sentral train station, which is small and completely uncrowded and unintimidating, as I'd feared it might be. We did manage to miss each other at first, so I had to break a bill for change in a convenience store inside the terminal (a ringgit is broken up into 100 parts, just like a dollar is, though the names sound similar, so imagine the look of dismay on the face of the poor counter woman when I tried to give her a 100 ringgit note for a 20/100ths of a single ringgit phone call...lesson learned, much laughing ensued). I was happy to have Yoga there, even though all his directions would have easily gotten me to the guesthouse, since it was very nice not to have to think too much while carrying my bags and gaping at everything like a landed fish.

I should have known that they would drive on the opposite side of the road here. It is a former British colony after all. And yet it still literally took my breath away when the enormous Muslim driver in his flowy-white embroidered, knee-length shirt and traditional head covering crammed himself into the impossibly small space right in front of me. This guy was the most unlikely looking taxi driver you've ever imagined. I think he was bigger than his cab. So funny to see Yoga struggling to lift my suitcase into the trunk of the car with both hands (it's really not that heavy, but it is awkward) and then this massive guy in his pristine white reach down and literally pick the whole thing up from the front with just two fingers as if it were a greasy bag of takeout food that was mildly distasteful but otherwise totally inconsequential. He didn't say much on the drive, but when I said thank you on my way out, he replied in perfect English despite the fact that the two of them had conversed solely in Malay. This is a pretty common refrain, I am learning. It seems like everyone speaks English (leaving me wondering why Koreans all go to the Philippines instead of coming here).

KL has only 2 million people, which by major city standards is miniscule. And everything about it seems small. Practically rural. It is the least frightening large city I think I've ever been in (from the first, I mean...of course Seoul is totally unfrightening, but you don't know that when you LAND). It is very, very, very green. There are not too many tall buildings. The tall buildings that there are are not actually near each other, so there is no sense of vertical congestion. And the roads are mostly not wide (the expressway only has 4 lanes, both directions included!). My guesthouse, which is a bit beat up but absolutely spotless and with a great location and outstanding staff, is right downtown. 2 blocks from the shiniest shopping malls you can think of. This place is shopping heaven - I mean, every brand, every chain, gleaming glass multi-stories under the sun. And even here there are chickens in the street and carts of food vendors under palm trees on the corners and dirt lanes that lead to charming old clusters of two-story colonial-looking houses. The people are warm and friendly, the sky is blue (and HOT - 8am and I am sweating, sweating, sweating), and the city awaits.

Yoga and I spent the evening walking around the mall (mostly) and the neighbourhood (a little). He thought mall food would be a good lead in because even though it's twice the price of street food (about $2US instead of $1), I could see everything that's available in one go. And it's air-conditioned. I requested Malay, it being my first night in Malaysia, and he didn't tell me until he'd ordered that he doesn't actually like Malaysian food but rather prefers Thai or Indian, both of which are utterly ubiquitous. We had huge bowls of steaming, thick soup loaded with skinny, yellow noodles, shrimp, sliced chili peppers and shrimp. Mine was fish based, his peanut. His was better (though they were both good). On the side we had heavy triangles of raw tofu stuffed with slivers of vegetable and topped with crushed peanuts (also ubiquitous). Those were GREAT! And fresh fruit juice...HEAVEN!! Before getting back to the guesthouse
around 10 (we set out about 6), we'd had mango, sugar cane, cat's eye (which tasted like iced-tea), and something small and brown that he couldn't translate but that made bright yellow, sour-sweet juice when soaked in water. And that was only a fraction of the offerings. We also had an enormous plate of cut fruit (green mangoes, pineapple, guava, papaya, and other stuff I couldn't identify) served on top of crispy-fried dough stuff and smothered in oozing black sauce loaded with, what else, crushed peanuts. I have no idea what the sauce was, but it was good. Though picture menus abounded on the street, none of the food we ate there was in any of them, so thank goodness Yoga knew what to ask for.

There is a fabulous book store on the top level of the mall...I am in heaven. It was like Christmas, to see so many English titles as far as the eye could see. I didn't let myself look too closely, though I will go back. He says there's an even bigger one at the Petronas towers, where I'm headed this morning as soon as I finish this.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a million things already (oh! like the old man on the motorcycle who had whistles that sounded so much like real tropical birds that everyone, locals and foreigners alike, were scanning the trees for feathers...or the women in burqa with the stunning eyes that are all around, mixed in with the women in less-modest shawls and the women in jeans and the women in micro-dresses with more make-up on their faces than fabric on their bodies...or the hilarity of middle-aged women in traditional dress powering by on souped-up motorcycles...or the frog stew booth, yes, real frogs, on the corner near the guesthouse...or the upstairs balcony overlooking the food street where every kind of inflatable toy is swinging from an enormous tree...or the fiesty old British guy swearing at the woman in the fancy mercedes after she ran over his foot trying to fit her car through a too narrow gap in the pedestrians - to which Yoga said, not about the foot-squashing but about the swearing, 'That would have been a perfect opportunity to use the local epithet 'MY FOOT!'...), but the food outside smells wonderful and it's definitely time to hit the streets and see what this city is like in the daytime.

I am on my way by foot to the towers first, by way of the food cart across the street, and then I plan to taxi to the national mosque (which has a modern silver sculpted roof, nothing like a mosque that you imagine...which is exactly what the textile museum down the street from the mosque looks like, and used to be, I think...) which has the world's largest walk-in aviary behind it. Birds, yippee!! And then back to this neighbourhood tonight, maybe a more serious perusal of the bookstore (not that my suitcase can fit in any books!), before meeting Yoga here around 8. Mmmm, Malaysia!

Mao and Magellan

Mao is staying here. She's a bit more laid back
than her sister, which seems like a good thing
in a house full of rabbits.


Magellan is going to live with my oldest Korean
friend and her fiance - the ones who brought me
Niko in the first place. I'm sure we''l be having
lots of kitty play dates.

I really wasn't in the market for another kitten. Really. And yet here I am, with not one but two frenetic balls of fluff tearing around the floor at my feet. After Niko died I decided it was time to get out of town for a couple of days. I have been working A LOT lately, too much, and on top of spending a couple of days tearing up at every single thing in my apartment figured it was time. Plus Shui Cai was due for his rabies shot in Seoul, so it seemed like a good opportunity.

Fresh off the bullet train and at the vet's office, talking about Niko. I had called him to find out how much formula to feed her when my friends first brought her over, so he was wondering how she was. When I told him what happened his nurse appeared with a pair of orphan kitties as if by magic. He wanted to know if I would take them. Both healthy, a respectable age for adoption (2 months), and he was having trouble finding someone else. They'd been there for a while, since their mother died, and even had their first shots. I called my friends and asked them what to do. They said if I took one they'd take the other. Forms signed, extra carrier bought and voila, a brand new kitten. Again.

Mao (as in, Chinese for 'cat') is pretty laid back, for a kitten. She likes to curl up on my chest and purr. And to (new, this evening) fight with her own tail. Magellan (Mags, for short) is more adventurous, but also more skittish. Updates to follow, as they grow!

Niko

Niko was rescued from a tree under my friend's
apartment after 6 hours of crying. They don't
know how long she was in the tree before she
started to wail (and Niko had lungs!). Cat fatalities
on the streets of Changwon are very high, so
they assumed her mother had been killed or had
abandoned her. The vet estimates she was about
12 days old. They brought her to me to foster,
since they are never home and have never fostered
an infant animal before (all 3 of my rabbits were
bottle fed). She did great for the first few days,
but got sick abruptly last week and didn't make it.
The vet said she had parvo, which she probably
got from her mother, as well as the kitty equivalent
of AIDS (which 60% of street cats in Korea have).
She was a terrific cat, for the short time I had her,
and is missed very, very much.

Mourning, May 27th

At 7:30 this morning, towards the end of a 6km run in which far more energy was expended choking back sobs than keeping my feet moving forward, the rice paddies near home were newly green, bursting with life. Already at 6am, when I climbed the mountain to bury my too-tiny kitten, the fields and paths were full of old women and men, planting. It strikes me more every spring, how old the farmers are getting. The same people who did the work when I arrived, long before I arrived, getting a little slower and more bent over each year, still working. No young people ever take their places.

It is possible that running through tears is a more productive use of energy than just curling up in a pathetic ball on the bed and wailing away. Certainly it frightens my rabbits less. But the whole point of the endeavor was to wear myself out too much for the waterworks to keep on, something you'd think would be relatively easy after a sleepless night spent crooning to a miniscule fur ball in obvious distress growing weaker by the hour in the crook of my arm. And yet here I am, 6 km later, crying over every little thing (figuratively and literally) with no apparent end in sight. Lesson: running may strengthen your heart, but not for stuff like this. Nothing strengthens your heart for this.