Found Him!

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...completely and utterly stolen from neatorama.

Okaaay... I need to backtrack a little here.
Last Tuesday and Wednesday were public holidays here (hear that all you Australians? Yeh that's right 2 days off).. celebrating, as far as I can tell either or both of Hari Raya and Deepavali.

I won't try to explain these days relevance from what I've gleaned from taxi (sorry 'Teksi') drivers and passersby, I will, instead, lean towards my friend Wikipedia:


"Hari Raya (Malay for "Day of Celebration") is a term used in Malaysia that can apply to the Muslim festivals of Eid ul-Fitr or Eid ul-Adha. Typically, simply "Hari Raya" refers to Eid ul-Fitr, which is also known as "Hari Raya Aidilfitri" or "Hari Raya Puasa" (literally "Fasting Day of Celebration").

As Eid ul-Fitr often coincides with either the Hindu festival of Deepavali or the Chinese New Year, which are both celebrated in Malaysia, portmanteaus such as DeepaRaya or Kongsi Raya have been created that refer to Eid ul-Fitr and one of the two festivals."


"Diwali, also called Deepavali, is a major Hindu festival that is also very significant in Sikhism and Hinduism. Known as the "Festival of Lights," it symbolises the victory of good over evil, and lamps are lit as a sign of celebration and hope for mankind. Celebrations focus on lights and lamps, particularly traditional diyas. Fireworks are associated with the festival in many regions.."


So there... make sense of that?

Oh Good.

In Australia, possibly the most humorous concept put to us by overseas tourists is the notion that kangaroos are everywhere, even in the main street of Sydney (hahaha, oh you crazy foreigners! oh...wait a minute.. i am one now).

Well, last week a monkey wandered into work. A bloody monkey! I like monkeys, though they freak me out a bit.




They're just big enough to be a major hassle if one jumped on you, and they look like they're seriously considering it, all the time.

When i went to the bird park, there were some monkeys sitting on top of a gate i had to walk through... i started to open it and they screeched at me a bit, and there was one that was just grinning at me. I seriously thought he was going to jump on my head.

He wore the same expression I wore when I was 20 years old, drunk and just been dared to jump off a roof or something similar.

Anyways, that's tonights post. Hope you enjoyed it.
Oh, just wanted to say a big Hi and thankyou to everyone who I've spoken to on googletalk, messenger, email, telephone who has lend me their support, and told me how much quieter the place is without me back there.

Some have even gone as far as to say they miss me, but let's be honest, that's just pillow talk really.

;)

...till next time.
Oh and visit my good friend Enclave's LiveJournal. Writing like this makes me wonder if I should really put some effort into this blog, or just give up completely.

Laters.

My god, what have I done?

Today I called my boss and requested to stay in Malaysia for a year. Despite the overly emotional cry of the title of this post, I feel reasonably comfortable about this decision, much good can come from it.

My boss, quite to my surprise, was extremely open to this idea (hopefully not a reflection of my performance back in Sydney) and the conversation was about a tenth the length I had expected it to be.

I feel I have a lot to learn from the team here, and hopefully they also feel the same way towards me. I haven't told my family yet. I guess that is 2moro's pet project. =)

I do feel quite nervous about the prospect, but I know that if I had taken the easy path and gone back to Sydney in a few months, I would be confortably sitting in the same bedroom I left, always wondering "what if".

This way, I get to find out, and while it will definitely have its challenges, and unique concerns, the benefits available will far, far outweigh any negatives.

...Wish me luck.

Mutton and Chicken

Heeey. Greetings again from Malaysia. The title of todays post may seem more obscure than usual, but all will be made clear. The moral of todays tale is 'don't assume anything'.

Firstly, 'Mutton'... I've mentioned before how much I'm enjoying the food here in Malaysia, and the variety of unusual foods is great for those times that you're feeling brave and willing to expand your horizons. But sometimes also, you might just want to sit down with some local cuisine that is just not quite so freaky. (Frog Porridge I'm looking at you.)

Now of course there is no real shortage of curry here, which is fine, as I like curry. One of the curries I've been happily tucking into for lunch is mutton curry. In Australia, mutton is quite common as we have a large sheep population, and the meat of the younger ones is known as lamb, the older ones is mutton. So yeh, been tucking into a mutton curry or three. Except I find out on Thursday that mutton is not sheep here, it's GOAT.
So yeh, that was a bit of a surprise. Goat is not (widely) eaten in Australia. Certainly I don't know anyone who eats it.

Also discovered that it's not good to use the word 'chicken' when play teasing a sweet little chinese girl. I was gently, kindly advised later that it's chinese slang for prostitute. Ack! I could have swallowed my tongue. It's been a long time since I've felt THAT sorry. 'Duck' is slang for gigolo, in case you were wondering...

Anyways, so yes, a tale of two meats. Everything is going great guns over here... You may laugh, but when sometimes things get too chaotic over here, i do miss the relative calm of Sydney.

Till next time...

Howdy pilgrims.

One week ago today I arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia again. This time, it's not for a couple of weeks, it's for a couple of months. I didn't blog about this earlier as I wanted it to be a surprise for the team here in KL, which i'm pretty sure it was.

One thing that was a surprise for me was the smoke that had engulfed the city in the time i was back in Australia. It's been blowing across from Indonesias controlled land clearing and turned a view that normally looks like this:

into this:

Even worse is that it is a yearly occurence.

It's a great city, with much to offer. I'm really enjoying my time here. All your senses are heightened by a new country, and malaysia is quite the country of contrasts.

Life is good. Friday my new notebook computer arrived, a Dell Latitude D620. I was going a bit spare without some form of entertainment besides Malaysian television when i come home.

here is my new toy:

Centrino duo 2gHz
2GB ram
120 GB Hdd
dvd +/- 8x burner
Wifi and Bluetooth

Today I went up to BB Plaza (which I got completely lost in) and bought an laser mouse, a webcam and microphone and a new pair of sandals (my previous pair lasted almost 3 years). I have quite the setup in my apartment now ;). I got mildly drenched on the way up Bukit Bintang, the rain here is watching your every move.

One thing to be prepared for over here is that not all toilets have toilet paper. The have a hose, and I have to say overall the experience was quite traumatic. Quite traumatic. Coupled with the fact that there is a fair to middling chance that you've just paid 1 Ringgit for the experience, lesser folks would be brought to tears. ;)

So anyway where was I? I have no idea.
We're apparently heading into the wet season, it may be my imagination, but i think perhaps it is a degree or 3 cooler than it was the last time i was here. Maybe I'm simply getting used to the heat and humidity? Who knows.

Anyways, that's about all that I have to report.
till next time, be well.