Sister-Kind - This Night Of Joy

 

THURSDAY

This night of joy
Part Six of Sister-kind

The TV mustn’t have switched itself off as it’s still going at low murmur as I wake up.
I’m on my side, snug as a bug, the knock out shades emitting a slither of light that lets me know its morning. I roll my wrist to wake the time display sensor on the G-Shock, squinting through the sleep in my eyes the teal digital caps suggests it’s 9ish, I recoil, relax, knowing there’s plenty of time to snooze.  I am caterpillar-like wrapped with the doona around me, I manage to squeak muffled tones from my rissole, giggling to myself at silenced toots. I’m enjoying the warmth before the early morning stabbing of my piss horn let’s me slumber no more, “Fuck”, I whisper, there’s no fighting it, so I roll out of bed, the silage of qweef follows and with each stumbled step to the bathroom I’m blowing notes from my rusty tuba.  It’s the same thing every morning, dropping low notes, not quite a melody, but a catchy tune nevertheless.

After bathing and a quick change into some fresh duds I grab the phone after the first ring, “Yello?”
It’s Jeff. “Sup brudda, you ready?” and I say, “Oh fuck yeah, let’s go” and 2 minutes later we’re riding the elevator towards the buffet breakfast. Oh how I love the breakfast here, I don’t bother with the boring cereal, instead I’ve improvised a routine that always begins with a plate of fresh fruit and then I get into the traditional breakfast treats, the scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, baked beans, sausages and a choice of breads. I um n’ ah over a fruit bagel but pass it over for a fresh butter croissant then head back to the table where Jeff plays with waffles doused in cream and syrup.

Over breakfast we talk about the day ahead of us, what’s different is that we’re both feeling refreshed, but there’s caution not to overdo it too,  we’re both keen to take it slow, to just let things unfold without rushing about too much. After coffee we head upstairs to use the PC’s, I check my bank balance then click Gmail and I write Kelly an email.

Yo P,

I heard about Andrew and Celeste and that's good news.

Not meeting Uncle Brian has put us into a bind as to whether or not get a suit, going to go out to another tailor today and then work out whether they can ship it or even if it's worthwhile. This will be at Amcorp mall and there is another toy store so Jeff might get to find some more hobby kits.

We're not planning for much today. It is going to be very lazy. Petaling Street China Town is planned for around 4.30 this arvo and we might eat down that way too. Friday will be a full scale attack on BB Plaza to spend whatever is left in my budget.  I wasn't planning on getting gifts for Mum and John or Sandra but do you think that I should? and I'm hopeless in the gift dept, please tell me what I should do.

Oh, btw, StarHill is closed for renovations and you're right about Lot 10, it sucks. I think I told you already but I still squeezed some good stuff from it though. I needed some more polo shirts and I got a few golf polos from Debenhams, I bought some aftershave from Isetan and I think I told you I bought a pair of Birkenstocks the other night too.

Ok sis, I’ll email you at cocktails time this arvo and catch up then.

Kind regards,

Brosef

While Googling local hobby stores this rando French Canadian stands off to our left, obvious in his intents that he wants to use the PC’s. I ignore him for about a minute finishing up what I’m doing when this guy drops his guts while we’re using the PC’s, and this isn’t a cured slow release floating form like the ones Jeff primes for detonation in taxis, this is Franch, dogged and dirty, it’s a mouthful and as i’ve inhaled a gulp of it I nearly gag. I close down all my search windows immediately, it’s truly disgusting, but I know the rules in the company of men, so I give him an equally filthy looks that says both – You bastard and Well played Sir, watching him in-turn smile back regaling in victory.

But for one upmanship before I hit the Windows Start button to select Logout, I instead select Restart. And thankfully the reboot sequence doesn’t initiate right away, as I’ve got time to push out my chair and step away. Without missing a beat Frenchie jumps into my still warm chair and the second he does this Windows XP goes into a Restart sequence, I look over my shoulder watching the situation unfold, “Checkmate” and I don’t even need to say it aloud, he fucking well knows it, he knows what he did to deserve it and the payback is even further rewarded because right after reboot the PC will require that the Club Lounge concierge has to log in to unlock the PC and the concierge is nowhere to be seen.

We head back to the rooms, I go for a squat thrust and before you know it we’re repeating our daily mantra by heading downstairs once more to hail a taxi. We’ve decided to look into the tailored suit idea that Uncle Brian suggested, we’re keen to check out his tailor first thing before we do anything else, but it’s still pretty early, looking around we notice that there isn’t a rank of lined up taxis like there would be at any other time of the day, so after a short wait we grab a red taxi and head out towards Amcorp mall.

The cab ride into the suburbs is very chilled and cruisey and when we arrive at the mall’s taxi rank I unfurl from the contortion shape I’ve sat in while wedged into the front seat, I have to stretch my legs a bit before we head inside, looking around from the outside it looks as though this mall might be the business and we’re keen to discover what awaits us. But once we get inside we quickly realise that this mall is not what it seems, Oh sure it has multiple floors of stores but more than half of these are closed, It’s barely going on ten and as we ride the escalator to where my Uncle’s tailor is located and as we climb the floors higher we can see that a lot of the stores here are either still closed or worse they’re vacated.

When we find the tailor I’m surprised to find that they’re actually open, so I go in, I say my Uncle has advised I come here and after an ever so brief chit chat I realise that there’s no fucking way they’re going to be able to do the suit in three days time, he says that there’s a five day minimum turn around with fittings & checks in-between. I get quoted a price and do a quick conversion in my head and conclude that it’s just not worth it given I can buy off the rack at home for a lot less. I decide to hold off and that maybe I need to wait until I head over to HK or China to get a suit made up.

It sucks, the situation I mean. Jeff was all mega keen to get pimped out in a clean new white suit and I saw myself in a royal navy blue blazer or else a sports coat in hounds tooth, but that shit ain’t happening now. I want to unleash with a fat cap on a flat black aerosol and tag “Amcorp mall sucks”, instead I mouth “Fuck this”, Jeff agrees, and we ride the escalators back to the bottom floor noticing that there’s a flea market being set up which looks kinda hobo.

We walk out the entrance we came on in through and are lucky enough to find that there’s a taxi stand where we can buy a pre-paid voucher. Before we do this I ask Jeff would he be keen on going cross-town to check out 1-Utama, and thankfully he is. I pay for a pre-paid taxi voucher and the taxi rank attendant whistles for a cab to pull up to meet us. I hand the driver the voucher and he seems happy enough to get us there.

The heat is already picking up and I can feel the glare through the front windscreen. We say nothing for a while and just try to take it all in, the urban sprawl, the endless carriageways of freeway, the differences between here and home, we notice certain things, the little things that are perhaps less common and we attempt to ask questions but our driver can’t string two words of English together and somehow it’s not such a drama as he’s a nice enough guy who just seems to smile a lot whenever we go to ask him something.

When we get to 1-Utama and we end up on the divide between the main part of the complex and the extensions that take you over and under the road. We hop out of the taxi on the far edge of a carpark and even though it’s a pre-paid voucher Jeff decides on tipping the driver anyway.

After a brief trek across the car park we enter the mall and we’re instantly hit by a refreshing wave of aircon. We stand there a moment oogling and ah’ing over the sheer size of the place, it’s huge, well laid out and it’s as impressive as The Pavilion or KLCC. We wander over by a store directory which is interactive and allows us to scan floors one at a time. I sort by name and keep flicking through, I notice a few name brand shops and decide to head off to our right and hunt around.

We walk past a store I’ve seen recently being shown off on HypeBeast, it’s a label by KAWS, a graff writer from NYC, it’s his own label called “Original Fake”, and by the looks of things it’s like we’ve arrived without a moment to lose, the store is closing down, the whole shop looks like it’s been ransacked so we don’t bother to go inside. We wander around floors that intervene into a central point, the staged area dominates the periphery with Xmas themes, tinsel and other silly crap. We pass high terraced areas and corridors that wind off towards more conventional grocery stores and find an underpass that connects the phase 1 area to the phase 2 area of 1-Utama, it’s around this area we find stores by Lacoste, Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren.

I go into Lacoste asking for anything in a size 9, which yields nothing. Their biggest size is an 8, so I eventually settle on a mint green polo and afterwards walk directly opposite into Ralph Lauren. Inside Ralph Lauren I buy a standard Ralph Lauren mesh polo in ultramarine blue, the polo rider is stitched in pale green embroidery. I make sure that I’ve asked for an XXL that has been made in the Philippines, as the ones made in the Philippines are generally made for the Western markets and as such the cut is slightly more generous. I look for chinos and find none, I ask about long sleeve or short sleeve shirts and ask in particular about the shirts marked Blake or the Classic Fit long sleeve shirts, but unfortunately the store has run out. The store attendant is however extremely keen to accommodate in other areas, he offers a golfing polo with a golden polo rider stitched into the breast at a discount. It’s a bit gawdy, there’s a plaid weave through it and I decide that it’s in-between grandpa territory and hipster and decide to go for it. Then he offers a black jacket in the classic golfing jacket cut. It’s less grandpa-ish and more of a classic so I say yes to that and let the store charge it back to my CC in Australian currency instead of ringgits.

Jeff is slightly disturbed that I’d spend almost $400 AUD like that, but I don’t mind as I’d been wanting to spend money like this at least once after saving all year just for the opportunity.
We’re wandering back the way we came and check in at another store directory and Jeff exclaims, “Hey dude, they’ve got a Tamiya store here”, I’m about to pass on this, certain that there will only be remote controlled cars, as there’s been a majority of hobby stores pushing either Gundam or remote control cars so far. It’s a long shot but we decide to go check it out, I walk towards Tamiya certain that there won’t be any WW2 hobby kits, as they haven’t been seen this far into the holiday, but once we find the store I am gobsmacked at what I see. The Tamiya store sits tucked at the very bottom of the escalators, it’s sitting at basement level which takes the average shopper back to the car park which seems to surround the store in this location. But when we get inside I’m like a kid in a toy store, “Wow!” I walk around the shop at least once and then find a wall display of 1:35 scale military kits, I’m so impressed, they have virtually the entire past year catalogue and the current season releases. I spend the next 15 minutes sorting kits, doing math conversions in my head and decide that all round I’m getting a good deal. Jeff keeps handing me kits and in the end I decide on a few large boxes of choice German vehicles & armour and few smaller boxes with infantry, weapons & equipment and other one off’s. We walk to the counter with arm loads of kits and the store attendant can’t believe how much I’m buying in one go.  When he rings it up he applies a discount and it comes in at slightly just under RM800, it’s not a problem for me as i’m cashed to the gills and hand over a fair chunk of $50’s.  After he’s bagged it up the plastic bag is so large that it’s almost as big as Santa’s sack and we have to carry it with two arms.

When we get back into the main area of the mall Jeff asks what I want to do next and I say, “let’s eat”. I stop at an A&W franchise but Jeff is antsy about stopping here and I tell him to go find something he likes elsewhere and that I’ll meet him back here, but he doesn’t, he sulks as though I’ve hit a nerve. I spend RM10 and get a pint of Root Beer, a Chicken burger and a serve of fries. I get handed packets of ketchup but I don’t usually douse my chips with sauce. The seated area is full of people, we pass wall booths but two of these are trashed with cola and food spread everywhere, the tables, the floors, the seats and it’s a typical sight at home so I’m not perturbed as I push away trays full of trash to one side. I ask Jeff what’s wrong and he’s pretending that he’s not mad, but he is, and there’s nothing I can do about that at the moment so I sit there munching on my chips and burger and do this without being too much of a bastard. When I mouth the last French fry Jeff looks at me expectantly, “Are you done? Can we go now?” I say, “sure sure” and take a last heave on my root beer and let out a satisfied belch. Jeff is absolutely seething at this point, heh heh heh, it’s funny.

 We pass by a music store that has a display of that Asian kid who sings Celine Dion covers out front, I pass by laughing and pointing and somehow this lightens the mood for Jeff and he relaxes a little. We walk back past Tommy Hilfiger and I think about going inside but then I think back to my present wardrobe situation and decide Tommy Hilfiger has been getting some serious mileage outta me and that I probably need to mix it up a little.

We exit 1-Utama a different way to how we came in, and thankfully there’s a few taxi ready for us to head back the hotel. We ride back in relative comfort, it’s a newish Proton that is in the shape of one of those bubble shaped Excel sedan’s by Hyundai from the late 90’s, it seems to have more leg room and I opt for the front seat. I’m enjoying the ride back, the sun is out and it’s still early afternoon, we make it onto the freeway and in no time at all we’re pulling up the cobblestone driveway of the hotel. We emerge with all my bags of treats and Jeff helps me with my loot as we haul it up to our rooms.

We part ways in the hall and Jeff asks if I wanna do something later, I say, “for sure” and go into my room to unpack the bags of stuff I’ve bought. While unpacking Jeff knocks on my door and asks if I want to head upstairs to check emails. I say Yes and we go up to the Club Lounge.
There’s afternoon tea snacks out and I go for a tall glass of mango juice and at the same time manage to click Gmail and scan an email from my sister.

Boo,

I think you may struggle to get a suit made before you leave, and most tailors are far too dodgy to send you things in the mail.  It’s a risk.

Glad to hear your hitting china town, be prepared - it is a mad house ... ha ha.  you will have fun there though.  They will try and convince you that they don’t sell copy stuff - EVERYTHING is copy, so if you buy anything, don't spend a lot.  Like a polo shirt should not cost any more than 10 bucks Aussie.

Yeah, lot 10 is shite.  i never go there.  Good news about the Birki’s - i am jealous :)

As for mum and Sandra, i really don't know what to suggest.  i doubt they would like a copy handbag but they may like a nice table runner from china town (again, you shouldn’t pay any more than 10-15 bucks for this).  The art of haggling is to walk away if they are being stupid with the price.  if they want your business, they will call after you.  if they don't you have gotten them down to their lowest price

By the way, you prolly already know this but there is a $900 limit for the value of goods purchased overseas per person to bring back into Australia, so if you have spent over that, you will need to declare it.  They don't mind - you just have to say approx how much you spent, and say it is for personal use, and gifts for family.  Customs are more interested in commercial quantities, not people who have gone mad on shopping :)

Xx

We don’t linger in the club lounge for long, while we’ve been checking emails Jeff has the idea to send all of his Gundam kits home via a courier company. On the surface of things it seems like a good idea and he asks me if I’d be keen to help him carry out all of his kits across the street to DHL, which is a courier company that ships world wide. I agree and soon we’ve got a couple of bags in each hand across the street. Once we’re at DHL the best laid plans are revealed for what they’re worth and as reality bites Jeff realises all too quickly that he’s not going to have much money left afterwards as the shipment costs are going to be expensive. The DHL lady try’s out a few different configurations to pack all the boxes together all safe and sound, but ends up going for this pallet sized monstrosity, even when all the boxes are inside she still has to fill it with the figure eight shaped packing beans. The whole process takes more than 20 minutes to complete and I’m sitting on a chair taking it all in, slowly drinking a small can of Root Beer watching this hottie do her thing, she’s mega cute, my yellow fever clicking into high gear now watching her really get her back into in shifting boxes around till all the beans have filled the box, hmmmmm, Joy.

When the boxes are packed and the invoice squared away and paid for we walk back to the hotel and talk to the taxi rank manager about getting a taxi to Petaling Street, he questions us, “China Town? Oh it’s still early” but we’re pretty keen to go do something so even while it’s only just after 4pm we decide to go there.

So we taxi it there and the taxi driver is a fucking bum that we need to negotiate the costs even before getting inside, we’re ready to tell him to fuck off and walk but Jeff compromises the effort with an agreed amount. It’s peanuts to us, but still I hate the feeling of getting ripped off because some fuckwit won’t play by the rules. We go the most direct route to Petaling Street and thankfully the taxi driver hasn’t decided to fuck us over anymore than what was agreed.

We walk into China Town and then the fun starts. We begin by passing a few vendors selling Prada, Gucci and LV over night bags, then further along we see the fake sunglasses Ray-Ban Wayfarer’s and Aviators, Christian Dior Jackie O’s , a few more stalls along I see fake G-shocks and Rolexes, Mont Blanc pen sets and wallets. I see stalls with polo shorts by Ralph Lauren, Lacoste and Fred Perry, there’s t-shirts, shorts, tracksuit jackets and rugby tops, it’s all fake of course but it’s pretty amazing nevertheless.

I ask questions about polo sizing and the vendor is unsure he’s got anything in a XXL, I ask around but I get mixed reactions which make me feel as though they could be lying to me, so I pass. Meanwhile, Jeff has struck up a conversation with a local regarding some DVD’s, the guy asks us if we’d like to see his shop so we follow him over to a store front on the side of the street, there he shows us wall displays of his latest films and then the best films are on display in rows by genre. I ask about TV series and he hands me an A4 sized catalog with films and TV shows alphabetically listed, but I don’t find Battlestar Galactica, so I become bored, I ask him for something that I know he doesn’t have and this is my exit strategy so I start to leave the store. But Jeff is lagging behind, in fact Jeff is acting pretty weird and is sort of in disbelief at my aloofness. I walk out the store and almost bump into a vendor who is selling sunglasses, she tries to sell me a pair of Ray Ban’s and then I show her the Ray Ban Aviator’s that I’ve got in the top pocket of my cotton shirt. She asks where did I get them? and I tell her that, “these are the real thing darling” and she frowns as I walk away. When we’re beyond the first section of stalls somewhere towards an open area I turn to Jeff and ask him, “What? what is it?” and Jeff says, “Get me outta here”, I’m not sure what’s up but I guess he’s had some sort of agoraphobic reaction so I don’t argue. We’ve so far only walked to the first of the three sections of China Town, we’ve basically seen only a third of what’s on offer. We manage to clear the shoulder to shoulder human traffic, Jeff’s hand is firmly fixed on his wallet in his pocket, I lead him out into this middle ground where there is a stall for roasted walnuts, it smells awful and there’s smoke and drums with black tar from the roasting process. Off to our left is a shorter string of stalls that leads back to a main road and while I don’t have an immediate sense of what’s going I can tell something’s up to make Jeff so tense. I use these last moments as we’re heading out of China Twon to take mental snap shots of everything I see, there’s a sense of loss to it so I look hard trying to take it all in like some postcard memory. So as soon as we’re out of China Town Jeff exhales and then tells me what’s got him rattled, “Tell me you saw the fucking pistol in that guys waist?”, but I didn’t and at first I’m not sure I believe him. Jeff says defiantly, “The guy had a PPK or something like that in his belt dude, you honestly didn’t see it?” I tell him that I honestly didn’t.

We walk down a side street that takes us almost parallel to the distance we’ve travelled up Petaling Street and it’s then I realise that we really haven’t seen much of it at all. We’ve literally retraced our steps and realising there’s absolutely no sense of continuing to dawdle Jeff hails a taxi and we get in ready to go back to the hotel.

On the ride back into Bukit Bintang we get stuck in traffic, our driver try’s to do a side street to avoid the swell but fails horribly. I have an idea of where we are right now so I ask Jeff he wants to jump out and walk back, he agrees and we pay the driver the normal rate and find ourselves a street or two behind Sungei Wang Plaza. The sun is setting and the streets are bathed in golden light, some side walk cafes are closing while others are opening, their roller door fronts tagged in graffiti that could be from any city. We feel safe as we walk the around the plaza out onto the main street of Bukit Bintang, while heading home I check out a store across from Sungei Wang selling long sleeve Ralph Lauren shirts, but none of these are in my size so I keep walking.

I’m not sure if it’s Jeff who jogs my memory or whether it came at my own insistence but I decide that while we’re here next to Sungei Wang Plaza I should try and get a new suitcase. I mean we’d talked about it after I brought home all of the model kits and after some of the shoes I’ve bought I know that I’m going to need a bigger bag in order to get all my stuff home. We walk into Sungei Wang plaza as men with purpose, we ride an escalator up a level and through the persistence of memory we find our way over to a luggage store that Jeff and I spied while walking around that first day. I look at various roller cases and I’m looking for something with a hard shell in light weight plastic. I find the case I want and then speak to one of the female attendants about a price, the price quoted is a little high, so I take a pause and head over to ask Jeff, “Hey, you reckon you could talk this price down?” Jeff’s eyes widen with the look I’ve seen before that reads “challenge accepted”, I have summoned his dark talents as he is certainly the king of the grift, the silver tongued Dillon that is so good that I’m sure he could talk his way out of cancer. He starts off with the price and then proceeds to make the store attendant run through the features and benefits of this case versus the other cases. He pauses occasionally and agrees with me that I’ve chosen the best case in the store, but there’s no way I’m going to pay this price. Then when the female attendant is getting pissy she asks the store owner to come on over to talk to us about the price. The store owner is a short Chinese guy who has the same Mr Miyagi features as our taxi driver earlier in the week, the store owner starts off with how much is the case, the sales attendant says it was RM800 but now it’s RM700 and Jeff says that we’re prepared to spend RM500 on the case. The store owner isn’t immediately dismissive, he looks over the suitcase and see’s the value in the way it’s been crafted, “this is a good case you know” and Jeff is immediately glib, “Oh we know that’s why we want it”.
After a while of scratching his facial hair he says, “Ok deal” we shake hands and I hand over the cash to the sales attendant. While she rings it up at the cashier we make small talk with the owner, we talk about where he’s from and how long he’s been living in KL, he tells us he’s been here nearly 7 years and that likes it here and we tell him so do we.

We walk back to the hotel, me rolling the case all the way back. We head up to our rooms and do a bit of chillaxing. I lay back on the bed and wait for sleep to come, but in my wait for Mr Sandman, Mr Jeff knocks on the door instead. He asks, “Hey you wanna head upstairs for something to eat?”
And in moments we’re in club lounge eating side plates of fresh fruit, mini deserts, chicken drumsticks and savoury foods. I mix myself a GnT and head back to window table for two Jeff has picked out. It’s romantic, the city lights, the sun is setting and there’s all these delicious canapés to enjoy. I go for a few plates of food that fills me up and afterwards there’s no need to even contemplate going out for dinner.

When we’re finished with our drinks and food we go to use the computers and to check emails.
I decide to write an email back to Kelly to give her a recap of what went down today.

Hey Kel,

We had a very late breakfast downstairs and then we went to Amcorp Mall.
Anyway,  I said we went to Amcorp Mall and it was shit. There was nothing there except for Uncle Brians tailor and they couldn’t do the suit in a day so.....I need to figure something out before Andy & Celeste's wedding next year.

Then on a whim we went to 1-Utama mall and there I damaged the credit card a little bit at Ralph Lauren.
So far this is one of the best malls besides Pavilion and KLCC.
While at 1-Utama I bought another Lacoste top and some Tamiya hobby kits. I saw a brand i'd only recently discovered shutting down their store - Original Fake

After a wee spell back at the hotel, we posted all of Jeff's Gundam model kits back to Australia via DHL.
Jeff has run out of money and I have assisted wherever I can. The postage sucked up his last reserves.

This arvo we went to China Town on Petaling street, Jeff's hand never left his wallet, i didn't mind that so much, but what really got to me was the suffocating effect of people trying to rip you off. The fakes were really good, the bags incredible, I wanted to get an overnight bag by LV but hesitated since Customs are cracking down on people bringing that stuff back. The clothes and other imitation stuff was huge, I saw polo’s by Ralph Lauren, Fred Perry, Paul Smith. I saw heaps of Ray Ban rip off's, even Casio G-Shocks. I didn't find the Red Bull jacket Dad wants or saw anything like it. We walked up to the centre of China Town and then hung a left and got the hell out of there. Ideally i would like to go there again but perhaps without someone as...hmmm careful as Jeff.

Afterwards, we went to BB Plaza and Jeff helped talk down a Chinese business man for a hard plastic suitcase from 799RM to 500RM. I needed a bigger bag for all my shoes, polo’s and crap I’ve bought.

Tomorrow we're going to look for booze, Grey Goose, and perhaps some cigars that I can give away as gifts. I already bought two packs of smokes for the guys I work with. I will find your coffee powder tomorrow.

I ate lunch at A&W and had a Root Beer which is something I’ve always wanted to do. For the rest of the evening I’m planning on packing away some stuff and then head downstairs for a few beers to unwind.

I won’t summarise the trip too much but I can say that if had more money I’d like to spend it here. The clothes weren't so much of a problem - I now have a idea on what you can and can’t get. I seem to have a handle on things and if I were to do over I’m sure I could tailor my shopping list to suit. There is some regret that we didn’t do the whole sightseeing stuff.

But then the shopper in me says - Fuck that and let's go shopping.

 Anyways people hassling for the computer I gotta go.

Laters

Brosef

After the libations we head back to our rooms, Jeff hangs out in my room for a bit before going back to take a shower. He’s gone an hour or more and around 9ish and Jeff calls me on the phone and says, “You wanna go downstairs for a drink?”. I say sure, I’ve only been reading the paper and making notes against my shopping list and I have to admit I’m bored and kinda up for anything.

We go downstairs but we don’t go to the lounge area like we normally do, instead we go to the left of the main entrance and around this side is a sports bar that we’ve seen but so far have avoided.
There’s a huge wall screen playing EPSN, a couple of younger asian people chatting at a booth and also at a nearby table, the place is virtually dead. I turn to Jeff and say, ”Man, I dunno”, he says, “We’ll just have one drink”, ha ha famous last words.

So we start with a couple of glasses of Carlsberg which then gets us in the mood to talk to the bar man, he’s way cool, with a sense of hospitality we’ve not had since talking with Emma or Madsa. He talks to us about our lives back home in Australia, he talks about wanting to go there someday, inbetween drinks he keeps asking us what music we like and he plays keeps calling out song names off CD covers and asks us what we want to hear next. We down a beer or two each before really getting into it. I start off with a GnT’s, basic stuff, then after two ask if he has a better gin and he mixes me up two shots of Bombay Sapphires and tonic. I have a few more of these and then my cash starts to run low, Jeff opens up his wallet and buys the next couple of rounds until he’s tapped out.
Looking around we notice that we’re the only ones here, it’s just us and the bar tender, looking to change things up a bit I change horses mid stream and drink a CC and dry and then go back to the GnT’s. The whole time the bar tender is keeping us talking, we’re dribbling shit mostly but we don’t try and bullshit him he’s way cool. He changes the music from Guns n’ Roses to songs by Katy Perry, after which it’s all I wanna hear, I’m such a pissy chick at this stage, conditioned by the amount of times i’ve heard Katy all week while in shopping malls. Jeff keeps going on about the lack of bourbon in this hotel and I can’t even recall what the hell he was drinking to keep pace with the Gin I was throwing back.

Then the bar tender says that if want to kick on we can charge it back to our rooms and I say “Fuck it” and charge the all the rounds that follow back to my room. From this point on all I order is double shots with every drink, I can remember counting up to nine glasses I’ve had up till this point, minus the beer and I am happy as fuck. Somewhere in between the rounds we’re joined by three English lads who are slightly older than me out here on a bucks night. They are proper fucked as well and the wedding is tomorrow. They tell us that they’re fire fighters and their best mate, who has since gone to bed, is the one getting married to a local Malay girl and that the entire family is here from the UK to have the event in KL because it was cheaper to do it here than having the wedding back home in the UK. Fancy that. Jeff gets into them about a recent rugby result and follows these guys around as they’re good sports and don’t mind getting pissed with a pair of Aussies, I talk to these guys and they’re cool, chilled out, they ask us about Australia, I tell them about Perth and how many English people I know that have settled there. I tell them about the lifestyle of back home and how it really is and how you can still live the dream they’ve seen in postcards and holiday shows on TV, I tell them that it’s all possible and they can bring over their skills and still live like kings I can tell by now that they’re hooked on what I’m selling, that being – Dreams,  and one of them is dead serious about following his Mrs over to Perth, she’s a nurse he tells me, I tell him don’t worry and that he can learn to surf and let his Mrs work for a while, he likes this and we all keep charging on.

It must be close to 1am when the bar tender starts counting up his till and he calls for last orders. We’re told to relocate to the sunken lounge but before we go the bar tender calls me and Jeff over and wishes us both the best and hands us two complimentary tall frosty glasses of Carlsberg. We are so impressed, Jeff and I say our farewells and head over to a quiet table in the sunken lounge, the lights are low and we listen to the cabaret singer and her bang belting out classic songs that have a jazz bluenote feel to them. But the thing is she’s kinda twangin’ her pronunciations, the lyrics having this wiry sound, like high pitched tweets that hurt my ears whenever she hits the high notes. “Oh fuck” I whisper to Jeff, but he’s already in tears, “she’s fucking awesome”, Jeff is practically crying at this point and then slurs of Vietnam war movies come to mind, Jeff wants Boom Boom for sure, when we’re almost finished our drinks the cabaret quartet finishes up, they don’t linger long, the lead singer talks to someone in the cigar smoking area and there’s another guy with a haircut and outfit like’s been taken off the set of Dragon Ball Z who talks to some of the guests and then they go. Jeff says he’ll try and find Emma and order another round and charge it back to his room. He goes away for a little bit and when he returns he asks me to come hang out with the Poms we met in the sports bar. Jeff is able to order a last round right before the downstairs bar closes and so we hang out in the lounge for a while until eventually the drinks run out. The lounge bar is closed and the British lads each in turn excuse themselves and head back to their rooms.

But Jeff and I are still keen to keep going and we even consider going to the 7-11 across the street to buy those teeny weenie cans of Carlsberg. But this of course means crossing the street, something we’re not sure we can do, so instead we say fuck it and head to the elevators and head back to our rooms. Jeff and I agree that it’s been a blast and he says “Goodnight” to me in the hallway as we head back to our rooms.

In the room I try and kick on and open a can of Carlsberg and tear open some Pringles, but after just two sips into my can of Carlsberg I put it down and flop onto the bed, I doff my shoes and socks and wriggle out of my jeans and shirt. I’m hot, even with the air-conditioning on and my body temp is high, I go to the bathroom and splash some water over me and consider taking a shower but realise that i’m a bit fucked right now and maybe I just need to be back to bed. I take a slash and try and pinch off a squat thrust which yields nothing. I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and climb into bed, I’ve got the lights turned off and the knock out shades drawn tight. I drink as much water as I can and set the TV timer to 30mins and then my head hits the pillow, I’m out for the count and as memory fades I can remember no more.