KL
Monday, July 22, 2002
the trip.
last weekend, the bear and i took a bus to Kuala Lumpur, which is just 5 hours from Singapore. we had the best time! we stayed at the Ritz thanks to a credit card freebie. we brought these really yummy smelling bath melts and stuff from an australian store that unfortunately closed down a few months ago, called lush. (need i say more?) in the huge bathtub, we gave each other facials (peach and almond scrub, i believe) which was, for some reason, so much fun! we kept giggling and saying how much we were enjoying ourselves. this is something that i recommend all couples (or at least very good friends) must try! this and using your bodies to paint fabric blinds -- a trick we learned from this sweet chick (to chick!) flick called Better than Chocolate.
dolling up.
we went to this pretty garden wedding of a friend of mine in the afternoon. the great thing is that we tried my recently-discovered way of dolling up for a party. here are my secrets to confidence at a party where you hardly know anybody:
1. give yourself a nice fruity facial (or do a mutual facial with your date!) exfoliating ones are the best because when you wash it off, your face feels soft and ultra fresh and your skin and hands smell so nice you raise your fingers to sniff all night.
2. take a nice relaxing bath. scrub where you're too hurried to scrub during a normal shower. really massage your scalp and condition your hair if you want.
3. do your nails (or have your date do them for you. i swear, he really did!). i like a nice transparent polish with specs of reflect-y thingies that look as if they're stuck directly onto the surface. they're amusing and you'll find yourself just watching them reflect light.
4. do your eyebrows and your pits, or whatever facial/body hair normally makes you feel uncomfortable.
5. dress in soft fabrics. go bra-less! it's very liberating, very natural, and very sexy especially if you're pretty flat, like i am. doesn't work as well for, er, more full-busted ladies.
6. don't wear make up!!! after a facial, the worst thing to do is pile dust on your scrubbed skin. you'll feel uncomfy, wondering if your mascara is streaked or if there's lipstick on your teeth. but then again, this is of course on case-to-case basis as i, personally, never got used to make up in the first place.
eat shop man woman.
so we did just this (except he normally goes out without a bra anyway). we went to the party, were fabulous, and afterwards ate at this great lebanese restaurant on Bintang Walk, near our hotel.
after a night of marathon spooning, we had breakfast at a roadside eaterie the next morning. roti pratha with butter and sugar. and the best calamansi iced tea in the world! we did some shopping and bought a lot of great pirated DVDs (including mulholland dr., dr. t and the women, the royal tenenbaums, "o") for only 8 ringgit each -- about PhP112?
we went back to the hotel, had another bath, checked out, and walked around the shopping district. we chanced upon this great place to eat called "Bangkok Jam" -- not too expensive and they managed to create a really relaxing environment of dark wood, fabric, stones, and running water. The food was the best thai fare I've ever had outside thailand. And, in my humble non-thai opinion, it was pretty damn authentic. there was this desert i had in phuket once that i was really looking for since (i couldn't find it during my last trip there, to khon kaen which is up north) and Bangkok Jam amazingly had it.
so. anyway. we took the bus back to singapore and watched Donnie Darko (another pirated DVD acquisition!) on his powerbook. It really was a great weekend. :)
all in all, KL is a very nice city. better and cheaper than singapore. i think the experience is just generally pleasant. in any case, Bintang Walk is a good place for foreigners who want to get to know the city.
woman in chains.
one thing that stood out though. all the women in black chadors. i'm not sure if the term is right, 'cause depending on the country they can be called tudung or the burkha. essentially, i'm talking about what can be just a headscarf or a full body covering that devout muslim women wear. i'm not very knowledgeable about this but i wrote two papers about muslim women, once as an undergrad and another just a couple of months ago. at the onset of puberty, muslim women are expected to cover aurat or the sensitive parts of their body including the back of the neck and the limbs.
so many of the women we saw were clothed in such coverings, many of which were either tourists or migrants from the middle east. there were really old women, shuffling across the room, who had probably worn the chador for decades. women of indeterminate age, veiled from head to toe but for their beautiful eyes, walking alongside their husbands in plain shirts and jeans. we saw women whose faces were completely shrouded. all were in shimmery black.
the bear said, of the daughters skipping merrily around their parents, they look so carefree now but when they reach that age, BAM!, they get wrapped and sealed. the bear blamed the men. how can a husband let his wife suffer like that, he wondered. i blamed them both. i said that whatever liberties i enjoy today are because my foremothers didn't sit around twiddling their thumbs.
but the self-righteousness of our conversation still gave us pause. was there any victimization? is there any blame to lay?
i guess all i can really say is, i would hate for that to happen to me.
so anyway that was my weekend.
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