Weekend road trip to KL

Spending a weekend for a holiday is quite taxing.
Advantage: you don’t have to burn too much of your annual holiday.
Disadvantage: you have to be prepared to have your energy sapped from your bones.

Last weekend, I went to KL with my salsa friends from Xenbar. We left on Friday night, and I returned on Monday morning, just in time for natural products lecture at 10am. We booked the Grassland luxury coach, which cost $77, compared to $20 if you buy a no-frills coach and board it from Malaysia. The extra $$ went to the blanket they provided, a bottle of mineral bottle, a piece of cake, and a private television screen. Not to mention there was ample space for the legs. My toes couldn’t even touch the seat in front when I stretch it and point my toes. Having such a novel gadget on board, everyone threw sleep out of the window. From the last seat, I could see people turning into movies like Fantastic Four and Harry Potter. It was a surprise to see that the Harry potter movie that they had on board was the last movie edition: Goblet of Fire. However, being so tired from continuous nights of practice and performance on Friday itself, I immediately fell asleep on the bus, although I did try (in vain) to watch a movie after we were woken up at a pit stop.

I cannot help but stop this account of the trip, to tell you about what we saw at the toilets. At the toilet in Golden Mile complex, we saw a lady squatting over a drainage hole to pee, even though there were many empty, squatting cubicles. It was very traumatizing, more so when we saw the lady again when we were leaving the toilet, slowly preening herself in the mirror.

It was 5pm when we arrived in KL. We got off the bus at Berjaya plaza, opposite Times Square and tried/discussed how to navigate from there to capitol hotel. It took awhile because the map we had was very vague and there were no road signs in sight to indicate which direction is where and also because most of us just woke up from our sleep.

In the end we just followed Justin, walked blindly, and actually found the hotel lobby, which was very small and inconspicuous. After we deposited our bags at the concierge of the hotel (there were no empty rooms suitable for us to check into yet because we wanted 4 rooms on the same floor), we walked out into the night to look for any shops or restaurants which were open. We found an expensive Chinese restaurant which sold coke at RM$4 and porridge at RM$13. Having no choice and lots of money in our pockets, we sat down and depended on those of us who could speak Cantonese to order our breakfast.

The porridge we ordered was very tasty, and made us feel that we spent our money’s worth. Justin told Sam that this was the porridge he should cook. It led to the question, did the porridge contain MSG, a taste enhancer. Most of us felt that it did, because the porridge tasted good and we soon became thirsty that we had to order a drink. However Wai Huang said it didn’t because he was hypersensitive to MSG and it made his muscles tighten. The porridge, however, didn’t do so. We then say at the restaurant to talk till 8pm. The conversation was interjected by Justin’s demands for Ivy to tell us our itinerary. That totally stressed Ivy out because it was a free and easy trip and there was no itinerary,

I was sitting beside Justin and being so close to him I spotted a strand of white hair and pimples on his head! Then yanqing reached over to touch his hair, then she concluded, “I give you permission to shave again, now your head not poky anymore!”

We got back to the hotel at 8am to see if they had any rooms. Unfortunately they didn’t so we sat at the lobby and started dosing off. After a while, we shifted to the chairs at the café for better sitting positions. Justin couldn’t sit still, after a while he started garnering the few of us who were awake to go for another breakfast, this time it was wanton noodle breakfast. Terence, Wai Huang, Joyce and me stayed and slept. At about 10am, when the hotel promised us at least 2 rooms, everyone came back, with bubble gum. Thus we started a bubble-blowing competition. We took quite a few tries before we could get a picture of all 4 bubbles taken.

Before the clock stroke 1, we managed to troop down to Federal hotel’s swimming pool to do a bit of tanning. Unfortunately there was more cloud cover that desired, and most of us ended up “half done” or half tanned, only the back was exposed to strong enough sun. Not giving up, we returned the next day and was rewarded with very strong sun. Instead of originally spending 30mins lying on one side, we only took 10mins. Joyce and I were happy to be slightly tanned, unlike Sam and Ivy, who tanned till their faces burned. Not forgetting to take photos, we posed for a few memorable ones, and we caught Kyo’s 6-pac-to-be-8 on photo. DJ Kyo, candidate for the Xenbar’s version of 300.

The rest of the day was quite uneventful as we went shopping at Sungei Wang while the guys entertained themselves. Each of us got valuable buys which we couldn’t get in Singapore. The biggest take-home was the second day, when we chanced upon a factory outlet shop while walking aimlessly from shopping centre to shopping centre. We each other a pair of denim shorts, all prepared to dress as sailors for the May/June performance. The shorts were selling at RM$24 and buy 1 free 1. So that works out to less than S$6.

The whole objective of the trip was actually to get a feel of KL’s salsa scene. And we did. At first we went to Salsa Havana, but it was empty on Saturdays. Next we went to Little Havana. It was D place. All 11 of us trooped into the semi-detached bungalow. I bet the locals were all thinking: who are they? We soon showed them that we were here to dance salsa. All our ladies could do that pretty well. Soon, we took over the dance floor. After all, we were only here for 1 night. It was very enjoyable, the place was crowded, just enough to provide a party yet not too crowded for accidents and feet-stepping to occur. I enjoyed myself there. I actually caught this guy, Jason who could do very nice afro-cuban shines, in action. However the lighting was tricky and I figured that the memory of it would serve better than a dark recording.

After the dancing, which ended at 2am, we were invited to join the locals at a prata stall nearby. It was very much like what we do in Singapore, after social dancing at Union Square. There, I got the chance to talk to a lady by the name of Xiao San. I asked them about which school they were learning from, who are her instructors, whether they danced with anyone, or only among their own classmates. She also asked about Singapore and I told her that Xenbar is a bar, restaurant, club and dance school all rolled into one. As members of Xenbar, we get to customize it and make it our own, like sleeping over during practices and playing mahjong to chill. She said she loves the concept of Xenbar, and would definitely check it out when she comes over. To end the night, we took group pictures with the locals, and exchanged emails. At that point, I felt that my sole aim of coming to KL was fulfilled and I returned to the hotel utterly exhausted. I slept while feeling the aches and pain from my feet creeping up my body.