Kuala Lumpur: a confluence of muddy waters

It's been six months (?!?!?!?!) since I moved to Asia and 5 months since I moved into my apartment and really started living in Kuala Lumpur. I got into the habit of leaving KL every 2 weeks sometimes due to bordem and cabin fever,  sometimes due to my desire to travel Asia in this short 1 year. But there were weeks where I felt like I was spending too much time outside of KL and not really embracing the city. In the beginning I didn't really care because to me, KL was a crazy, overwhelming city without a grid system and it really just confused me for various reasons (the lack of logic re: everything, the roads, the transport system) and so I didn't mind leaving so often.

But when June hit... I was totally shocked that I was already 6 months into my Asia experience because if I stay a year, that meant I was half way through...  I realized that part of the reason why time was passing in front of my eyes so quickly was because there has been no change in weather since I arrived. Since day 1, it has been sunny, rainy and hot. Every day, all day, day after day. There wasn't even a big change between "rainy season" and "dry season" like I experienced in East Africa (where one day everything was brown and dusty and the next day, green and wet). It's weird to live in a place where 6 months go by and there is no change in weather. Back home, it's been winter, spring and now turning into summer. When the seasons change and trees change colour, go bare, and then bud again in the spring, you can physically see the passage of time. There is none of that in Malaysia and so every few weeks I look up from my desk and ask to who ever is listening to my self-banter - "are you serious? Is it already SUCH AND SUCH date?" 

So, I was hit with this feeling that I was running out of time and therefore I spent the last two weeks rediscovering/discovering new parts of KL and its surrounding towns, as well as spending more time with my family in Singapore. Of course I was much more inclined to discover KL because I had people to show around and make it seem like I had a legit reason for choosing this city to live in and that there are actually some really wonderful things about it. 

The day after I recovered being sick, Felicia arrived in KL for the Women Deliver conference on Global Women's Health which takes place every year in a different location, drawing over 4,000 delegates and speakers from around the world. Included in the list of speakers this year was Chelsea Clinton and Mandy Moore :) 

Two days later, Rachelle and Mark came from Vietnam (they've been traveling in Asia for 4 weeks at this point) and I was literally OVER THE MOON to have so many friends visit!!! Although I was working & Felicia went off to her conference every morning (looking very business-y), Rachelle and Mark took themselves around KL. In the evenings we ate yummy food and .... ya ate yummy food... and I obviously dragged them to Mindvalley on a Friday night to see an AWESOME speaker. It seems that a Mindvalley event is a mandatory stop for everyone who visits me over here. More on the awesome speaker later. 

Top 10 highlights of their visit to KL for me was:

1. Felicia buying a ton of instant noodles (which is why she came with a half empty suitcase)

2. Rachelle getting a message from her dad asking her to bring home teh tarik since their supply in Toronto was "running low".

3. Going up to a heli-pad to get a beautiful night view of KL (despite the scary lightening all around us)

4. Getting my hair done on the streets of Jalan Alor by a man who didn't speak english and wanted to sell me a hair tool

5. Felicia's inability to light candles to light up my bathroom which currently lacks a working light

6. Felicia's obsession with mangoes

7. Rachelle giving me a shirt <3

8. Watching Karate Kid (w/ malaysian subtitles) in a random mamak (roadside food stall) near my apartment at 11 pm. 

9. Rachelle and Mark stressing about how they were going to get to some island in Thailand and Mark trying to book plane tickets but getting distracted every 5 seconds by things on his phone. 

10. OBVIOUSLY JUST HAVING ALL OF THEM WITH ME.

The best thing Rachelle, Felicia and Mark did for me was make me realize that KL was kinda like Toronto and that it was a good place to live by showing their appreciation of everything in KL. They appreciated the malls where you could get everything, the yummy food and the fairly easy transport system. Okay, there isn't THAT much to do in KL but it's a really decent city to live in in terms of getting everything I would every need to make me feel at home (not to mention my family here :D Love yall!) It's just like Toronto. It's not the most exciting city to visit but it's totz a good city to live in. 

Picture time!:

Eating typical Malaysian food at Jalan Alor 

Rachelle looking normal

I force them to go out for dinner straight from the airport

gtz in ma rooooom

Getting their fill of teh tarek.

So while they were all here, Mindvalley had the privledge of bringing in one of the coolest speakers I have ever seen. She's gave her TED talk at the age of 12 and it currently has over 2.5 million views.

Her name is Adora Svitak and she us gave a talk on Youth Empowerment in a Digital Age.
Here is here TED talk if any of you are interested in watching it.

She is an insanely articulate girl and this is ONE TIME that my GRE vocabulary training actually came in handy - I literally recognized and understood so many of the words she used purely because of my studying. Adora was a wonderful speaker, mainly because she was so natural and clearly only wrote the speech on the day of. I wish I could write like that and then be so confident on stage. We had a live twitter feed going as well and from a distance, I could see that someone was live tweeting the whole event. Later when I had a closer look, I realized that it was FELICIA who was live tweeting like a PRO. That takes serious skills guys. She should be paid to do that job.

Waiting for Adora

In Mindvalley's HOA

After a great week of having friends around, I LEFT THEM to go to Singapore to visit my Grandma & cousins in (but only a few hours earlier - because they were all flying out on the same day :D ). But more on my trip to Singapore in an other post.

What I wanted to say is that I'm still learning so much about KL. I had never been to Jalan Alor - which is apparently one of the hottest spots in town to grab some local food, nor had I been to the heli-bar to get that spectacular view of KL. Just this weekend, I learned that the meaning of Kuala Lumpur is "a confluence of muddy water". Kuala = where two rivers meet and Lumpur = muddy.

Six months later and I'm still discovering all the cool things going on in this city. Thanks to my visitors for prompting me to look harder and longer to find all the amazing things there are, and opening my eyes to the benefits of living in this dynamic Asian city.