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Thursday, August 03, 2006

A busy Sunday

July 23 is my first official day in Malaysia. At around 4:30 AM, I heard a strange sound that seems like a chant. It turned out that this was the morning prayer for the Muslims and it was a recorded prayer being played just like how the rosary/angelus is being played in SM, in schools, etc. Then I fell asleep again. At 8:00 AM, I woke up seeing the KLCC skyline for the first time. It was a fascinating sight and this gave me a good mood when I woke up. I took a bath and texted Rey and Hazel on how we’re going to meet. I told Rey that we’re going to meet at the KLCC near the Petronas towers at 9:00 AM since this is what Hazel had told me to be the first thing in their itinerary for their trip in Malaysia. Hazel went to Malaysia with her housemates Gracia and Khris, who used to be my colleagues in Triumph.

I’ve actually worked with Khris on the last project that I had with my previous company. There were 3 of us who worked as designers; me, Khris and Rey. The project that we’re involved has a reputation where all people assigned to that requirement always end up resigning. We never broke this pattern and the three of us are now working overseas; Khris is now based in Singapore while Rey and I are here in Malaysia. I remember our brainstorming session where we discussed our designs and ended up sharing stories and laughing, so it seems like we never worked at all.

Anyway, Hazel texted me that we’re going to Putra Jaya and that they will meet us in KL Sentral station. I must have been exhausted from my flight because she might have probably told me the night before that we should meet there instead of KLCC, which is a 5-station gap in the Putra LRT line. I called Rey and told him that Hazel and company are in KL Sentral and that we should just follow them. Hazel told me that they will take the 10:50 AM trip to Putra Jaya. Rey and I met at Suria KLCC at around 10:30 AM. Needless to say, we were late. We arrived at the KL Sentral station at around 11:10 AM. We took the 11:30 AM trip to Putra Jaya via the KLIA Ekspress train, which is labeled as the fastest train in Southeast Asia. It is a long ride but it was never boring since we amused ourselves with the latest “news” about our colleagues in Manila.

We arrived at the Putra Jaya station around noon. Hazel asked the tour bus driver to wait for us. They’ve been waiting for us for the past 20 minutes and it’s a good thing that the other foreigners did not kill us because we were very late. The tour bus driver and the tour guide are both Indians and behind them seated are tourists such as Koreans, Caucasians (I’m not sure which country they come from), Japanese and an Indian. At the back of the bus, I saw my friends and former colleagues Hazel, Khris, Gracia, Milay, Efren and his girlfriend, Nieva.

Putra Jaya is a city where the government’s main offices are situated such as the prime minister’s office, the supreme court and the central bank. There is also the Putrajaya International Convention Center that is constructed on an elevated area (I know I’m not good in describing things..so please forgive me). Since I don’t have my own computer yet, I won’t be able to attach some of the pictures of the buildings that we saw.

At around 2 PM, we had our lunch, my “initiation” for Malaysian food. I am not really adventurous when it comes to food that I’m not familiar with so I had Chicken BBQ and roasted rice for lunch (I know, safe choice). Since Malaysia is a Muslim country, there’s no pork. Malaysian food is really different from the dishes that I grew up with - Chinese, Italian, Spanish, American and Filipino.

We were done with the tour at around 3:10 PM. We arrived at the KLIA Ekspress station 5 minutes after the train going to KL Sentral stopped. The next train would come in 30 minutes and we spent our waiting time chatting at the station. At 4:00 PM, we arrived at KL Sentral and we all parted ways. Too bad, Hazel and I were not able to chat that much since we had too little time but I’m glad that we met anyway. She said that she’ll come back to watch the F1 race and that she will stay in my apartment. You’re very much welcome Hazel! =)

Rey and I went to Masjid Jamek where the nearest Catholic Church, St. John’s Cathedral is located. Masjid Jamek reminded me of Recto in Manila. Since we’re one hour early before the next mass, we went to Mydin which is one of the cheapest stores that KL has. Rey described it as the KL’s Uniwide. I bought a towel, a foundation and a lotion (so kikay!). After that, we bought a Digi SIM pack because I haven’t talked to my family yet since I arrived. Unfortunately, since we’re foreigners, the Digi SIM was sold to us for 18 RM, only to find out later that the normal price is only 8.50 RM! Hindi lang pala Pinoy ang manloloko! Aargh!

After buying all the stuff that I need, we heard the mass and ate dinner at the nearest Burger King. We chatted for another hour chatting and reminiscing the old times. At 8:00 PM, we went home.

I haven’t rested from the previous day’s flight and this is one of the most tiring days that I had but it was fun seeing my friends whom I haven’t seen for a while =)

posted by subhuman @ 5:47 PM

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