Amy added http://so-up.fi/life-with-eve/ to https://rhiaro.co.uk/bookmarks
Amy added https://www.withlocals.com/experience/unusual-night-sleep-in-a-cave-f86a2c61/ to https://rhiaro.co.uk/bookmarks/
Amy added 15 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2016-penang/
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Amy added 64 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2016-penang/
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Amy added 36 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2016-penang/
Amy added 'Weaving a Social Data Web with Semantic Pingback - SemanticPingback.pdf' to Bookmarks
Amy added 'Peer Review in Practice | Peer Review in the Arts and Humanities' to Bookmarks
Amy added 'persistentsoftware | Etherpad' to Bookmarks
Amy added 'PLOS ONE: Scholarly Context Adrift: Three out of Four URI References Lead to Changed Content' to Bookmarks
Amy added 'Web Science Manifesto - The Web Science Trust' to Bookmarks
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Dragonfruit smoothie and tofu salad sammich
Amy added 3 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
The temperature and air and general ambience in Malaysia between sunrise and 10am is amazing. I really need to adjust my sleep pattern to make this part of my day.
I also bought a saucepan, a soup ladle, and a spatula. My AirBnB is somewhat kitchen-ly deficient. I discovered Mydin, a supermarket/department store that has everything for cheap. And they play rocking Indian pop music. I'd hang out there just to listen to that.
Baked beans are bigger here, but otherwise the same.
Amy wrote about beans, travel, & food
Binging Star Trek on Netflix. TNG and Voyager are particularly hope-inspiring.
Coauthoring papers with people in vastly different timezones has the advantage that there's someone working on it 24/7. And also that you're not distracted by debating changes in realtime, you can just get on with it and deal with the consequences later..
Amy wrote about writing, phd, academia, & csarven
Cool, social sciences are SO far ahead of web science when it comes to publishing on the Web >.> (and activism about Open Access in general) #LinkedResearch
Yesterday I went to Penang National Park, and got three kinds of wet. Part One: Sweat I took the 101 bus from KOMTAR. For 3.40 RM it took about 50 minutes to get to the National Park entrance, which is the last stop. I had to wait in line to register for at least 30 minutes. There are separate lines for Malaysian and foreigners; don't stand in the wrong one. I was unfortunate enough to be stuck behind a large group of Chinese tourists. Entry to the park is free, but you have to register your name and passport number, and in exchange for this they give you a permit to enter the park (a piece of paper with a hard-to-read map and stamp on it). This permit was checked once by a member of park staff later in the afternoon. I'm not sure if this was protocol or if he was just trying to make conversation. So probably best not to try to skip this process, even though you could technically bypass the registration desk to get to the park entrance fairly easily. I hiked from the park entrance to Pantai Kerachut (Turtle Beach). This took about 2 hours including looping around the meromictic lake twice and climbing an unnecessary hill by accident, and stopping for a snack break. The jungle is thick outside of the marked trail, and set against a backdrop of a non-stop high pitched whistling sound. I don't know if it is birds or insects. I also saw big ant trails, which is always cool. The meromictic lake is one of only a few in the world, and is interesting because it contains both freshwater and seawater, which don't mix; the latter floats on top of the former. Except most of the year it's basically dry, so there wasn't much to see. There were a handful of people at Turtle Beach, and a very small handful of turtles in the sanctuary. It was pretty peaceful, and good places to hang hammocks, and a nice view. There are no facilities (food for sale or anything), and also no swimming due to big waves and venemous jellyfish. From Turtle Beach I hiked to Teluk Kampi, which earlier some Asian businessmen (that's what they looked like) shouted out was the "best beach in Penang!". It was over a massive hill that never seemed to end, and took about 45 minutes from Turtle Beach. There was nobody there though, except the beach guard who checked my park permit. It's the longest beach in the park, and very picturesque. There is a 'hall' - an open-sided wooden structure - on the seafront. I couldn't help but notice that its beams looked perfect for hammock hanging, and one of them had a power outlet... So this can be my new office? A 3 hour hike through the jungle is a reasonable commute, right? I napped in the sun for a short while to recharge for hiking back. I was thoroughly soaked in sweat, but no swimming due to jellyfish here, too. The beach guard said he could call a boat to return to the park entrance, but that it would be about 120 RM. I did not have 120 RM. However, a short while later came cries of "help!" from a guy in a boat approaching the beach. A surefire way to get someone's attention... He wasn't actually in trouble. He offered to take me to Monkey Beach for 25 RM. Seemed like a bargain. I wasn't expecting to have time to make it to Monkey Beach, either. Part Two: Sea So I grabbed my stuff, ploughed into the sea in my trainers (oops) and boarded the boat. Turns out he'd been chartered by some Chinese people who were having a break at Turtle Beach, so he'd whisked this one Portguese guy around the coast to see Teluk Kampi; any additional passengers he could pick up for nominal fees was a bonus. We picked up the Chinese people at Turtle Beach, then continued to Teluk Duyung (Monkey Beach). This was a lot more crowded, with vendors selling drinks, coconuts and snacks. There was also a lot more trash and it was generally not as nice. I bought and consumed a fresh coconut for 5 RM, and took this photo which has been great for taunting people on the other side of the world who are currently shovelling snow. Then I bumped into E and K; previous tentants of my current AirBnB whom I'd had dinner with, along with my host, the evening before. We all swam in the sea and chatted for a while. The sea was pretty grim, murky, and made my skin itch. I think the itching was actually due to temperature change but... who knows. Not my favourite. Part Three: Storm I was planning to hike back around the coast to the park entrance from Monkey Beach, one of the popular trails that should take about an hour. But E and K wanted to take a boat, and as we were discussing it looming storm clouds turned into smattering rain. We canvassed the beach for other people to share a boat with (they're typically a standard 40 RM between Monkey Beach and the park entrance, no matter how many people you take). As the rain got heavier the tourists dissipated. We found a guy willing to take four of us for 30 RM after a little bargaining. The rain was pelting down by the time we boarded the boat, and there was thunder and lightning. So I was soaked afresh by seawater from the waves splashing into the boat, and rainwater from the sky. We reached the jetty and raced for cover. After hanging out for a bit, and ringing out our clothes/shoes/hair, it didn't look like it was going to let up, so we raced to the bus stop in time to jump on. For some reason, the return 101 does not leave from the same place it drops off, but there's another bus from a different route which takes people from the park entrance to the 101 bus stop for free. It's unclear if this is out of sympathy for people in torrential downpours, or all the time. E and K said they'd taken it last time they visited the park too. We transferred to the 101, which was naturally air-conditioned to arctic levels. For just under an hour, as we were soaking wet, this was highly unpleasant. Fortunately on the return route it stops right outside my apartment (due to one way streets, the outward bus stop is a little further away). It had stopped raining by then, but I darted home and into a hot shower. It took me a while to warm up. Shockingly, I only have one new mosquito bite to show for all of this. Here's my RunKeeper trace of the hiking and boat rides.
Just kidding, I'm going to break the habit of blogging every single day, since there will be fewer days packed as full of excitement as my KL days were. I'll probably stick most to short notes for a while. But I ate at two good veg*n restaurants today, so that's worth mentioning. Coya has a variety of healthy dishes, and labels things with egg. I had dumpling noodle soup, buckwheat tea, and watermelon (11.80myr). This evening I met C, L and Y at Sushi Kitchen for dinner. I'd missed Japanese food! A vegan restaurant with an abundance of things I want to eat. I'll be back. I ate a spicy sushi roll, edamame, and udon with tempura (25myr). On the walk back the sky went from zero to torrential in a parsec. I was drenched. I'm surprised my phone survived the journey. The other people staying in the apartment tonight laughed at me when I came in.
Yesterday evening (21st) I went for a 'quick walk' into town. My apartment is about a 20 minute walk from the edge of George Town heritage area and 40 minutes from the jetty and core tourist zone. Between home and the edge of the 'nice' part of town is not particularly nice: apartment blocks, malls and big roads with... intermittent... footpaths. There are still lots of interesting places to stop of course; markets, stalls, local restaurants, general streetside chaos. Walking around here takes a lot of concentration, between trying to take in the surroundings, not being hit by scooters and cars, avoiding enormous open holes into the sewer, and not accidentally buying a kilo of tropical fruit every five minutes. The sky was blue. My goal was to procure coconut oil for cooking. I thought it would be easy to get hold of here, but so far, after a few days of hunting around, I found it in a vegetarian restaurant (Leaf Healthy House) and a baking shop for twice the price. I asked in an Indian grocery, and was directed to another grocery store, but I never found it. So I returned to Leaf to pick up 2 litres for RM 36.30. Or so I thought. I got distracted by not-meats at a different Indian grocery, paid a visit to Fort Cornwallis, plus dinner at Veggielicious, and by the time I made it to Leaf I didn't have enough cash left. On that note, Fort Cornwallis was pretty rubbish. There are guided tours where one is presumably told about the history.. I was at the allotted tour starting point at the right time, but nobody showed up. The 'exhibits' are glass boxes in mouldy rooms containing bits of rock or dioramas, and no explanation of what they are. There isn't much 'fort', just outer walls and some cannons on hills. I was feeling particularly disgruntled because I paid 20 RM to enter, which could have got me four or five meals. I left after about half an hour, most of which was occupied milling around waiting for a tour guide to show up. When I got back it had started raining, with thunder and lightning. I sat in the outdoor bit of the pool for half an hour, watching the sky light up. Today (22nd) I went into town at lunchtime, and made the first stop Leaf, for coconut oil. I was accompanied by two new guests in my AirBnB, P and A; ship engineers from Poland. Apparently ship engineering isn't as exciting as it sounds. We ate at Woodlands vegetarian Indian. Service was frustratingly slow, but the food was good and cheap. While we were there the sky opened and the lightning commenced again. I headed home, and they went off to explore town some more. It rained heavily, intermittently, but I mostly stayed in the cover of the archways that line most buildings here. I stopped at Mydin, a giant supermarket and department store, and finally bought more kitchen stuff. I got a blender for less than $12. It's probably not good quality, but it only needs to last two more months.
Gurney Drive I spent the last few days hanging out by myself, or with friends I just met. I've wandered around George Town a little more with P and A. MM (Malaysian Mum) took us all for steamboat at MamaVege on Saturday (24th): We ordered two kinds of soup, which are served in bubbling pot on a hot plate built into the table. Plus a selection of vegetables, not-meats, and noodles, which we drop into the soup and watch simmer. Then I wandered around Gurney Drive, an area north of George Town where there are lots of fancy condos and hotels and is a common place for tourists to stay. It's a far cry from the 'heritage' of George Town, and largely malls and plazas and shiny new buildings. I thought there might be some form of beach access, but it's mostly off limits because of construction in the sea (Penang Island is all out of develop-able land). At one point I wandered down a side street in the hope it might lead to the ocean, but it turned out to lead to some guy's orchard. Just as I realised I was on someone's land and should probably leave, the owner, Bok, popped out of the bushes to say hi. He told me all about the fruits he was growing (coconut, jackfruit, various others) and that he does it for fun not profit, now that he's retired from managing a security firm. He picked a small, yellow relation to the guava (English name unknown) from a tree for me to try; it was mildly sweet and fragrant. I eventually made it to Straits Quay, or at least the shopping/hotel complex part of the area. There's a trail along the seafront that leads from Tanjung Bungah to Straits Quay, once you can find the way in. It runs behind a huge area of luxury villas, most of which are still under construction. It was more peaceful here than walking along the road... obviously. All of the villas have pools facing the sea. A good place to stay if you want to veg out and aren't interested in the local area or culture. I walked back along the seafront until I returned to Gurney Drive. I spent a short while in Brown Pocket, a cafe on the 6th floor of Gurney Paragon mall with big windows and great seaviews. Their wifi wasn't working though so I didn't get much done. It started to rain. I went upstairs two more floors to the cinema to see Rogue One. It was great. I ate at TinTin vegetarian in the basement of Gurney Plaza (the next mall along), where by chance I also found vegan coconut ice cream by Sangkaya. Penang Hill Yesterday (25th) I climbed Penang Hill with P and A. We walked first to the Botanical Gardens from our apartment, which took around 45 minutes. We started our climb from the Moon Gate. The first stretch was a lot of steep steps. This turned into steep climb with fewer steps and more sliding in mud. Someone had built a tin-roof kitchen part way up the hillside, where a bunch of elderly people were cooking noodles. I don't know how they got there. Later the path skirted around the side of a hill for a while, so it was fairly level. Then down a bit, then back up to being really steep again. We crossed paths with the railway, and and met a sprightly teenager who, after borrowing P's phone to make a call, guided us the most direct route to the top, which was again sheer steps. It was pretty exhausting; she patiently waited for us. The climb took about two and a half hours. At the top are a few places for a good view, but not as many as expected. There's a food court (we got juice) and tons of random tourist shit like an owl museum, a toy museum, and terrible merchandise. There were loads of people (there's a train to the top from Air Itam). There's also a mosque and a Hindu temple. After sitting around for a while and re-energising, we walked to Monkey Cup, a small cafe a little apart from the crowded area. There we had coffee in their garden, and enjoyed quiet jungle surroundings. I met a local scorpian. I was assured that he wasn't poisonous, and his stinger is "just like a little ant bite". Figured it can't be worse than Tigo. He didn't sting me, anyway. We wanted to take a different route down, and got directions (and a hand-drawn map) from staff at Monkey Cup. We followed a narrow concrete path winding down the hillside. At some point we missed a turning and ended up clearly bound for Air Itam, rather than back to the Botanic Gardens. Oh well. We walked through hillside farmland and enjoyed views into the central valley and across to the coastline. In Air Itam most restaurants were closed (between 3 and 5 is not a good time for seeking lunch in MY) but we managed to get some kway teow from a hawker stall, negotiating the exclusion of egg and prawn from mine. It started raining; we took an Uber back to George Town, because we'd walked quite far enough, and between three of us it cost the same as the bus (6 RM total). Back home, A and I soaked in the pool for a while. Later that evening we ate at Lily's, a vegetarian restaurant close to the apartment. It was great; we shared satay, I had lam rice (rice in gravy with tofu and vegetables), and an almond jelly tofu fruit dessert. Staff were reallly really friendly, too, and the food was far lighter and less greasy than similar places. Today... I'm staying home, trying to write some code.
The hours wasted to debugging when I've typed Accept instead of Content-Type, or vice versa... It's now the first thing I look for when I'm having header problems, and it still screws me up all the time.
Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. I am Locutus of Borg. You will respond to my questions. I am Moana of Motonui. You will board my boat.
My flight landed in KLIA2 just before 7am. The line for immigration was short but slow. Fingerprints, but no forms to fill in. The terminal is huge, and I wandered around thinking about checking out one of many mifi options, and deciding where to change money, for a while. I didn't get a mifi, but did change $50 for 202 MYR. Not a particularly good rate, I think, but no fee with CIMB Bank. Anyway, I found the buses on level 1. I bought a ticket for Star Shuttle, having learnt from wikitravel this was a good option, from a very generic looking ticket counter which seems to cover all of the many transport options. I caught the 8 o'clock, and took the approximately 1.5 hour ride to Puduraya for 11 MYR. From there I walked about five minutes to Explorers hostel near Chinatown. I'm in a 6 bed dorm on the third floor. Aircon in the lobby and rooms; wifi only in the lobby. Movies playing on a TV in the lobby 24 hours a day; high brightness, so James Bond and Star Wars look like low-budget action flicks. Free breakfast - coffee, tea, toast, peanut butter (yay!). Lockers in the room. I rearranged the contents of my bag on my bunk, then met a roommate, E. She's been backpacking around for a while, and just came from Penang (where I'm going next). Together we wandered through the nearby market, and bought sweet bao (lotus, sesame, yam). The heat squashed my appetite for most of the rest of the day. We reached the KL Tower, which is surrounded at the base by a small patch of indigenous jungle. There's a rope bridge through the tree canopy, and forest trails. The base of the tower is full of souvenir stands and overpriced food. There's an upside down house. A house in which everything is upside down. Also the house itself is upside down. Okay. We didn't go inside. The tower itself is pretty expensive to go up, at over 100 MYR to the very top. Having said that, it's about the same as towers in most major cities. Maybe I'll go up anyway. But we didn't yesterday. Continued wandering until we reached the Petronas towers. Enjoyed the aircon in the enormous shopping mall for a while. This rebooted my appetite, and we ate in the food court, which included a vegetarian place called Simple Life Healthy Vegetarian. I asked the server to pick a noodle dish for me; it was a large portion, deliciously savoury and slightly spicy; vegetables, mushrooms, a little tofu. Plus a black sesame soy milkshake, came to 20.70 MYR. Not bad. Inside the shopping mall we found an Asian contemporary art exhibition, free to enter, with some really interesting pieces. There's also a petroleum museum on the top floor, maybe for another day. Behind the towers is a park with a big lake and fountains that do interesting things. We crossed the street to another shopping mall, and discovered that the H&M there doesn't sell underwear. In case that piece of information is useful to anyone. We spent some time in Muji (which does sell underwear) and I amused myself with the quirky signs, descriptions, and packaging. Less amused by the prices. It was raining by the time we emerged, so we hopped on the free GoKL bus. There are several free bus routes, which is kind of nuts, but also awesome. Except we hit it at peak traffic hours (or maybe that's all the time, I don't know yet) and we travelled like two stops in one hour. Mostly sitting still. I napped. Then we got off, because staying on was kind of silly, and walked back to the hostel. I bought a dragonfruit for 6 MYR; I think I might have been ripped off. Still cheaper than Wholefoods though. My walking and bus route on Runkeeper.
I had a plan. Leave early from the hostel, catch a bus to TBS (let's pretend that stands for The Bus Station), and take an intercity bus to Butterworth, Penang. Then get the ferry from Butterworth to George Town, and a bus most of the way to my next end destination. I'd be there by mid-afternoon. The night before, I met some people who were planning to take the train to Butterworth on the same day. The train is a little more expensive, and I'd read a little slower and less comfortable. But there wasn't much in it, and the more I thought about it the more appealing taking one train over two buses became. Plus all three of them ended up in my dorm that night. So I joined their little crew: C (Essex), L (Netherlands), Y (Russia). We left the hostel, bright eyed and bushy tailed, by 0830, hopped on the train from Pasar Seni to KL Sentral, and then found the ticket counters for the intercity trains (upstairs, above the Komuter ones). The trains were full until 11:40. That felt like aaages away. Trains sell out?! So we took a taxi to TBS. A taxi voucher counter was conveniently around the corner from the train ticket counter. Splitting 27 myr between four of us for a fifteen minute drive didn't seem so bad. I'd read the buses were super frequent, so we were confident on not losing much time at all. How naive we were. This is only half of the bus station. We queued for an hour, to find out that all the buses were sold out until 18:10. Right?!? There are a dozen bus companies, with departures for Penang every ten to fifteen minutes. All day. We sucked it up and bought the last four tickets on the 18:10 bus, for 34 myr each. The company turned out to be Konsortium. Not one of the fancy ones with wifi. Then we went for coffee et cetera at the bus station food court. L bought coffee, the coffee was awful. We all took one tiny sip each and could not go further. I have since discovered there's a common type of coffee that contains margarine. What the FUCK Malaysia? Yeah it was awful. I had starfruit juice. After recouping, we crammed our bags into lockers (10 myr for a big one, 5 for a small, 12 hours), except for C whose suitcase wouldn't fit. Then we walked about 30 minutes to a nearby mall. C complained the whole way about pulling his suitcase. I kept suggesting I'd help but never actually doing so. It was mostly uphill, and pavements are uneven. His complaints were justified. The mall, which was called Spark, was quite desolate. We saw Moana at the cinema on the top floor (16 myr). Then we went to a grim food court and ate very sad vegetable soup. I think eating it used more energy than it provided, because I was far hungrier afterwards. It was now raining. We started walking back, and eventually managed to get a taxi who was willing to take a suitcase. 10myr from Spark to TBS. Whilst edging along the roadside trying to hail taxis, a motorcycle with two helmetless ten year olds drove past on a scooter and catcalled at Y and me. There are too many things wrong with that. My first reaction was horror that they didn't have helments. The second was that there were small children driving scooter down a highway. I decided to stop processing at that point. Back at TBS, we sought better coffee and sat around some more. Then relcaimed our luggage and made our way to the departures. The bus station was still packed, just like in the morning. Our bus was delayed, but only about 20 minutes, presumably to make way for earlier buses which had been delayed even more. The bus seats were big and reclined far. Loads of room for a small person. There was neither power nor wifi. The aircon was sufficient. I slept fairly well. Somehow the 350km journey took ten hours. I'm not exaggerating. We stopped a few times at service stations and food courts, and there was a crazy amount of traffic on the highway for the middle of the night. We got to Butterworth at about 4am. Obviously neither the ferries nor the buses were running. The bus dropped off right next to a taxi rank, and we argued with taxi drivers for a while. Despite our fatigued state, it still seemed worth trying to get them down from 80 myr to George Town. They were claiming 80 myr for two stops (because C, L and Y were going to a different place from me) or 70myr for one stop. We asked for 60, and must have appeared stubborn enough that eventually a more senior looking taxi driver came over and told the lad we were haggling with to just take us for 70. He reluctantly agreed, and proceeded to fail miserably at packing our stuff in his boot. It would have fit, he just clearly didn't have an engineering bone in his body. His solution was to summon a friend, whose car to me appeared exactly the same. We packed it ourselves this time, and had no problem. The new taxi driver was far less talkative. He knew the road I was going to, but not the others' hostel address. Despite me being further out, I got dropped off first. I contributed 25 myr. The security guard at the front of my AirBnB was sleeping in his little cabin, having stayed behind to give me the keys. I was very grateful. The apartment seems nice and stuff. I'm on the 10th floor of a new tower block. It has a balcony and a pool. There's no cooking pots, but an abundance of terrible margarine instant coffee. Anyway, advice for long distance travel in Malaysia might be: Don't travel at weekends? Don't travel on Prophet Mohammed's birthday? Book your train or bus tickets in advance, online? If you're offered a two and a half hour wait for a train, for goodness sake take it.
(Friday 2nd December) Woke up early, and caught up on internets in the hostel lobby. Researched some things to do. Concluded that buying a KL Pass was not necessary for the discounts it offered. It's probably good if you want to go to like loads of themeparks and shows and stuff, but even with the discount on the KL Tower it doesn't seem worth it for me. Wifi in the lobby was good until about 9am when the rest of the world came down for breakfast. Headed out with E around midday in search of food. We went to Bakti Woodlands Indian vegetarian restaurant, a couple of blocks from the hostel. It was full of people who looked like they probably originated from India, and didn't consult menus before food arrived to them, which is a good sign. E ordered a Jain thali, and I had mushroom manchurian and aloo paratha. It was exactly the right amount of food, and so deliciously full of flavour. I'd say I'd go back, but there are a whole bunch of vegetarian Indian restaurants on the same street, so I'll probably try a different one. I had planned to wander to a monorail station and get a travelcard, then take a jaunt to Titiwangsa park, and be back before dark so I could do some work. We wandered into the first train station we found, which didn't have the TouchNGo card available, so we just bought a one way monorail ticket. The machines issue a little round plastic token, which is interesting but inconvenient because it doesn't fit in my wallet like a normal ticket would (1.70 myr). Then we discovered the monorail doesn't actually connect at this station. So we took a train two stops to one that did. The monorail was packed. But still cool. Next discovery was that the stationed named Titiwangsa is not that close to the park after all. And requires walking near a horrible, giant, smelly, under-construction highway. We stopped at Gloria Jean's for iced tea and a wifi break. We finally made it to the park, which has big lakes, fountains, and a traffic park.. a place with pretend traffic lights and junctions and crossings, where you can practice driving and rent little pretend cars to zoom around in. Hah. After lapping the lakes, we exited the park in a different place and found ourselves on the wrong side of the highway for returning to the monorail station. So we figured we'd walk in the general direction of the city center until we reached another station. On the hospital grounds, we chanced upon a free GoKL bus, and hopped on board. We didn't know which line it was though, and the fancy screens inside the bus weren't displaying anything useful, and nor was the onboard wifi working. So we thought we'd wait and see. We waited, and saw it loop all the way back around to Titiwangsa monorail station. Oops. We got off, and got on another... turned out to be the same line. This time we got off in Bukit Bintang, figuring we'd check out Times Square, a giant shopping mall amongst giant shopping malls. On the way we got distracted by a diner where the seating booths are cars. The sheer delight on E's face was enough to go in and order potato wedges. Also the ice cubes were guitars. By the time we got to Times Square it was closing up. The security guard let us inside to use the bathrooms, and we had a quick look around. Shops... We walked the rest of the way back to the hostel. My feet were tired again. Taking today off from walking around. Runkeeper trace from monorail, walking and bus.
Today was moderately productive, from the hostel in the morning and VCR Cafe in the afternoon. I found VCR on workfrom. It's hip, spacious, with good coffee, good wifi, and abundant power outlets. Upstairs are floor-to-ceiling windows and a balcony (though, populated by smokers). The wicker chairs are comfier than wood. Coffee seemed kind of pricey - 9 myr for a small americano - but I don't know what's standard for the hip coffeeshop scene. About the same as chains, at any rate. I ate lunch at Blue Boy, an indoor-outdoor set of stalls supervised by sullen staff serving excellent food. All vegetarian. I got fried flat noodles with vegetables (and requested no egg), a plate of not-pork, and lemon juice, for a thoroughly reasonable 10.50. Dinner was on the pricier side, from Yuet Sum Hin, a Chinese vegetarian restaurant in Bukit Bintang. There was so much to choose from, and as I was half way through reeling off dishes the waitress warned me I was ordering too much. I confirmed that I could take home what I couldn't finish, and continued. For 44 myr I got sizeable portions of kangkong (water spinach), tofu in black bean sauce, and fried rice with salted 'fish', and a pot of jasmine tea. I finished about one third, and it was all delicious. The fried rice was my favourite. I detoured through Times Square again on the way back. Surprised by how cheap clothes on the upper floors are for a mall. Initially I was just scouting so I have a basis to haggle at the market, but then I bought some light, knee-length pants for 12. I wandered around a corner on the 9th floor and was confronted with... this... There's a literal theme park inside the mall. And it's all quirky and space themed. Full blown rollercoaster. Actual craziness. Took a wrong turn on the way out and accidentally found the thumping nightlife district. It was awful. Exited with haste. Longer route than anticipated back to the hostel, as my navigating-by-hotels is still not up to scratch, plus the chronic problem of being stuck on the wrong side of uncrossable highways.
Spent today around Brickfields, the Indian part of KL. To get there I passed through Petaling St Market (... a couple of times) and scouted bright coloured loose pants. The starting price seems to be 20 to 40 myr, so I can probably negotiate down to lower than the mall ones. Let's also pretend that Kasturi Walk and Central Market were on the way too. Well, they kind of were, it's hard to keep bearings in these windy streets and enormous confusing highway junctions. Anyway, eventually I made it to Brickfields, and looked into some temples. In one, a wedding in progress. It seemed a bit chaotic. 20 sen for shoe storage outside. I had it on good advice (TripAdvisor forums) that the money changers in Brickfields are abundant and have the best rates. I spent my last few ringgits on a lotus bao to see me through lunchtime, and couldn't find an (open) money changer anywhere. Lots of veggie restaurants I now couldn't eat at though. Eventually I stopped into PODs hostel and got directions to one. A very specific one, perhaps the guy's buddy.. At PODs I noted excellent seating, wifi, and coffee. I followed the directions to Nu Sentral mall. Another mega shopping complex with many chains and divine aircon. I found a money changer that did not fit the description of the one I was told has "best best price for you", so I noted the rate and kept looking. When I found the one that looked right (orange signs), sure enough it had a better rate, and I swapped $80 for 355.20 myr - probably as close to the exchange rate as I could hope to get. I wandered the mall for a bit. Contemplated Boost, Nandos and Built (they have a vegan burger) and a cafe called Library Bar Central. Ultimately decided to return to PODs, not least because every outlet in the mall was playing christmas music. PODs sold me a lukewarm iced coffee for 5myr, and I sat in a super comfy swingseat in the window for the next few hours with my laptop. When hunger struck, I headed to Gandhi's vegetarian restaurant. The sides are open to the street, it is fancooled (no aircon) and busy and hectic. Staff don't seem particularly interested in helping, but eventually I laid my hands on a menu and got rojak (a salad consisting of shredded veggies, and a sliced deep fried tofu ball, smothered in a slightly sweet, slightly spicy peanut sauce). I found a small sliver of metal in my rojak. Shortly thereafter a mosquito landed in the sauce and died. But let us not dwell. I also ordered nasi lemak, a Malaysian staple I hadn't yet managed to try. Rice, peanuts, sambal, cucumber and fried scraps of something crunchy that I assume are the veggie alternative to dried anchovies. Plus deep fried not-chicken balls that were so chickeny I was a little alarmed. And watermelon juice, and a gooey coconut sweet. It's delicious and this was too much food, but I ate it all anyway. 17.20 myr. I'd been considering a travel pass, and almost decided not to get one when I came across a TouchNGo outlet in the Nu Sentral mall. So I paid 10myr plus 10myr topup at the machine. I started to worry I wouldn't actually use 10myr of transit by the end of the week, so that (along with the possibility of getting horribly lost and walking for hours... again) prompted me to hop on the monorail at KL Sentral for two stops to get back. I disembarked on the edge of Chinatwon, and walked through Petaling St Market again. On the way, I stopped for fancy bright pants and a baggy vest top with birds on. The starting prices were 28 and 25 respectively, and I asked for them both for 30 together, and paid 35. I was pleased to be buying from a woman, but men are much easier to haggle with for some reason. Further in, I spied the same tshirt and asked, and was given a starting price of 15. Damnit. But for $8/£6 I shouldn't complain. Runkeeper trace from today.
I spent most of today working from the hostel, after waking up late. Went out early evening for 45 minutes in the Telecom Museum. This was plenty of time to read everything, and it's very interesting. A student ticket is 5myr. Upstairs was seating and wifi; had I known, I would have gone there to work. I had dinner at Water Lily vegan restaurant, which has a huge selection of stuff and I definitely want to go back there to try more. I had the BBQ bao, which previous reviews on HappyCow raved about, and sure enough it was great. I got a set meal: assam soy fish, which came with tofu, vegetables, rice, and herbal tea. The tofu and veggies were bland, but the sauce around the fishy chunk of soy meat was good. I also had lime sour plum juice; 18.60 in total. I got there just after 5 and it was very quiet. Mostly the staff were occupied peeling mushrooms with which they'd covered the entire table. After that I wandered to Dataran Merdeka, a big open area of grass surrounded by museums and galleries, and containing fountains and a giant flag pole. I also found the library, and I think I'll go there to work tomorrow. As the sun began to set, the lighting here was incredible. Orange reflections cascaded between the glass of skyscrapers, and both the KL Tower and the Petronas towers were in view from some spots.
I worked from the library from 10 until 2.30, which was great. It's cool without being over-airconned to freezing, the wifi works fine, there are good chairs and desks (and I can take my shoes off and sit on my feet), a nice view, and the atmosphere is generally conducive to productivity. I walked through Kasturi St market for lunch, picking up a selection of fried Indian things (4myr), fresh coconut water (3myr) and steamed coconut rice (3myr). I dropped my laptop back at the hostel, then went to the Bird Park. A steep 50 myr for entry, but I think worth it. Still half the price of MOMA in Boston. I spent 2 hours here, until closing; this was enough time to see everything as well as sit tranquilly by a lake and listen to bird sounds. The park is a giant walk-in aviary with most birds flying free. Some are in their own aviaries, and there are smaller walk-in aviaries inside the main one too. The main structure is basically a net over some forest. There are many kinds of parrots - seeing little conures made me miss Tigo. I even found two green-cheeks. There are also lots of peacocks, herons, and various fancy pigeons. It wasn't particularly busy with humans though. I could have spent longer, just sitting. The constant background chatter is heaven. I drifted into the orchid and hibiscus gardens afterwards. I thought everything closed at 6 and checked every gate I passed through to make sure I could climb back over it if it was locked, but nothing so exciting happened. I just kept walking, and eventually ended up in the botanical gardens. Many beautiful areas, and full of joggers and kids playing, so I guess this part doesn't close and is free to enter. I found groves of bamboo, rare fruit trees, and wandered around the lake. In some open areas there's even wifi! I recommend a visit. I came out at KL Sentral, so I went to Gandhi's again for dinner. Just satay skewers and orange juice, as I wasn't very hungry. Maybe too much sun today.
This morning I went on a free heritage walking tour. We left from the KL Gallery around 9:15. Our tour guide was Marie and she alternated between funny and stern; giggling at her own jokes, and reprimanding stragglers or shhing passing schoolkids. She was full of information, and over three hours led us around parts of the gallery (free entry with the tour, normally 5myr), textile museum, some industrial buildings with history, and a private club facing Dataran Merdeka. The KL Gallery contains a scale model of the whole of Kuala Lumpur. It's seriously impressive. In clear plastic are skyscrapers yet to be built; the government is planning 300 new buildings over the next 5 years, including a 118 storey one in Chinatown. KL gives the impression of being in constant repair, chaotic construction disrupting footpaths and roads. But from the tour I learned that it's all part of a Plan, and there's meaning amongst the madness. In five years, this will be a different place. Particularly the river, for which the city is named (Kuala Lumpur means muddy estuary). Right now the banks look awful, concrete, diggers, trash, inaccessible. Turns out this is because there's a major restoration project ongoing and by next year it will be a beautiful recreation space with grass and cafes and peddleboats, and hopefully people will then stop dumping rubbish into it. According to Marie, KL has only 60 years of history. What she's counting from is when Malaysia got independence from the British in 1957. Before that is super interesting history about the reasons parts of the area were settled and developed, by Chinese traders first, and then the British, mostly due to tin. Lots of key individuals who came to seek their fortune as teenagers have left lasting legacies. The Spotted Dog remains to this day an exclusive membership club, but we were allowed inside as part of the tour. Except for the bar, where women aren't allowed under any circumstances. This is among many buildings which were built in the 1800s by British architects for specific purposes. The first printing house is now the KL Gallery, and the old train station is the textile museum. After the tour I checked out the music museum, and the parts of the gallery and textile museum the tour missed. Tour route on Runkeeper. I got lunch from a vegetarian street vendor I found in a dark alley. I knew to look there thanks to HappyCow. A huge pile of rice, vegetables, tofu and soy meat (self serve) for 7myr. I was also handed a plastic bag with a straw in it full of what appeared to be hot rice water. There was lots of rice (or barley?) floating in it too. It was a tiny bit sweet. I later googled it and apparently, according to Chinese lore, it is a miracle cure for lots of ailments. I also picked up guava, lychee and lemongrass juice from one of the stalls by Central Market, and took the lot up to the slightly airconditioned food court in the upstairs of the market to eat. Then I spent a couple of hours at the library, and back to the hostel when it closed at quarter to 7. Later that evening I walked to the night market with P (Colorado) and R (Germany). Noted reduction in catcalls to zero (from every five minutes) when walking with two 6+ feet tall guys. I wasn't super hungry. Drank papaya juice while the guys ate real food at one of the market restaurants. Compared to less touristy areas, the portions were small and the prices high. I couldn't find veggie bao, but picked up some hot sweet potatoes. None of us had yet tried durian, so we decided to share this important life experience. We bought a little pack for 10myr between us. P and R had one bite each and decided it's not for them. I ate the rest, and am still undecided. It transitions between this smooth creaminess to being foul and oniony. I hate onion flavours, but the creaminess may be good enough to ocmpensate. The hostel has a no durian policy, so I had to finish it before we got back. I suspect it'll be like natto, which I liked for a while but the more I ate the less it appealed. Night market route on Runkeeper.
I caught the train from Kuala Lumpur station (not KL Sentral) at half past 9 to Batu Caves. It wasn't nearly as busy as I'd been led to believe it would be. I first went inside the Ramayana Cave, 5myr entry. There was nobody else there, and distant dog howling added atmosphere and made me nervous. Brightly coloured and lit statues inside tell the story of Rama and Sita. There are also steps going pretty far up to unadorned parts of the cave. Next I climbed the steps to the temple cave. Some ladies at the bottom were enforcing a below-the-knee dress code (only for women) which I hadn't read about during prior research, and may have been because they were peddling sarongs to rent. I had my own scarf in my bag for just such an occasion. There's no charge to enter the temple cave, but there's not a huge amount of interest. Maybe worth going up for the view. And besides, I can never resist a massive staircase. Just before that however is the Dark Cave. A conservation and research area, with educational tours for 35myr. I took one, and really enjoyed it. Over 45 minutes we ventured into the depths of the limestone mountain and discovered spiders, centipedes, millipedes, scorpians, snails, snakes, bats and crickets. And different rock formations, plus a few minutes with lights off in total pitch blackness. Our guide, whose name starts with 'Shy' and ends in 'a' and has a q in the middle, was super enthusiastic and knowledgeable. If you love bugs and dark slimy places, this is totally worth doing, and a nice change from the tourists and temples outside. Batu Caves route on Runkeeper. I had lunch at one of the several vegetarian Indian restaurants at the base of the steps. Idli, with dahl, coconut chutney and tomato curry. This is a small breakfast dish - 4myr - and pretty delicious. I also had espresso for 6myr. I wandered slowly back to the train station, just missing one and waiting 45 minutes for the next. During this time the skies clouded and then opened up ferociously. During a gap in the rain, I went from the hostel to Coffee Amo. This place is super quiet... not even music playing. They specialise in fancy 3D coffee art according to google reviews, although I didn't get any on my soya cappuccino. Wifi, power, decent chairs; I worked here for a few hours. It was super peaceful. Lots of google reviews complain about the lack of music, but given every other cafe plays music I think the world needs at least one that doesn't. I stayed long after every other customer had left, and one of the two staff members also left, but I didn't feel unwelcome. I went to Wan Fo Yuan for dinner. Along the same style as all of the other family-kitchen Chinese restaurants I've been to, with bleak lighting and plastic table runners, and stock overflowing into the dining area. Staff were slightly less sullen here. Previous reviews on HappyCow said people felt overly pressured to decide on something, so I made an effort to make a fast decision, but when someone came to take my order the first thing she said was "need more time?" I picked chicken and mushroom noodles, and Chinese tea. And... wow, that was everything I want in a noodle dish. Like, it tasted like it would if I made it myself. Except for the really large pieces of ginger which I couldn't stomach after a few and had to put them aside. I was even provided with a little dish of sliced jalapeno! And the tea came in a big glass mug. All for 10 myr. I was full afterwards, and proud of myself for not over-ordering.
I woke up later than I wanted, and went to the Islamic Art Museum (7myr for student). It was interesting, and huge, but probably not as good as the one in Qatar. Hightlight was an exhibition about Islam in Austria. I went to the museum restaurant, which is fancy and expensive. I asked for a seat by a power socket, and the wifi password ("islamic100"). It didn't seem super appropriate for me to have my laptop out, and after I ordered a drink the waiter was pushing me to order food. There was a set lunch, none of which was vegan, and a lunch buffet that wasn't on the menu. I eventually agreed to the lunch buffet (27myr); all middle eastern food, which I love, was a nice change. I stayed for two and a half hours. After the waiter trying to hurry to clear up my plate a couple of times he eventually accepted that I was staying, and chilled out. He even started bringing me water after about an hour. I got some work done. During my quest to get my money's worth of the buffet I think I ate too much. Then I walked to and around the scuplture garden, and found the war memorial there as well. There's wifi in the sculpture garden, naturally. I napped on a bench, it was hot. I stopped by 7/11 and a money changer for supplies, then went to Water Lily again for dinner. Curry mee was a little better than the previous food I had here. I bought three bao to go for the bus tomorrow.
Nothing like spending a day making a perfectly good article less informative and harder to read to meet some arbitrary paper-based page limit.
Amy added http://penanghikes.com/ to https://rhiaro.co.uk/bookmarks/
Sun is on the pool side of the building in the afternoon. And it's sunny today, not cloudy. So I took a writing break in the condo pool. It's on the fifth floor, and half open-air. Pool is good. Sun is good. Back to writing.
Amy wrote about swimming, life, & travel
As part of the settling into Malaysia process, I've bought a blender.
Voyager just gets better and better. Next up, The Rock must fight Seven of Nine TO THE DEATH.
*Changes laptop timezone to Hawaii* ESWC2017 deadline here we cooommmeeee...
I shed two t-shirts, a pair of smartish trousers, and denim long shorts in Tokyo. I still find myself envious of all the people around me in the hostel in Kuala Lumpur with smaller backpacks than me. On a related note, I really want all of the brightly coloured loose pants at the market. So I'm going to try to significantly reduce my load again before I leave KL. To make it easier, I'll put something aside to rehome every day for the next nine days. To remind myself, and stay accountable, I'll update this blog post. Update: In the end I did it all at once, a couple of days after writing this. I extracted this stuff, and shoved it under my bed. At the end of my stay in the hostel, the folks at reception said they knew someone they could give it to for charity, so I left it with them.
Unpacking all of my things because I'm staying in one place for a while... Kinda nice. George Town, Penang, until the end of February. Looking forward to grocery shopping and actually using a kitchen again.
Flew to Tokyo. Made a hat on the plane. Flew to Kuala Lumpur. Started settling in and exploring the city. Our Decentralised scholarly communications workshop proposal was rejected from WWW but accepted to ESWC. Did some work on a main-track paper for ESWC about LDN. Did some SocialWG admin stuff. Put together an implementations summary for AS2.
Explored Kuala Lumpur. Worked on a paper about LDN for ESWC. Reviewed and tweaked AS2 so we can update the CR. Saw Moana. Took the bus to George Town, Penang.
Settled into George Town, Penang Finished (by not leaving the apartment for three days) and submitted LDN paper to ESWC (as HTML!) Improved the presentation of OnScreen. Helped with getting the revised AS2 CR published. Met my Malaysian Mum who took me for four kinds of dessert in one afternoon. Explored Penang National Park
Fixed my extension activities in sloph to match the new AS2 recommendations about name and summary. Started improving my LDN endpoint so notifications actually go into my triplestore with everything else, into a different graph for moderation. Helped prepare stuff for the upcoming WOW workshop and our ESWC Decentralised scholarly comms workshop Saw Rogue One. Climbed Penang Hill; held a scorpion. Visited Gurney Drive and Air Itam, briefly. Successfully avoided christmas.
Testing my new kitchen: peanut salad (with tofu, purple sweet potato, salad stuff); fried noodles (mee goreng); bowl of exciting fruits; chewey banana oat ginger cookies
Amy added 4 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/