Wednesday, May 3, 2006 Yup, Just found on Tuesday that I am leaving on Thursday for two more weeks of fun and sun in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This one won't be nearly as fun as the last time as I am saving up my money for the end of the month when I am going on a bike trip down to Utah, home of Bryce and Zion National Parks to party with other bikers. Maybe my boyhood dream of finally landing a biker chick will come true. Or maybe some big ole biker chick will just land on me. Whatever. I am planning a few day trips in to Chinatown to find some more cheap jewellery and movies and possibly music CDs, other than that I expect to actually be busy this time. They have work planned for me, the blighters! So, with any amount of luck we will dodge the hookers, dodge the pick-pockets, dodge the high prices (running out of dodgie things here right now) and maybe even dodge a Ford. Who knows! _____________________________________________________________________ Thursday, May 4, 2006 So, Here I sit all broken-hearted, not a dime and barely started! Yeah, I know, you had another line in your head. Go with it if you must. When you're done, we'll continue. I am sitting here in Vancouver. I woke up at 5:15, my father picked me up at 5:30, the airplane picked me up at 7:15, and then set me down at 7:25 in Vancouver. And now I sit. And sit. And sit. Until 2:00 I sit. Yup! Do the math, that's a 6.5 hour layover! And then I start my 18 hour flight to Singapore. I didn't think that airplanes could go for 18 hours to Singapore non-stop and I was correct. They don't. I get to touch down in Korea for a 1.5 hour re- fuelling along the way (included in the hours, apparently). As I sit here in the airport, suddenly reminiscing about my horses, it dawns on me why. I am wearing the running shoes today that I was wearing last night as I was working on them. Guess what's under my feet right now? I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with ka-ka! In fact, it even sounds like ka-ka. And worse yet, upon checking, it even tastes ... but I digress. I am stiff and I am sore. I have been attempting to get back in to the groove of horse trimming. I have a lot of respect for farriers now (FARRIER). Man they have strong backs. Usually I am good for two hooves before I start to get really tired out, but this year I had to start with one hoof, take a breather, do the next. Apparently a slack winter exercise- wise. Last night I did two complete horses. Again, if you are doing the math correctly, it rounds off to about eight. And now ... ouch! I am sore. What does not really help the pain is knowing that I have done maybe 6 horses so far. I still have a baker's dozen to get through yet. Heck, by the time I get back their might be 14 or 15 out there (a few are in the 'family way'). Wow! An older gentleman and his travelling partner (nudge nudge wink wink) just entered the lounge here at the airport for us VIP flyers and he has like this giganto huge man-purse. And he doesn't sling it over his shoulder fashionably like the women do, he is wearing it, in all its glory, like an ID badge, dead center on the paunch. It has to be over a foot long and at least 9 or 10 inches wide. And it kind of juts out about where the belly button might be. Hence my usage of the word paunch. I am in the domestic lounge, there is another one further down in the bowels of the airport for the international departures. I noticed that most of the people in this lounge are overweight, balding men. And then there are a few tired looking women. No doubt from having to do the work of 3 men. Considering the ratio of Chinese/White here in Vancouver I am amazed that there are almost no orientals, just occidentals. (Warren's been looking in the dictionary again - occidental). --- I am now in the airplane. Deep in the bowels of a Boeing 777. Singapore Airlines, which if I recall from my sister, is either the first or second airline in quality. And it may be. I am in coach and they are awesome. Always coming along with juice, water, soup, biscuits, whatever. But no massages. Oh well. So far it has gone very well. I have not offended anyone, have not been accosted by anyone, have not gone down any 'bad' roads. Yet. Excellent! Oh, I picked up some Korean money. 800:1 ratio on the money. So five dollars got me 4000 Won. And I picked up some Singapore money. Apparently five dollars is about 6 Singapore dollars, so they are almost on par with us. _____________________________________________________________________ Saturday, May 6 - where the heck did Friday go? I am now at the apartment in KL. Had to overnight it in Singapore. Arrived this morning at 10:30 at the apartments. And now I am just bushed. I have a roomie this time around. The 'other' Warren, a guy from the University who is doing some programming work from us and needed to help out the people in KL, much like me. So now we have the duelling Warren's. Only problem that I see from this is the direct comparison that will be made and yeah, I pretty much come off as the evil Warren. Better looking, but evil nonetheless. In comparison, because of course I am pretty much a sweetheart all around. He's just, you know, well .... Anyway, we are sharing the same apartment since it has 3 bedrooms and all that stuff. It is late, it is bedtime for this lil' cowboy, till later in the week. Adieu. _____________________________________________________________________ ... later that day! I love Malaysia! Went in to town today to see about buying a new camera. Mine is getting a little old now, like 2.5 years. Actually no, it is a very good camera with only two downsides for me, one is the shutter lag that comes with auto-focus cameras, wherein you press the shutter and wait a fraction of a second before the actual picture gets taken. I have missed a lot of good shots as a result of this lag. The other is the fact that a year and a half ago I 'bounced' the camera at about 50 km/hr off my motorcycle in Langkawi. Not a smart thing. But fortunately it is a Sony so it is a tough little bugger. But it now has these little ghostie images that show up on the right side every so often. Mostly on cloudy days, rather irregularly. But enough to bother me. So, I managed to sell it to a friend of mine for whom the situations that these little ghosties show up should not be a problem, and bought my camera here in Malaysia. what I ended up with was a huge savings. I saved over $200 buying the camera in Malaysia compared to buying it in Canada. So that's like a 1/3 savings right there! Plus I sold my other camera to afford this one, so in the end, I have a brand new camera for about $250. Can't sneeze at that! Regular price should have been a little over $600 back home. |