The eagle has landed. On a bed. In a nice hotel room in Asia.
So, I am here. And right now, you can picture me looking exactly like this. And I mean *exactly* like this. I’m jet-lagged, remember:
Things I learned on my journey:
- A 12 hour flight isn’t half as bad as it sounds.
- ‘When Love Breaks Down’ by Prefab Sprout is a really good song (thank you, S).
- Malaysia Airlines: Maverick does not count as a classic film.
- It’s still dark in the morning in Kuala Lumpur at 6.30am.
- Malaysia is hugely green, and full of verdant hills and palm trees. Not unlike a large Majorca.
- However, Malaysia is much hotter than Majorca.
- The twin towers in Kuala Lumpur are very impressive, even from a distance.
- The agent, T, is terribly nice, and looks like my brother, only younger and Malaysian. His wife, C, is terribly nice and looks like my second cousin, only younger and Malaysian. T’s business partner R, is also terribly nice, but doesn’t look like any member of my family.
- The Malaysian Department of Immigration is housed in a building which is enormously grand and modern, in a communist sort of way, and yet which houses crappy market stalls in its lobby. Go figure.
- We drove through a state in Malaysia which sits under a raincloud every day, rather like the geographical equivalent of Charlie Brown.
- Smoking is perfectly acceptable in public areas in Malaysia. How frightfully 20th century!
- The hotel is unbelievably swanky; and I have a gorgeous room with a king size bed and a sea view.
- A flute and tabla duo playing ‘Smoke On The Water’ is surprisingly good.
- Squid tastes better than I thought it would.
- I have been up for 30+ hours, save for snoozing on the back seat of a car/747.
- I am a bit delirious.
- The ‘Smoke On The Water’ thing really happened.
January 29th, 2008 at 1.38am
Glad you got there in one piece!!!! xxxx
January 29th, 2008 at 1.52am
See how long you can go without sleeping. A swim might help. And the longer you manage the better you’ll fell later on.
January 29th, 2008 at 1.59am
well it’s 3am now and I’m still awake.. I can see that contacting peeps in Britain will increase the likelihood of this happening, so I’m going to have to discipline myself..
and thank you, Lowri!
January 29th, 2008 at 5.26am
You’ve arrived - woo hoo! So exciting! Well I’ll be thinking of you sunning yourself and sipping colourful cocktails decked with umbrellas and maraschino cherries on the beach as I’m shivering in the dampness and greyness of a London winter…
Me? Green with envy? Whatever gave you that idea…?
January 29th, 2008 at 7.41am
Hey just think: you are x numbers of hours ahead of us here. So if the World blows up NOW (or in 24 hours) you can jettison the ‘jet lagged’ idea and start SMUG thinking, “I lived x numbers of hours more than UK”. That is of course if you’ve not been blown up and are now part of the cast of a Hollywood epic. Smoke in public? OK so good in some ways, gooder in not being so regulated a person.
Verdant, green and hotter: remember the MOSQUITOES, oh clefted beshorted person. Smoke on the Water being quite a good repellant.
Good luck and singfullness, Rachel x
January 29th, 2008 at 3.39pm
no! smoking in public is *not* good!
and the only Hollywood epic I want to be part of is ‘Lost In Translation’. although not as the jazz singer.
January 29th, 2008 at 4.31pm
How about Lost in Translation II: The Transposition, making the Jazz singer the leading lady in Penang (possibility of reintroducing Japanese theme via holidaymakers). But if so, which aged man with falling apart life would you rejuventate and who would play him? And would he smoke in public? x
January 29th, 2008 at 4.32pm
What’s the world like, 8 hours ahead in time?
January 29th, 2008 at 4.46pm
the world is in my hotel room, and cool (in both senses). the world outside is probably very very very very humid INDEED.
btw as you make reference to Japan, a note to all readers about the ‘Lost In Translation’ thing I’m doing here: I want everyone to know that I’m not a small-minded Westerner and do realise that LiT is set in a completely different country. I think it was more the idea of leading a lone, and possibly jetlagged-fuelled, certainly alien, existence in a hotel room in Asia which inspired thoughts of the film… Although quite whether I am Bill, or Scarlett, or the jazz singer in the hotel bar remains to be seen.