zhinesade writes

We had the third and last breakfast we’d have in the hotel, and got ourselves a limo going to the airport. It was a right-hand drive MB, whoopee. This time, I sat up front and just relished the quiet trip going to the airport, looking over all the nice pics I got with my camera, and marvelling at the beauty of KL again. Once at the airport, we were homebound and I was as happy and contented as a cat. The hotel was fine, but I missed my own bed, and I missed my cutesy nephew Khail, as well as my wildly dysfunctional family and friends nyahaha. It was Wednesday afternoon.

Late on Friday, I moved all my pictures from the memory card into my laptop, in preparation for my Boracay trip early the next day.

Saturday afternoon, I got a call from my sister. My laptop had somehow acquired a worm and all documents in there had vanished. Dammit, I said once, and thought no more of it. I was in Boracay, after all, and I wouldn’t ruin my vacation over ‘a bunch of pictures’.

Except that it wasn’t just a bunch of pictures, but I’m not gonna gripe about that now. I have those memories that still make me laugh when I think about them, and that’s enough to last me one KL lifetime

Thanks to the people I was there with that made the experience worth the ahem…smell. Nyahaha. Arnold, Ferdie, Marlon, Francis, Malec, Mike.

Neks taym ulet! (magdadala na ko ng face mask, pramis haha)

Chapter 1 - Met Arnold at the ariport. We buzzed through immigration and chatted while we waited for 4:50pm to come around on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Met up with ferdie and Marlon while waiting too. Apparently, Marlon had his own training (right outside KL) in Malaysia as well. We boarded the plane, Arnold & I sitting beside each other, and Arnold saw the weirdest thing. Apparently, as some lady got on the plane, she donned on a sterile face mask. A premonition of things to come, although ignoramus Allan didn’t know it yet.

Chapter 2 - We get to Malaysia, and right before we leave the airport, some guy comes up to us asking us if we want to hail a cab. We say yes, and he gives us a price above the normal price we were previously told we were going to be asked to pay. Aba, red lights blinking! Parang Pinas! After he haggled (I was thinking, if he’s legit, he wouldn’t be haggling with us) with Marlon, we finally decided to just get in line (he was a mere 5 feet from the counter, but who knew?) and got the standard fee we were expecting. I rode at the back (a Proton compact…I asked hehe) with another pinay who was taking the same training. Driving was uneventful except for the right-hand drive (see Prologue for details) and the driving of around 150kph. Looked like the Malaysians had zoning down to a tee. Parang US. Hay, I couldn’t help but feel envy for dear old Manang Pinas.

Chapter 3 - The hotel - Sheraton - was amazing. I requested for a smoking floor and asked Arnold to please stay on the same floor, to make sure he could knock my door down in case I didn’t wake up in time for the training (the company could make you pay for all expenses if you failed to attend more than 25% of the training…and it was, after all, just a 2-day training)….

I had a view of the KL university, my room was legit 5-star, I had my book, stash of stogey, and camera to keep me company, and, albeit the very few channels on TV, I was set.

Chapter 4 - Training. Lots of boring in here. Skip this chapter. Now.

Chapter 5 - Because the gods were on our side on the trip, our hotel was right next to a bar strip (not strip as in strip clubs, but lots of bars on one street, dummy :P). Arnold and I walked down that path on Sunday night as we had promised to meet up with marlon & Ferdie for dinner after settling down. We didn’t know if we were trendy enough to enter the bars, and I thought Marlon & Ferdie would stay outside til we got there. But both were nowhere in sight. We reached the end of that street, where there were carinderia-style resto’s, and as we were deciding on whether or not Ferdie & Marlon could be in one of them, all the people on the tables in those resto’s started looking at us.  Arnold noticed and told me, and we immediately turned around and walked back to the classier part of that street. My usual ‘Is it because I’m brown?’ tagline didn’t fit, as some Malaysians were also brown. The only thing that didn’t fit was that I was in jeans and a shirt, while most women were in full Abayah(?) attire, covered from head to toe, in normal Muslim(?) garb. Attention that way is never flattering. I had to stop myself from running back and looking like a foolish 8-year old.

Well, we finally found Marln & Ferdie, inside one of the trendy resto-bars, eating pizza contentedly. Arnold, another girl, and I ordered something to share, and as one waiter put down  placemats, water, and utensils for me, I could smell his breath. He was soooo close, too close for my comfort. I asked about their menu & specialty, and he spoke right next to my right ear, meaning to say, I could smell his breath again. Huwaaaattttt. I couldn’t really tell him off though, as I didn’t know if that would be offensive to him, or if he’d think I was being snotty. I endured it like a lady, even trying not to move any facial muscle when I saw some of his salive hit the table. Yikes-kidoo. My only remedy was to jump into the refreshing shower as soon as I got back to the hotel and soap my way out of saliva-land. Ewwww.

On Monday after the training at 5pm, Ferdie, Arnold, and I decided to walk around and check out the KL tower, and take pictures of it at sunset. I had previously asked teh cab driver how far the KL tower was from our hotel. he said it was around a 7-10 minute walk. I guess he meant if we knew where we were going. All we had was the huge tower head as our compass. And we walked blocks and blocks before finally deciding to ask someone for directions. We got there just in time to ride the free shuttle going up to the base of the tower. However, the way we got there was an ordeal. We had started sensing different smells from different people (gaaahhh!) while walking the streets. At first, it was like one person just forgot to take a shower for 2 days and didn’t wwear deodorant. However, this assumption was incorrect, we soon found out. More and more people (groups of people, even) we passed smelled funky, and I mean FUNG-KEYYYYYYY! I’ll try to make you experience it. It was like walking around Central Park, deeply breathing in the crisp autumn air, and you’re suddenly slapped in the face with fresh puke. Yah-ky-doo! So then I engineered my breathing to stop when someone was approaching, and only to breathe in again when that person had passed me by at least 5 feet. It seemed to work at first, and then BAM! Some guy’s stench seemed to pay wild tribute to the skunk’s spray. Gun-Dam! Holy Muther! And then I died and went to sweet-smelling heaven. Joke! I learned not to breathe too much until I saw a breezy clearning at least 5 feet from anyone. Yikes. This dilemma, if you can believe it, was made even harder by the fact that Arnold too was choking and trying his hard not to puke when ‘bombarded’ with the smell and it was just funny. And Ferdie kept making this high-pitched ‘Whew’ sound when he knew he was going to msell it. My laughter was mostly stopped by self-preservation, but I’m sure a lot of my sense of smell cried during those hours.

On the second day, inside Petronas Tower, with Marlon, Ferdie, and Arnold, it was a lot more difficult as the room where we watched the video was airconditioned and small, so there was really nowhere else to run to, lest I be tagged as a terrorist if I suddenly ran out and cried ’stink bomb!’. After sunset at Petronas, we decided to hit Chinatown and meet up with some former co-workers there. I hailed a cab, unsuspectingly, and as we opened the door, you could almost faint from the smell. And this is where I swear Marlon is my ultimate professional acting idol. He sat on the front seat of the cab, while the rest of us clambered in back. I seriously couldn’t breathe, even though I was clutching my bag and trying to filter the air through its leather, but Marlon just choked it up and chatted with the driver like nothing was amiss. Go Marlon!

***me has to stop and do some partying…will continue with this tomorrow maybe…stay tuned :D***

Have been home 3 hours from my really short stint in KL, Malaysia for some work-related training, and I must say that 3 days was enough to make me think alotta (naks, nag-imbento ng word at isfelling) thoughts about allota (pronounce as aluhra para ishlang kunwari). Lemme just organize my thoughts into subjects so construction is easier.

HOTELS

i stayed at sheraton imperial in kl. it was a standard (shempre smoking) room with a king-sized bed and a cool view of the citylights at night. it had eerything one needed for a luxurious hotel stay, including a mending kit, a shower cap, cotton & cotton buds, complimentary 2 bottles of water a day, a digital safe, an iron and its partner, the ironing board, aside from the normal soap-shampoo-conditioner-bath gel combo. Plus one whole side of the bathroom had a view of the city as well. Of course, I had to draw the blnids down everytime i used the bathroom lest i get paranoid that someone had xray vision and could see past the thick tint of the glass that separated me for the outside world. I was on floor 26, and the view was better than good.

In comparison, I’ve never really stayed in a 5-star hotel in the Philippines so I really couldn’t say if hotels here were better, but I certainly can’t fault the hotel anything. They were damn good with their visitors, free messaging system, breakfast buffet and all. One word for it - niiiiiiiiiiiice (pronounce ‘naaaaaays’).

AIRPORT

Apparently, KLIA was voted best airport in the world for 2 consecutive years — 05 and 06. Well, i can’t blame the critics. The place is the most-hassle-free place I’ve been to; not crowded at all, lots of different restaurants and shops all arranged to NOT confuse you. It’s also the airport with the least brouhaha over security. They tell you the usual (no matches, butane, blue blah bley), but they allow lighters to be taken in (BIG HUGE plus for peeps like moi nyahaha). Of course, that’s not good if you’re worried over a bomber getting on, but hey, they aren’t as paranoid as our country is, and i give ‘em props for it.

TRANSPORTATION

They use ‘righthand drive’ cars in KL (this concept is so alien to me i don’t even know if i spelled it correctly! btw, i can’t say they do this in the whole of malaysia as i seem to remember cabs in Kota Kinabalu were normal cabs i.e. ‘lefthand drive’). I was so amazed at just this new thing that I literally stared at the driver for maybe a whole 2 minutes after i got in the back seat. And then i kinda got over it.

The highways in KL, aside from being ‘keep left’ (as opposed to our ‘keep right’ way of life here) were also very well organized. without traffic at 10pm on a sunday night, it was a 40-minute ride to the hotel from teh airport, with our driver going as fast as 150km/hr and i never felt the car shake (i.e. steering wheel shakes if the car is old or has some engine/body problems). The cab’s brand was Proton, an asian brand. Amazing. Plus, the highways were clean, mostly uncluttered, and drivers observed the ‘left for slow-moving vehicles, right for overtaking ones’ rule (shempre baligtad compared to us kasi nga they’re righthanded drivers). I was also told that drivers rarely used their honkers as it was powered by gas. Good underlying principle, i think, that seemed to lessen noise pollution a lot.

They also had different railway trains (and train routes) and shuttle buses that traversed the city, which made it easier for peole to get around. Very convenient, except that I haven’t ridden one in a couple of years. I had to ride it, Ferdie persuaded me, and I actually almost lost consciousness bec. my heart was beating oh so fast from the sick feeling that I always get on these things (those who know me know what i’m talking about). anyways, once was enough for me, and i can now say i tried it in malaysia. woop-dee-doo. blah.

Another really cool thing was the existence of sidewalks on major roads and intersections, as well as in side streets and back alleys. astig.

One pinoy we met up with there said KL’s roads were a testament to very good traffic engineering. I couldn’t agree more. I wished we could make Manila the same way, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine how we’d do it. We’d all probably have to stop working for a year at the minimum (so the streets wouldn’t be used) and go out and be cement mixers, foundation builders, engineers etc. at the state our roads are in. We’d practically have to rebuild Manila from head to foot. Or we could just wait for a tsunami to hit us and wash out everything we have here. Then we wouldn’t need to tear down any old roads, establishments, or canals. We’d just start with a clean slate. There goes morbid me. Blah.

The only flaw i saw with the sidewalks in KL was that there were a lot of open sewers that contributed to air pollution — as in the really bad odor kind. More on this RBO (really bad odor) later.

FOOD

Don’t get me wrong, the hotel served good food as expected and we saw a lot of red and yellow-colored cuisine around (i.e. chilli and curry all around), but nothing really caught my fancy. Those who know me know that I abhor hot and/or spicy food for a whole lotta reasons. Nothing in Malaysia changed my mind, unfortunately. Funny story should be inserted here, but I’ll save the stories for a different entry as there is so much of them, i crack up just remembering some of it.

SHOPPING

Well, I’m not much of a shopper (except for shoes, and I didn’t see any extraordinary ones here) but I just have to mention that they have a mall at the base of the famous Petronas Towers and it’s named Isetann. Its their version of the Rustans in ShangriLa mall, I guess. It was just funny.

They also had their version of greenhills and divisoria in one in a place they called chinatown. there was cheap chinese turo-turo food and lots and lots of souvenirs, clothers, and other accessories to catch the buyer’s eye. Again, more kwento on this in the next entry.

LANGUAGE-HISTORY-CULTURE

I didn’t know much about Malaysia’s history when I got there and that’s my bad, but as soon as I spoke to the driver, I knew I was going to have a bit of trouble. They spoke english like PAYONGs do (if you don’t know who PAYONGs are, send me a message…i’ll explain in private only haha). Apparently, Malaysians were colonized by the English, thus the righthand-drive cars and the difference in accents.

Also, I thought Malaysia was first and foremost an islamic country, and i didn’t know much about their customs and traditions and was afraid i’d offend them somehow, me being a woman and all. More stories about this in the next entry. Sufficeth to stay, ignorance, in this case, was not bliss. At all.

The word ‘Selamat’, while it sounds much like ‘Salamat’ (Thanks in pinoy, you knew that, shempre) means ‘welcome’ in their language. ‘Sayangi’ means love (very close to our word ’sayang’). The funniest thing, though, was the following: ‘TEKSI’=cab; ‘TRAK’=truck; ‘BAS’=bus. Wala lang. Iba eh. Lefftreep.

And, it just needs to be said that filipino telenovelas are a hit in Malaysia (something that we also noticed in Kota Kinabalu previously). In fact, the limo driver, upon finding out we were pinoy, asked us what ‘Pangako’ meant. Apparently, his wife was a big fan of ‘Pangako Sa Iyo’ with Jericho Rosales and Kristin Hermosa. He also admitted to having a crush on Kristin. O deva. Ibang klase ang pinay. Weeh-NeR!

SMELLS

Ow maiii. Ow maiiiiii talaga. Az in. Po-tek, pare. As one of my companions said, parang curry na sobrang baho, tapos nilagay pa sa ilalim ng kili-kili. Hex-Haj. My gah-lee, if only for this, hindi ko yata kayang ma-assign dun. I was even asking the 3 pinoy friends we met up with there how they could take it. They admitted it takes some getting used to. And hindi pa rin sila totally immune after a couple of months there. Bilib, pare, bilib.

Shempre — sabay-bawi (less effective humor, pero i don’t want to offend some people) — hindi naman lahat, but a lot of the peole we passed in the streets ganun. Noteably though, folks who worked in the hotel didn’t have that smell. Matino naman. Explanation ng isang pinoy, normally daw talaga, di sila sanay maligo, unless i-require sa ibang jobs, or kung gusto nila magpa-impress (i.e. ‘naghahanap ng babae’ ang term na ginamit nung isang pinoy, and i won’t name names haha).

Heniwei. Ayun. Abangan ang susunod na kabanata. Pramis mas nakakatawa kesa dito.

*Abangan ang susunod na kabanata*

no one’s called me a free spirit before. or maybe someone had, but i never realized the magnitude of the comment, of course, seeing as i was too busy running to and from places i wanted to experiences in my fantastic surreal world. i had a wonderful run, i did. i’ve been places, met people, heard minds, loved souls. i did all these, and so much more, really. and you know what they say about people who are ahead of their time. sometimes, they miss some essential things they’re supposed to experience if they would’ve followed the flow. (yeah, no one really said that, but someone should’ve, really).

one day, peter pan grew up.

it’s unfair, I think. no one warned you that one day your roaming days would be over. no one pointed out the stop sign.

who am I kidding? either you’re a free spirit and you understand these things, or you’re not. there’s no in-between. if you’re someone who lives vicariously through others, then you still don’t get it. you weren’t there. you didn’t get to hold his hand. you didn’t get to see her face light up when she told her story. you didn’t see a gleam of god when he played the guitar and she painted the picture. i was there. i was part of that moment. my breath flowed in the same room as theirs. for a split-second, we were one in thinking…that moment when i knew exactly what he was thinking and feeling.

i’d never barter that for anything. not in a million years.

but today, i look at myself, and know I’m compelled to feel me. i guess in all the time i allowed myself to feel for them, and to be with them, i kinda forgot about me as a distinct someone, me as a solitary embodiment different from them, me as a distinct soul with my own delicate intricacies.

and so it was bound to happen. i guess a part of me complained about not knowing what i really felt, what i really thought. here i am now, bare, with no one else’s ideas but my own, with no one else’s emotions but mine.

it’s a bit like a dream, truth be told. after a long time of imposing others’ contemplations onto my mold, it’s pretty scary to shake them all off and find where i stand alone, you know? i don’t know where tomorrow will bring me or if i’d be the same person after a particular situation. i can’t be a bamboo in the wind, bending to its passionate blows all the time. i don’t know what i am and i think i like that truth. but slowly, amazing as it is, i think i’m getting to know me.

after several years of knowing others, i think i’m seeing me singularly through my eyes.

weird, certainly, but there’s no other way to put it on paper, and it just needed to be said.

Tomorrow, here I am. Come and get me. I’m all yours.

In fact, I’m all mine.

i was in a relationship until i wasn’t

i was flinging until i got tired

i was calm until i was furious

i was creative until i was self-destructive

i was healthy until i got sick

i was hopeful until i gave up

i was dreaming until i woke up

i was dead until life found me.

maybe everyone has this, maybe I’m not the only one. they say that the truth is, as you get older, you know less and less of what you thought you knew a lot about. you start to doubt, and you start to fall back, and you start to question every little thing that’s supposed to matter to you. you eat, sleep, drink coffee, drink beer, work, play, watch tv, hang out, pass out, go out, stay out, you listen, you talk, tune out, tune in, fix things, immortalize moments, live in the present, breathe, swim, cry, laugh, fall in and out of bliss, and generally love life. you once thought these were enough to not live a substandard existence. then this.

it’s a moment, just like any other.; it comes without confusion, without uncertainty, without doubt. it’s there, it’s real, almost a tangible feeling of black hole sucking you in, making you dig deeper for strength you don’t think you have. you hold on for dear life, and think ‘swim or sink, baby’, but the gravity is just too overwhelming. and you don’t even know if it’s worth the effort to keep fighting it. because at this moment, you don’t even know what you’re fighting for or fighting against. it’s all so futile, anyway. we’re all gonna die in the end. the dream you had never came true, and you were always second best, or worse, you were the repetitive loser with nothing to show but a fake smile of sportsmanship. it’s all bullshit when they said you learn when you lose. you always lost, and look where it’s gotten you. on the brink of this black hole, that’s where.

maybe it’s called the black hole for a reason. without the w, you’re left with literally nothing in the center. where it matters. where it counts. suddenly, you’re in a dark place alone. no books, no shows, no drink, no food can take you out of it. it just is. and, helplessly, you settle into it, trying to find a good spot in the emptiness to sleep and while away sorrow, hopelessness, and the passage of time.

in the deep, dark recesses of final blackness, how can you not see the light pointing the way out, unless you’ve blinded yourself into thinking there is no other color?

do we do this to ourselves? like alice, do we explore that hole with curiosity and too much carelessness about us? do we do this because we are just too naïve or too ignorant? or because we think too much? curiosity killed the cat, they say. was the cat a wise curious one? was it a one-time exploration that led to the trial of his nine lives? or was it plain and simple yearning for something more than this whiteness that envelopes the dull days where we all be?

are we wise to explore the sinking of the ship? or are we just foolish to think that we can ever truly understand this abyss?

i don’t really know. i’m not even alice. and it’s not just a hole. It’s a life.

zhinesade ‘07

disclaimer: i wrote a really nice coherent post which got lost as the dsl connection went down at home. so now you’ll have to make do with reading something probably more boring, less funny, unrelatable ‘thing’. dammit.

i need to know which starbucks location is the best for tambayan. it got me curious the other day, and asked a few people, in between alt-tabs of work and aol. i still find that the tiendesitas branch is the most relaxing ‘tambay-mode’ one.

lemme know if you think of any other locations that are as good or better. nope, not tagaytay or ccp, nor any of the ones on the expressway (both expressways), nor baguio, nor luisita complex, nor any of the ones in makati or ortigas. i’m sure there are some other hidden ones. lemme know. i. just. need. to. know. it’s an itch that needs to be scratched at the moment. pero naman, pinas ha.

p.s. saying that the location doesn’t matter and it’s who you’re with or what you’re drinking is just plain cheating…

This new blogging style bothers me a bit. I have to log in to friendster just to get to it. Adds 2 extra steps to the usual blogging style i’ve gotten used to with blogger. oh well.

Just got back from a round trip to baguio, with drinking and eating in between. Here’s how it went in my head —

qc 9pm, nle, starbucks-jollibee dinner stop, dau, longer shortcut, overtaking, singing, ‘pakshet,tokshet,b*tch,bakla’ hirits of lifetime beavis and butthead buds i was with, bathroom break, baguio toll, pma turn, camp john hay manor, starmart not selling beer past 11pm, 7-11, smb finally, relax, 9 degrees and loving it, sleep 5am, awake at 10, sh*tty coffee, joe’s tender steaks(no value there),bathroom hustle, packup, sm figaro pasta ala carlo sarap, botanical garden, mines view, burnham park, ihaw na pusit en liempo, kennon road, funny overtakes, luisita starbucks, sleepy, nle na ulet, kfc sarado pakshet, kfc open(!) oops lampas na, toll, qc, street party iwas sa closed roads, balcony, capital K na kamukha daw ni dao ming su pero acidic ampucha, uwian at 130am on sunday.

—-

i just had to put that down and commit to memory. mine, not yours, i mean. hehe.

—-

rewind to friday a week back, and i was on my way to tagaytay on a whim with a friend. it was an honest night, lots of laughs, lots of secrets revealed as facts, and lots of missed shooting stars haha.

—-

on these short excursions, i found myself infused with new blood. Blood that i had expunged for a year or so. the blood to go hunting and seek out new heights, new adventures, new highs. it would rear its head once in a while, but would not really amount to much anything. it reared its head in january, and hopefully will be my muse to not go under the radar this february as i had previously planned.

adventure, i have missed you. i had tried to act responsible and in-line with the flow of today, like a robotic person should, but i truly am a free spirit. i revel in the winds of change, and find myself cramped with the sedementary flow of normal life. must admit it now or risk losing sight of another part of who i am. it’s the angle in the mirror i fail to see. the ‘blind spot’ of my existence. i try hard to fit in, but really, i always stand out. i don’t really flow with waves of life, i kinda take my friends on a ride when they’re with me. not necessarily a bad thing, really. except when they try and keep me in the confines of the world they are used to. then i suffocate. and i just have to get out of there, or it’ll kill me if i stay in too long. but hey, what’s adventure if not trying different things at different times, or even at the same time.

boy, am i blabbering to high heavens now.

and i’m not even stoned.

—-

there was a moment in baguio where it was so quiet i wanted to stop myself for breathing so i could listen to the quiet longer (my breathing was making a sound - inhale, exhale - and it was keeping me from concentrating on listening to everything’s nothingness. i tried, realized what i wanted to do, and laughed out loud. i am absurd sometimes, i know. hey, that’s me. on an average day.

—-

one day, this weird mind will be the end of me. i swear.

—-

dammit, it’s cold even in manila. and i need me some darn-good food and smokes. haha.

—-

cheers. my toast. to life.

ps. blabberer is not even a real word.

how can I hate you?

how do I forget that in that moment, you were mine?

how do I close my eyes and not think about that kiss?

how do I not feel your touch when someone mentions your name?

i’m sure it can never happen again

i’m sure you and i will never meet again

i’m sure i should fail to remember you

i’m sure it shall all pass into the frenzied world of hazy drunken dreams.

did you think about it and wish abhorrence too?

did you forget that second you looked into my eyes and knew I was yours?

did you close your eyes and block out lips sealing untold future promises?

did you not feel ambiguous when you heard my name?

it’s been a while now

and i just need to know if i’m alone in this thinking

if i’m beside myself for doing what i can’t ever regret doing

as you go sailing different seas of your passions and fight demons of your soul.

it’s hypothetically easy to decide

it’s supposedly easy to put your foot down

it’s theoretically easy to push forward and not look back.

But tell me

how can i forget you?

how can i forget?

how can i?

how did you?