Home.

Was too lazy to blog yesterday so pardon the disappearance. Yesterday was just a lazy lazy lazy day. I think I wrote two articles in the morning (which sounds like total crap now that I re-read it) and I was done for the day. Verrible terrible but I was malas to the max.

Anyway, Tuesday seems to be much better. I had nasi lemak for breakfast at a coffee shop nearby (yum) and was off to attend some income tax talk. I know it sounds deathly boring but I actually volunteered to attend it. It wasn’t so much a talk, more of a step by step introduction on how to calculate your taxes and how to fill in the form (aka Taxes for Dummies). I learned lotsa new stuff, such as

1) You’re entitled to RM500 worth of magazines and books in a year as long as you keep the receipts (basically they deduct this from the total tax amount you have to pay)
2) You can also deduct medical bills for your parents up to RM5000 a year
3) You have to pay by April 30th or else they fine you a minimum of RM50 or a percentage of your taxes

And most importantly:

4) I don’t have to pay taxes yet. Yay (of course this also reflects the peanut-pay I’m receiving).

My KL trip was good. Brief but good. But tiring. I forgot how exhausting KL can be. I’ve never been a city girl at heart anyway. I like the laidback pace of KK better. But nothing beats the shopping and nightlife buzz of the big city, I must admit! My colleagues and I checked into Parkroyal Hotel around 2:30am on Saturday, hit the sack at 3 and was up by 8am. We managed to hop to Sungei Wang for some browsing before we grabbed a cab to get to Istana Budaya (where the Sound of Music musical was held) around 1pm. We were given a special tour backstage and met the stagehands and music producer. It was really cool to be backstage and see the technical side of the production. Did you know the whole stage is actually as big as half a football field? Yep, you only see one third of the stage during the performance. And it’s seven floors high! This is to make space for the props and lights that are suspended in the air.

Anyway, the musical itself was amazing. I can see why it was an award-winning Broadway production: the costumes, the set, the cast and the music…Everything was amazing down to the last detail. And since it was the Sound of Music, I couldn’t resist singing along most of the time, haha. I hardly felt the 2 and a half hours go by.

So back to the hotel we went, humming The Lonely Goatherd all the way of course. I met up with my brother, Johann, and we went shopping at One Utama. Took us an hour to get there from KL. Suddenly the ten-minute ‘traffic jam’ after work here in KK didn’t seem too bad after all. And all those toll booths. The amount we paid was enough to cover my lunch here for a day. Note to self: Only consider job opportunities in KL if pay offered is between RM3 to RM5 million.
Johann said I could have anything I wanted for dinner.

Johann: So what u want?
Me: * looks around * Burger King?
Johann: * stunned silence * You flew all the way to KL and you want to eat at Burger King?
Me: They have Whoppers…
Johann: No. Choose something else.

And that was that. So we had dinner at Friday’s. Which turned out to be a better dining choice after all, heh heh.

Sunday was crunch time. If I didn’t buy anything now, I’d probably end up with nothing. I was happily traipsing along KLCC when suddenly I felt my right eye go blurry. I started seeing spots and people were talking louder and louder. Ah shit, I knew immediately what was happening. Migraine attack. The last one I had was late last year and it was so bad I had to pull over till my vision came back. Anyway, there I was in KLCC with my left temple pounding and my right eye going blurry. I bought my meds at a pharmacy, gulped it down and prayed for the migraine to go away. My colleagues decided it was best if we went back to the hotel and grab lunch along the way. In the taxi, I felt like my left eye was going to pop out of my head at any moment (not the best feeling…Gee you think?). At the chicken rice shop, things were improving but I cringed everytime the waiters dropped something or dragged a chair across the floor. Migraines mean everything is five hundred times louder and brighter, so go figure. It was like having someone rattling spoons while screaming Hakka obscenities inside my head. Bising oh.

But come evening, all was well and by the time I boarded the plane, I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed that night. Yeah, KL still has its charm and nothing beats retail therapy in the city. But come to think of it, nothing beats the familiarity of KK’s tight roads, annoying jaywalkers and ten-minute traffic jams.

"One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
Two can be as bad as one, its the loneliest number since the number one
No is the saddest experience you'll ever know
Yes is the saddest experience you'll ever know
cause one is the loneliest number that you'll ever know
one is the loneliest number even worst then two."
- Filter, One.