It's been a quiet stable week. Wednesday was a good, but tiring day. I'd asked Kim and her husband if they would let me tag along to KL should they go because I wanted to pick up Jilian's new passport in person and it would mean a day out of town for me.
I've been wanting to get away from the kids and have some time to myself, so I was happy and extremely grateful when they said that yes, they were going. We fixed the pick-up time for 9.30 and for the first time in ages, they arrived on time. They caught me so much by surprise that I wasn't actually ready when they arrived, so I had to scramble around for 10 or so minutes, double checking this and that, getting water and finding my glasses.
Having glasses to find is a new thing for me and I'm definitely not used to it. I take them off and forget that I should be wearing them and then wonder why, hours later, my eyes are killing me. And I need a new frame - the frame I've got now is so thin, it's just getting mangled from being used everyday.
The thing about going out with Kim and her husband is that the places we go are determined by what they want to eat. And they eat a lot. First stop was in town here for breakfast where they had noodles and a hot drink. I only had a cup of tea because I'd had my breakfast earlier.
Next stop, 3 hours later at Kuala Lumpur City Centre (underneath the Petronas Twin Towers) where I first went off by myself to pick up the passport (and yes, I was organised, made easy because I only had to produce one piece of paper). Then we met for lunch at a neat little cafe called The Lawn. It served Western food, so we ordered quiche (and had a quick English lesson on how to pronouce 'quiche' ie not kich), pita and dips and a slice of cheesecake, all of which we shared. After that, we found the car and proceeded to Pavillion, an upmarket shopping mall where their college-going daughter was participating in a kolam design activity. So we met up with her and went to eat again. This time is was more traditional Malaysian food - assam laksa (sour coconut soup), char kway teow (fried flat noodles) and nasi lemak (coconut rice served with sambal and curry chicken). I was so full by this time, I thought I'd never need to eat again. Indeed, even though we'd only stopped for 3 meals and I'd only eaten two of them, their focus on food was proving to be too much for my delicate little stomach. I felt full after just talking about what we were going to eat next.
Next we stopped at a gourmet supermarket which stocks everything from almost any country. There was my Australian halal, export grade minced beef, sitting there in all it's fresh, meaty goodness. It looked so good, but not having the esky with me, I couldn't buy any. So instead, I lashed out and bought some designer dark chocolate - and it was GOOD, really GOOD - so light and lovely and not too sweet - and a few other things that were too expensive and I could probably do without.
By this time, it was almost 6 and we had to high-tail it across town where Kim had her consultation with a weight-loss consultant (yes, I know, the irony of it all) after which we proceeded to another restaurant called Marmalade. This restaurant is The Lawn's (from above) big brother. Here, I was told, we were just stopping for afternoon tea, so don't order a meal. I tried not to roll my eyes and ordered a hot chocolate to accompany "the best carrot cake" they had ordered to share with me. The next stop was IKANO, another, smaller shopping mall that I know well because we used to live near here. I like this place because it has most things I need and more importantly, it's not too big. And the bookshop is big and full of all the latest English books. I bought another 2 Torey Hayden books which I find so inspiring in my line of work - her philosophy and teaching approach are similar to mine, though her work is much more intense and on a greater scale than mine. She's not too rigid in her programming, a little unconventional in her approach and I find that reading her 'memoirs', (stories of the kids she's taught) helps me in my own work, showing me how to think more outside the box.
So going to that place was worth the traffic jam it took to get there. And we didn't eat, thank god! When we left at 10.00pm I was feeling really drained and just wanted to go home. But, guess where we were headed now - that's right, it was dinner time. We ended up eating dim sum for dinner because I'd said I could only eat something really small and that eating chilli now was not doing myself any favours. So dim sum it was. Dim sum is called yum cha in Melbourne. You order little dishes of things like steamed pork and prawn rolls, steamed pork ribs and you eat it without the need for rice. It was good. The hot chinese tea was soothing and the hot dishes settled my stomach - I think I needed a good hot meal at that point without realising it and so it really hit the spot. After that , I felt OK again and we finally headed home - it was almost 11.
We arrived home at 1.30, tired and happy, me clutching the precious passport and my books (and bags and water and another bag and ...). Thankyou Kim and Wilson, for taking me with you and going to KLCC when you didn't really have to go there. I am, of course, grateful to have such wonderful friends.
A great day and not a meltdown in sight!
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