A new day on the dark side of the moon

Yesterday was my first day back in Malaysia. And this is my first opportunity to write something about what had happened during my trip. But because the internet cafe that I am at presently doesn't have cdrom access, ill have to upload the pictures at a later time.

My trip started off with me rushing to check in to NW airlines, and then Tyler and I drove out to the airport where I had my last experience in Oregon. For some reason Tyler thought it would be a good idea to eat.... And for some reason he picked Chinese food... As if I'm not going to have 3 months to eat as much of it as humanly possible, we had some sesame chicken and some chow mein, afterwards we just went around taking pictures and talking about what my plans are going to be. Once he saw me off at the gate, I traveled to the bookstore and purchased some books. For some of you who don't know this area well, there aren't as many book stores here as there are in Oregon. And so I got the gardens of Kyoto, and several of the lord of the rings series.

finally after a looooong plane ride I got to Japan, which took about 10 hours. From the sky it was beautiful, and suprisingly enough the climate is very similar to that of Oregon, except for the massive cancerous concrete city that they call Tokyo, its very beautiful. The beaches are lined with majestic beaches, and seemingly inconspicuous windmills. What was more shocking was the things I saw in the airport. It seems that about 1/3 of every person in Tokyo has dyed hair. And its not always natural colors, a sea of hot-pink and electric eel blue as you walk through an ocean of people. Near my terminal I spotted a group of older gentlemen betting on a sumo match that was playing on a television. I tried to ask one of them what is so exciting about 2 obese men in underwear dukeing it out. But not many people in Tokyo know english, so I just got a blank stare.

another thing in Tokyo that I was surprised about was the cost. Everyone tells you that its expensive in Japan, but you don't really feel it properly until it hits your pockets. I paid probably about 7$ (RM 28) for a single bowl of soup. Thick ramen noodles topped with tempura in a nicely seasoned yellow sauce, tasty, but ultimately too expensive.

another thing was that I took a trip to the book store there, and everything there was horribly overpriced, not only that but the bookstore was divided into 4 sections. First section was the comic books, which are very popular. Second section was the magazine section. Third section was the pornographic section, where grown men can be found admiring the beauty of young Japanese school girls finally the smallest section was that of the novels very few English, mostly Japanese.

finally time to depart Tokyo, and off to Singapore, the plane ride to Singapore was about 6 hours, and once I got there it was deserted, not a person to be found. Luckily a couple of British folks on the plane were happy enough to enlighten me on how I might get out of the airport, we took a taxi at 35 Singapore dollars. And I waited at the train station for about 6 hours, talking with a couple Malay from the town of pasir mas. And a little girl who reminded me very much of my sister. I also tried my luck at a game they had there, with suprising luck in the beginning my 1 dollar turned to 6 and then down to zero..... Oh well thats how things work I guess.

finally I was on the train for about 6 hours to KL where I was ambushed by a Chinese family who (like many people) find it intruging that I'm a white guy traveling in their country alone. I'm trying to find the words..... Someone said "you must travel a lot, you should be her girlfriend". Needless to say but that wasn't enough to woo me into falling into her arms. Another thing I should mention was that there was a mother daughter team that was also on the train, who thought it would be a good idea to put their feet on the table in front of them, but without socks nor shoes on.

finally in KL I was supposed to meet my good friend Yuki, but the telephone number I had for her was too old, and no longer worked. The day passed very quickly, I got there at about 3pm, and we went around looking for a camera. And enjoying life in kl. But I was so busy that I went off to jerantut after the day was finished, the British couple (who aren't really a couple besides the fact that they are traveling together) wanted to go to Teman Negara, and I had some things that I needed to do there so I decided to travel there first. And that's where I am right now. In a super noisy PC lab with telling and screaming Chinese children who keep bumping my chair. Right when you need an AK-47 you find yourself fresh out... ashame. In the meanwhile, I'm going to try to find a way to get my photos on the internet. And then help ardiana nurse an abandoned kitten.

[ some thing you should know about ardiana is that she loves animals, she always helps animals in need. And currently she has a slow lorris and another animal at her house, just hope that it doesn't become a wildlife preserve soon]

More to come soon.