A Black Magic Woman

Well, my British friends James and Cheryl came went to Teman Negara, and although it rained one of the days that they were there, overall it was a pretty good trip they said. Last night they came by the Green Park hostel in jerantut, a hostel which is owned by a good friend named ardiana and her family. And they are actually heading out to a place called compenyang( forgive my spelling) for the full moon party. The full moon party is a giant party in Thailand filled with as many sex, drugs, and lady-boys as one could possibly imagine. And so they had time to kill before they had to catch the train at 2 AM.

anyhow, ardiana was gracious enough to take us to clubbing in jerantut. So we walked for what seemed like forever to a small doorway, a place that you wouldn't have noticed unless someone physically went and showed you where it was, inside it looked like one of the most rag-tag bars you ever laid eyes upon. The sorta dark murky bar that you would expect to find the leaders of a criminal faction to flock to. Actually criminals would have been an improvement on the majority of people that we did see there.

now mind you that this was a karaoke bar, and when we first sat down one of the waitresses gave us a menu of all of the karoake songs that were available. Now mind you that the girls were hunched together scheming deviously about what they might do. And the arrangement was originally that I would have to sing a song to appease ardiana for a previous incident with a camera. Finally we came to the agreement that we would all sing one song, but guys vs. Girls. Now this was just an extension of a previous argument that we had in the hostel. The girls were insisting that men were becoming obsolete in the world, and only necessary to create more babies. Us guys were saying that women are far too dependent on men, while reaping all of the benefit.

finally when it was our turn, the hostess handed the girls a microphone and they got on stage and started singing. Although I've never actually ever heard the song once in my life, and I forget how the song goes, tell you the truth, they weren't that bad. Now us guys had a daunting task of picking a good song to sing, mind you that all of the songs were by women, or men with high voices. And all of the songs were very gay for a guy to sing. gay as in homosexual in nature, as in "candle in the wind" by Elton john. Finally we picked the song "stand by me", now it was one of the worst presentations I've ever seen in my life, and I'm surprised that we weren't booed off of the stage, we were trying to sing meanwhile, I had to try to teach ardiana how to use the camera, and James being so embarrassed... Just lucky there was nobody with a camcorder, I think I would pay a good ransom to keep that out of public view.

as the night went on the bar hired a professional entertainer. a very beautiful Chinese woman. She was dressed so skimpy that there wasn't much left to be imagination. And mind you it seems that it was all held together with diaper pins. The rule of the night was that people would request songs for her to sing, and she would sing them for us. It sounded like a great idea..... I came up with loads of songs that she just didn't have the guts to sing. "like a virgin" was originally mentioned, and she had the funniest look on her face. And another person mentioned another crappy song that she quickly opted for. And it was fine, she danced and strutted her stuff. Yet another time for a request, so James requested Brittany spears, and I changed it to "hit me baby one more time" and she just laughed, and replied, "need more than just one more time" finally I think that someone mentioned a song like black magic woman. And she got up and sang some teeny bopper song. Now by this time there was an extremely drunk Malay guy who was dancing with her, and looked like a complete moron on stage. His dance was horrible, and he was the only one there. The next song we requested "barbie girl" or "American woman" again more laughs, and she picked a different song. Only this time there were more men on stage, and one particular guy who had a large wallet. He paid this woman in increments of 50 rinigit, and at first he would just stand next to her, trying to look macho, with arms crossed, leaned to one side, staring at her.

a quick interlude included some club songs were all of us went on stage, and decided to dance, which wasn't the best idea for me, being that I'm too young to go to those sort of things in the states, I've never had the opportunity to dance at a club, only ballroom dancing that I learned in OC, and in Eugene. Don't get me wrong, I can dance, I can samba, and waltz, but none of them look too good on a club floor. The music pounding with rythmatic bass. I just sort watched what everyone else was doing: and trying to dance in a way that looked sort of different, and interesting, not so elegant. But what can I say, I suck. The whole time ardiana kept screaming things in my ears, and damn, her voice is high, I think I may have some permanent ear damage, on top of the fact that I never could hear what it was that she was saying.

we sat down, and she came out again, this time with a skimpier outfit that she changed into it was getting pathetic really there was a Malay guy on stage, the same one to be exact, who kept paying money, trying to grope this woman. He must have gave her a few hundred ringit, and in the meanwhile he was trying to smell and kiss her hair, and licking her arms. Eventually I think that she had enough, and just tried to ignore him. At one point the guy was even trying to take what she did have on, off. Anyhow, there were a group of Chinese that seemed to take a liking to us, especially James. They occasionally would poor us a cocktail of vodka and coke. Nice enough, but it was much too loud to hear what they were trying to tell us. But it was apparent when a girl tapped James on the shoulder, and beaconed for him to come outside, she was rather interested.... What may have been, who knows

also ardiana was having issues of her own as well, there were several guys who kept asking her for numbers and wouldn't leave her alone. In the beginning the old creepy guy who was giving money to the entertainer wanted her to dance, so I simply just put my arms over her shoulder like I was her boyfriend, and she declined, but still the other men persisted, she had to give someone a fake number. One guy in particular was being very annoying, had his face in hers, again, I simply put my arms around her, gave him the middle finger, and tried to lightly push him away.

by the night was over, Cheryl looked a bit buzzed, but she didn't admit to it, and ardiana was tired, I walked with James and Cheryl to the train station, and saw them off and gave a brisk handshake to James, really one of the better more enjoyable guys I've met so far. I will look forward to meeting him again.

came back to the hostel, after a tiring night, ardiana passed out with little hesitation, and as did i shortly after.

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.