An Interesting encounter

Okay, so I had to pay the rent today. Unfortunately though, it meant coming in to CIJ one or two hours late so I could catch the bank during business hours. I was running a little bit later than I expected, and left the apartment in a bit of a fluster at 10AM, with my side bag instead of my back pack. I made my way to the MayBank to take out 1500 RM (the rent is 2640 RM, but I'd already taken out 1500 RM a couple days back). The withdrawl was pretty easy... nothing really to speak of. My next stop was the Standard Charter, Bukit Bintang Branch -- Luckily the MayBank is also Bukit Bintang, so I was just an escalator ride away. I got about half way up the escalator when Alas!! I realized that the account number in which to deposit the rent was in my backpack back at the apartment. Ugh. Anyways I got off at the top of the stairs, and rummaged through my sidebag for a possible account number clue. Meanwhile, a rush of people from the monorail flowed around me. Eventually I gave up and made to go back to the apartment but was stopped by an old Indian man staring at me.
"You are very lucky," he said.
I stammered awkwardly, of course as I'm want to do in attempting to flee.
"Yes, you are very lucky," he continued, "I can see it in your forehead."
If my memory serves me well, I just stood there with an awkward about-make-an-excuse smile. He went on...
"You are lucky but this is not your month. Your brain is elsewhere, but don't worry next month will be your happy month. Right now your luck is benefitting someone else. I am an astrologist -- come sit down with me and I will tell you all about yourself... your mothers name, your fathers name."
Anyways, at this point I really didn't want things to get to the point where he was going to ask me for money, so I fled. Basically I said he was right, my brain was elsewhere, and I was two hours late for work

Yesterday's Press Conference

So, yesterday did indeed turn out to be a very interesting day. The press conference at Petaling Jaya seemed to go very well, and it was a fine way to kick off the internship. As for my MC duties... well I think they went well. I managed to mask my awkwardness for most of it. Except for the part where I broke down crying at the podium and stood in a silence only to be broken by the sounds of cameras snapping. Eh actually it went pretty well. I think my shirt was a little big, but thats the only real complaint I can think of. So the conference itself was about a study that CIJ did asking 1000 or so Malaysian's what they thought about the media. Some of the major points were that a significant majority of Malaysians want media independence, with close to half believing the mainstream media to be performing below the best of ethical standards felt that the government controlled the media, and that a large number felt that the government controlled the media but couldn't really say why. Anyways here's the link to the summary on the CIJ website.

Blog Eight? Regarding Lunch and Tomorrow's Promise of Being Really Interesting

I thought I should let you know -- Lunch went down at option 4, the restaurant at the end other corner of the street that had "@ Sarikei" in the title. It was a huge success in that it was tasty, very plentiful, cheap and clean. What's even greater is that for two people the bill totaled 30 ringett (roughly 10 CDN)... and that was a little pricey for this area. I inavertantly ate only vegetarian stuff, but it was very good. Photos of this to come.
Now
Tomorrow, CIJ is holding a press conference regarding a poll they conducted recently on Media Freedom. It's going to be a three hour event, from 10:00AM - 3:00 PM, with a couple speakers and a Q&A. And I get to be MC. Not bad for day three, eh?

Interesting Timbit (Timbit? What? Is That Even An Expression?) -- Part Two

Okay
So it's pretty much lunch time
the question is -- where to eat.
Here are the what the choices appear to be:

1) Noodle shop at the corner
2) Collection of Rice/Noodle Stalls across the street
3) Santa's Sweet House a few doors down, for various curry's and roti chanai
4) Other curry house at the corner that uses the @ symbol in its name.
5) McDonald's, one street over.


Also, I saw this information jst now.

15 films banned in Malaysia:
1. Lelaki Komunis Terakhir
2. Brokeback Mountain
3. The 40-Year Old Virgin
4. Sin City
5. The Passionof Christ
6. Team America: World Police
7. Daredevil
8. The Girl Next Door
9. Prince of Egypt
10. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagge Me
11. Babe
12. Babe: Pig in the City
13. Saving Private Ryan
14. Schindler's List

15. Saturday Night Fever

Interesting Banned Books Tidbit

Okay, so this really is just a tidbit
But I thought some might find it really interesting that the "banned books" in Malaysia list includes:

Composition (The Photographer's Guide To...) (Paperback)
Sea Sale: SpongeBob Squarepants
Count On Me: Spongebob Square Pants
The Wiggles Shop Wiggly Jukebox
Disney's Counting Adventures Sound Activity Book
Dora's Fiesta Adventure ActivePoint Book Set! [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)
Music For Sleepy Babies
and....
Feel by Robbie Williams

The complete list is here
Ok more on this later

Pudu Prison; Why I Want to Explore it, and Why This Can Never Be

Okay, after a day of exploring the colonial district of KL, along with Little India, Jose and I needed to transfer from the Light Rail Transit system to the KL Monorail at Hang Tuah Station. To my surprise -- as we climbed the steps to the monorail station, there came into view a large dilapidated prison below the station. For a reason I'll never understand, I've illustrated this in a happy little cropped KL transit map, below:

Anyways, I spent a bit of time gawking at the building's overwhelming creepiness. Not satisfied with the mystery of seeing the walled up complex, I went over to a little convenience-stall in the station to ... inquire about it. The man at the register was quite nice, and eager to explain the situation. Being as fresh as I am to KL, I had a bit of a hard time understanding what he was saying. What I did get was this: 1) It's a closed down prison, built in the late 1800s, 2) It never really housed murderers, moreso drug addicts and thieves 3) a lot of people were hung there, 4) (most importantly) Its haunted. Amazing.
I took a couple of photos from a distance, the best of which I think is:


We hopped on the Monorail and started back towards Raja Chulan Stn. Alas! To my chagrin, I spotted that entrance of the building is still very much in use as a police station, and according to later wikipedia research, while the prison was opened up briefly as an alcatraz style museum a few years ago, it is no closed to the public. It's also being used to temporarily house prisoners. Darn! Sacrébleu!

Blog Six; Entitled Tuesday Morning, or How I Managed to Miss the Malaysian Independence Celebration and Not Realize it Until Three Days Later

So the title pretty much sums it up. After I picked up Jose form the airport on Friday night, there was quite the to-do happening at Bukit Bintag station. We wondered around the area and experienced 1) an epic Chinese concert, 2) kids dousing each other in aerosol silly string 3) a massive crowd anxiously watching a busker do nothing and 4) suped up cars with silly horns. Now, don't get me wrong -- I knew all of this was in celebration of Malaysia 51st independence day (or Merdeka). I just figured that the main celebration was on Monday. And that Monday was August 31st. Anyways, so we made our way back to the apartment, and I was still feeling a little sick from that morning, so I passed out, only to be woken by amazing fireworks later in the night. I thought they were pretty great, snapped some pictures, and went back to bed. It wasn't until exploring Merdeka Square with José yesterday (Monday, September 1st) that I realized that Friday had indeed been the Merdeka Celebrations (it happens on Midnight of the 31st every year) annnd that it was already September. haha anyways, here are some pictures of the crowd, the fireworks (from my bed), and the empty Merdeka Square a few days later