It was a glum old Friday, with a brief break for coffee and cake, but that is all. Today, Saturday, was significantly better as we went out as soon as the GF awoke, to a distant suburban stall reputed to have some of the best nasi kerabu in KL. This is an east coast Malay dish of rice tinted vivid blue using a local flower, topped with a fresh julienned salad, toasted coconut and sambal, and eaten with a fish cracker and optionally fried chicken. It was one of our best roadside meals, being light and fresh and delicious and of course blue in colour. We then went to Rimbun Dahan, a good half hour further into the suburbs. This is an artist’s residency which was having a rare open day. We were the only people there other than a Brazilian artist in residence. There was a small underground gallery (nothing on display by the Brazilian – all the painting were by a Malaysian artist who paints with soil). There were many large dogs which catapulted themselves at us from the BEWARE DOGS sign and I reacted by sticking my hand out to them. Despite my dislike of touching animals and their energy they busied themselves licking my hand and knees and one clearly decided I was its best friend as it stuck close to me thereafter. It was odd that two of the dogs were clearly much happier getting patted and scratched, while the other two hovered but never came too close or asked for a pat.
The house was set in a large wild tropical garden with tall trees and monitor lizards and, unfortunately, a lot of mosquitoes – we later countered 15 bites just on one arm. In the back were a couple of renovated old houses, including one belonging to Maharajalela whom I had previously known for the monorail stop but it turns out he was a famous assassin (presumably a principled one).
There was some concern that we would not be able to summon a car to take us back into town but it turned out to be easy and we went to Bangsar, there to try out a new-to-us cafe called Grind 22. The place was lovely despite the open mic, but the coffee was mediocre while my lime juice tasted like nothing so much as air freshener. This was followed by a trip to a bulk organic foods shop where I got some interesting sambal and tahini (and other things of less interest to me). Then a Victoria sponge from Jaslyn and a tedious 20 minutes while the GF visited his video store. I had wanted to go to the gallery that specialises in Sarawakian carvings looking out for a birthday present that the GF could give me, but the video store killed my will to live so we returned. And I showered to wash off the dog spit and here I am just as the rain starts again.