Yesterday was Malaysia Day, celebrating the addition to the federation of Sarawak and Sabah and not to be confused with Merdeka (independence) some weeks earlier. I gather Sarawakians and Sabahans get quite irritated by Merdeka. Interesting tensions here.
We went to Hojo tea in Midvalley, a huge mall conglomeration surrounded on all sides by large jam packed roads. Hojo is a lovely tea shop with a superrb blog, and the purpose was to buy a Chinese style tea tray (with drainage) and perhaps a small clay teapot for oolong. We were tempted by a stone tray carved to look like planks lashed together, but it weighed about 20 kg so was not too practical. Instead we came away with a very inexpensive factory made bamboo tray that is functional and will do us fine till we find something nicer. I found a teapot I liked but it was very expensive so we have decided to wait till we are sure that we’ll actually use the thing.
We recently discovered a walking route from Midvalley to Bangsar, via two pedestrian bridges over the Klang and the train tracks. In the former we saw what looked like a large zombie catfish lurking in the mud by the river, and straight large bubbles erupting from a pool on the other bank. Between the two bridges is a very poor estate where there were a few foodstalls, children playing and a rat running across the road in mid-afternoon. Then finally we arrived in Bangsar, at APW which is an old printing works converted into a cafe/ restaurant hub. This turned out to be hosting a market for Malaysia Day, with unusually high quality wares. We were out of cash but I bought a tea towel for our new tea drinking habits.
On returning home we successfully inaugurated our new tea drinking habits and in the evening we watched a very poor film indeed. Free Fire, which came out last year and sounded like a cross between Baby Driver, Reservoir Dogs and Assault on Precinct 13, one of my favourite films. It had been reviewed very well on the Kermode and Mayo Film Review and is about a 1 hour shoot out in an old factory. It turned out to be as boring as the premise sounds, and just felt incredibly laboured, with poor writing, struggling to be funny. It was like watching a student film made for a film course.
We cleansed our palate with Wonder Woman, or at least the gentleman friend did – I stayed for the first 30 minutes or so and then went to bed.
I have decided that the film review, or at least the Kermode half of it, is not to be trusted on British film.