The GF left for London last night, bearing a suitcase full of demons. Fortunately he was not asked to open his bag, as while the demons were perfectly legitimate, they would have been quite odd to confront a customs official with.
The boxes are also gone, and with them my cold.
And the air conditioners have been serviced by Mr Leong, our usual ac serviceman, a gentleman I shall miss.
My dinner plans were delayed and almost destroyed by a thunderstorm. Fortunately it was sharp and short, and I decided to risk it. I took the MRT eastwards, the first time I have travelled in that direction and got off at Taman Connaught, which had an unexpectedly beautiful view of the hills around KL, grey and purple and washed clean by rain. Then I took a Grab the 2 km to the Taman Connaught pasar malam, KL’s longest night market.
It was the perfect time to go, at around 7. The stalls had only just been set up but the crowds hadn’t yet arrived. I walked up and down a few times and picked up some bits and pieces: the market’s famous stinky tofu, a bag of salted egg squid, a cup of sugarcane juice, a scallion pancake. It was all quite greasy, but I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the atmosphere particularly. The tofu was not nice, however; I’ve had stinky tofu in Taiwan so I knew what to expect, but perhaps this had been fried too far in advance as it just tasted ashy. The salted egg squid was delicious, though. I do love salted egg. Meanwhile the market gradually filled up, largely with young Chinese people and a few tourists who gravitated to the mango stall and the stalls selling whole grilled squid.
It was curious to see where the East Asian street food influences came from. I think most dominant was Taiwan, followed by Thailand, South Korea and Hong Kong. Certainly Taiwan and Korea were the countries most enthusiastically touted in the signage. I had never been aware, really, of how certain types of trends sweep across this region, most of them originating from those two countries, plus Japan. Food, particularly street food, is perhaps the most obvious on, as demonstrated by the current fame of the zang zang bao (admittedly this is from Mainland China).
I bought a little set of purple and green jellies decanted from Chinese tea cups and sprinkled with coconut, and took a Grab all the way back to the flat (as the traffic had by now eased).
I’ve never been in this direction in KL, and the highlight of the return journey was undoubtedly a very long tunnel in which the emergency exits were marked by the regular lighting changing from white to green. I tried to photograph the very odd effect it created, as the green light effectvely formed a ring in the tunnel and driving through it felt like driving at warp speed towards the future, perhaps with Automan in the driver’s seat.
The jellies were very tasty, somewhere between jelly and mochi, and flavoured (unsurprisingly) with yam and pandan.