Kuala Lampur

I decided to take the night train from Singapore to KL since it is relatively close and is about $100USD compared to about $300USD for a flight. Originally I was going to couchsurf, but I couldn't secure a reliable couch so two nights before I booked a hotel. I also booked a premium sleeper.

The process at the train station reminded me that flying is actually not always the most inconvenient form of travel. We had to first go through Malaysian border control. There were four lines to the border control, and of course I picked the line that had somebody without the proper papers at the front trying to cross. While our line stood still, all the others moved. (I would digress here about the unquestioned superiority of a single-queue system like you find at Fry's Electronics which is the only fair way to service a queue ... but I'll save that for later). Of course I jumped to a different queue. The man in front of me turned out to be part of two families of a half dozen people and children who trickled in to join him in front of me. I knew this would be a problem, and jumped queues again to one which had a number of western backpackers in it. Fair or not, western folks get through passport control faster everywhere in the world. My moves paid off, but I still ended up spending about an hour standing in line to cross the border.

The train was clearly old Amtrak cars that had been sold to Malaysia. The steel cars with horizontal red, white and blue stripes are unmistakable. In any case, I had a room in the only first-class car on the train. It was actually not bad, with a private bathroom and a surprisingly comfortable bed. I shared the room with a Singaporean gentleman who turns out to have founded a wireless company; we spent a fair amount of time talking tech. Then about a half hour into the journey, the train stopped and we had to get out to pass through Singapore customs ... why this happens after Malaysian border control is a mystery. A half hour of standing and paperwork and we were on our way again.

When I arrived at 6am to KL I was tired and regretted the decision to take a night train. I dropped off my bags at my hotel. I couldn't check in, even though I offered to pay an additional night (for the previous night), no rooms were available. So I got some coffee, found a cab, and started sight-seeing. I went to the Batu Caves, a huge cave complex turned Hindu shrine. Some Hindu dude at a temple put a white dot on my forehead. I went to the KL Tower and surveyed the city. I visited the unspoiled jungle nearby, and watched monkeys jump around in trees. I wandered over to the Petronas towers, one of the tallest buildings in the world. I asked someone to take my picture in front of the towers, he turned out to be another American working for Microsoft in China (Shanghai). What are the chances of that? He was on his way to the airport, so we couldn't hang out.

I checked into my hotel, took a nap, then did more sight seeing. I took a walking tour through Chinatown and Indiatown. I ate some street food and went to bed early.

My second day I spent just eating and drinking and generally relaxing. I bought some English books at Borders, because it's really hard to find English books in China.

One thing KL has which I really like are food streets. These are streets where essentially every storefront is a restaurant, with plastic tables and chairs on the sidewalk and spilling out into the street. The food is always delicious and cheap. I love how everyone is out and about late at night enjoying food.

Malaysia is the first country I've visited where I commonly see women walking around in full hijab garb.

One thing that bugs the crap out of me is that you usually have to negotiate with taxis before they will use the meter. I hate that. I hate having to negotiate for normal things. Why the hell is there a meter if you need to negotiate for it?

Another strange thing is that many toilets, such as at malls and public places, cost about 0.20RM (0.07USD) to use. This means always carrying around change.

Traffic in Malaysia is typical of Asia, in other words, chaotic, but not as crazy as China.

Taxes on alcohol are almost as high as in Singapore, so drinks are costly, but not nearly as bad as the city-state to the south.

It is not difficult to get by speaking English; most people speak English and Malay, and quite a few speak Chinese and other languages.

I'm looking forward to going to Vietnam.

Singapore: Asia for Weenies

Singapore is a great intro to Asia. It's kind of crowded, the food is mostly Asian, many people speak Chinese, and the traffic is a bit wild. But it is quite clean, almost everyone speaks English, and most people are rich in global terms. So it's what I would call "Asia for Weenies." The average American could get dropped suddenly in Singapore and get by rather easily. Kind of like if they were dropped in China Town in San Francisco.

There are certainly some interesting things about Singapore. For starters, Rob booked our hotel (unknowingly, he professes) in Geylang, which is Singapore's red light district. I was suspicious when I first arrived and had dinner on the sidewalk at a Sichuan restaurant. (Interesting aside: I spoke better Chinese than these guys spoke English, so I ordered in Mandarin. I even knew the Chinese names for the dishes I wanted. I was pretty proud of myself.) I noticed an unusual number of provocatively dressed women wandering around alone on a Wednesday night on a kinda sketchy street. I also thought it was interesting that the hotel across the street from ours offered hourly rates. My suspicions were confirmed the next morning when I was propositioned as I happened to be walking through an alley on the way back from breakfast at around 11am on Thursday morning. I guess I naively thought that this sort of activity usually goes on at night, but apparently it is a 24-hour operation. The full scale became apparent when we witnessed the activity on Friday and Saturday night, when the working girls were out in veritable mobs, mostly around Lorang (alley) 4. Rob and I later asked Marc about this; apparently prostitution is legal in Singapore, but confined to the Geylang area.

Anyway there is more to Singapore than this. Rob and I went through the Lonely Planet, and picked out some interesting diversions, including a nearly untouched jungle island, and a Vegas-aspiring beach island called Sentosa. Sentosa is actually pretty cool despite how touristy it is. Probably a lot of this is due to the fact that I haven't been on a proper beach in about a year, when I was last in San Diego. We did some nightlife, which was fun, but missed out on the St James Power Station which I had looked forward to. Rob was not prepared for the typical Asian evening out, which means going until at least 3am and most likely 5am.

Another thing we were not prepared for was the outrageous price of beer. On our first day we did a walking tour through Chinatown and Indiatown and stopped by a pub for happy hour. A pint set us back 10 Singapore dollars (about 7.50USD), and that's happy hour. When we went out to the Marriot with Marc that evening, a pint ran 16 SGD (13USD). The taxes on alcohol in Singapore are very high which accounts for most of the cost.

Overall Singapore is a livable place. I like the clean and efficient subways and widely spoken English, but nothing in particular draws me to it. Nice to visit, for sure, but I don't think I'd jump at a job offer in Singapore.

Line 10 ... Finally!

It finally happened. They opened Subway Line 10! I wrote in my first blog entry that this subway would be open by June 30. Turns out it was about three weeks late. But better late than never!

I took this brand-new subway today. It has all the trappings of modern transportation, including air conditioning, electronic maps, and a touchless fare system (which is system-wide). In a brisk 35 minutes I was transported from ZhiChunLu to TuanJieHu. It wasn't even crowded (by Chinese standards), so I was able to actually sit down for part of the ride.

This saves me a cool ~$275/month!

Traffic Update

Starting tomorrow, will Beijing traffic be a thing of the past?

On Sunday the even/odd license plate rule will go into effect in Beijing, lasting two months. This means that drivers can only be on the roads on alternating days. Taxis, thankfully, are exempted, and the line 10 subway has finally opened. No one is quite sure how this rule will impact people’s ability to get around. Businesses are preparing by telling employees to be prepared for commutes to be twice as long, and are staggering opening times.

I’ve noticed a lot of video cameras sprouting up around the city. This is probably part of an overall security push, but could be to spot people driving on illegal days. I’ve been told that tickets for other traffic offenses are commonly observed by video and tickets issued in the post.

Change is the only Constant

I hate to use an annoying cliché, but it does describe Beijing well. Probably the biggest change in my area has been the transformation of SanLiTun. A swathe of the western side of the SanLiTun Lu is turning into a crazy shopping area. When I arrived there were only husks of buildings, but now most are nearly completed and some of them are already open for business. The architecture is very interesting, but sadly the stores are just big single-brand stores: Levi’s, North Face, Adidas, Nike, Nautica, etc.

My main hope is that the area behind the 3.3 mall stays like it is. It is a random collection of “older” buildings housing restaurants, bars, and clubs. It’s a major hotspot on Friday and Saturday nights. It would be tragic if the planning authorities decided to tear it down and put something new there.

Another change has been the movement of DVD stores further underground as the authorities tighten things up prior to the Olympics. Tom’s shop, the undisputed best DVD store in Beijing, is closed temporarily. I was surprised this weekend to see that even the small DVD shop behind 3.3 was closed and had its windows draped closed. I did discover that the store is in fact still open; you need to use an alternate entrance through other shops via a network of disused hallways and unmarked doors. I’m sure it won’t be long before a secret knock is required.

Yet every time something closes, something else opens. Recently two clubs opened within 50m of each other, one called China Doll and the other called Chinadoll. A pair of bars shut down a couple months ago, Pure Girl and Pure Girl 2, have been replaced by A Little High and Higher and Higher.

It still remains to be seen how tight the nightlife clampdown is going to be as we get closer to the Olympics. Vics and Mix, the Worker’s Stadium megaclubs, are definitely going to shut down. But just how deep the shutdowns go is not yet clear.

Notes on Japan

There were a few things that stood out to me about Japan. I have to say, much of it fit my expectations. It is a very clean place… though everywhere seems clean compared to Beijing. Still, I’m certain that Tokyo is clean on an absolute and not just relative scale. Also, the people there are very fashionable. Everyone dressed with some kind of style, be it high fashion, goth, or anything else. A quite large number of people take this pretty extreme, especially women. A lot of them clearly go to fantastic lengths to prepare themselves before leaving their apartments. I imagine that some hairdos must take 30+ minutes of work every day.

The Japanese achieve what I consider to be the true mark of civil society: everyone stands to one side on escalators to allow people to pass by. I love this. Hong Kong and London are the only other cities I have visited to meet this high water mark of civility.

Another thing I really like about the Japanese is that safety is a top priority. Any sort of construction or other potentially dangerous activity is marked off by self-illuminating traffic cones, something I’ve never seen before. Also, workers wear reflective vests with blinking LED lights. I never saw anyone jaywalk.

A few things did surprise me, though. Very few bathrooms had any means of drying your hands. No paper towels and no air driers. I guess people carry around towels or handkerchiefs. I was also baffled by the near total lack of garbage cans. I know the Japanese are fanatical about recycling, but it was very difficult to find a public place to dispose of anything, even to recycle it.

While there we experienced a variety of local foods. Sushi, of course. Hot pot, which was 90 minutes of all you can eat and drink (including alcohol) gorging. Also some small places which operated using a vending machine for ordering. The vending machine takes your money and you select your dish, and a receipt prints behind the counter, where an individual (who runs the entire restaurant alone) prepares it. Pretty cool system.

We spent a day outside Tokyo, in Hakone. This is up in the mountains, near a spot where you can get a view of Mt Fuji. Unfortunately it was foggy and raining so we couldn’t see the mountain. But we did stay in a traditional style hotel, with sliding doors and bamboo floors. And also a hotspring bath. Since bathing in hotsprings is done au natural, there are separate baths for men and women. It was pleasant, but it would have been nice to be able to enjoy some sake or beer while bathing.

Maybe next time.