London

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Lon­don Call­ing
London’s call­ing. Heathrow, here I come. The plane soars from Changi and our vaca­tion begins good and proper in the air, I think. Here and now, sur­rounded by clouds and clar­ity, we for­get our trou­bles and the toil of a 9-to-5, Monday-till-Friday work­week. A new leash of life.

I have been trav­el­ling a lot lately for work, but that’s busi­ness, not plea­sure. The fatigue gets to you, faster and more insid­i­ously than one might sus­pect. So this is a boon, this lit­tle hol­i­day, and we are fly­ing with everyone’s bless­ings — fam­ily and friends and my read­ers too, who get a nice reprieve from my rant­i­ngs for a cou­ple of weeks — their good­will is very impor­tant to me, to us.

We’re fly­ing with their well wishes beneath our wings.

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A Full Eng­lish Break­fast
We touch down at Heathrow Air­port really early, like six in the morn­ing. It’s a nice sur­prise to not have to suf­fer another flight delay but instead the reverse. CK’s tummy is a bit off; I’m afraid he doesn’t travel well. Me, I’m one of those annoy­ing fel­lows who never gets jet­lag, never sleeps on the plane and spends the bulk of a 13-hour flight watch­ing one film after another.

I mean, when else was I gonna find the time to catch up on all my movies, eh?

For­tu­nately, the Lon­don Under­ground is superbly effi­cient. We get on the Tube and are well on our way to the heart of the city in no time at all. We arrive at our bed-and-breakfast before seven a.m. and wake up our still snooz­ing hosts. They are affa­ble and unde­terred by our early arrival, and get to cook­ing one of the best full Eng­lish break­fasts we’ve had ever. Freshly brewed cof­fee and pure orange juice, not con­cen­trate. Multi-grain bread toasted to per­fec­tion and a mul­ti­tude of jams, mar­malades and creamy but­ter to spread with. Hot and spicy baked beans dammed off by a pair of herb-infused sausages and half a grilled tomato. Wild mush­rooms fried in but­ter, a cou­ple of sunny-side ups and O heav­ens! bacon­ba­con­ba­con galore!

Now that’s what I call a real break­fast! :)

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Covent Gar­den
Spring­time and the sun is out, bright and whole­some. If it weren’t for the slight chill, we might be for­given for imag­in­ing that it’s sum­mer already. We take the Tube again, from Vaux­hall to Covent Gar­den. Might as well start at the heart of Lon­don, no?

We have both been in Lon­don before, so it’s nice to revisit an old friend with­out doing any of the touristy stuff, not unless we wanted to any­way. There is some­thing fan­tas­tic about tak­ing our sweet time to walk and wan­der with­out a clear direc­tion in mind as folks around us hurry and bus­tle. It’s nice not to have to work or worry. Stop­ping to smell the roses, lit­er­ally. Check­ing out what Lon­don­ers wear, whether they are fat or fit or fab­u­lously fanat­i­cal or furi­ously fas­tid­i­ous… Allit­er­a­tion even comes eas­ier when one is on a hol­i­day, I find.

It doesn’t mat­ter that we prob­a­bly look like tourists; we weren’t the ones with a meet­ing to rush to, were we? :)

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Punch and Judy
Every­one seems to be sell­ing some­thing from silks and satin scarves dyed all the colours of the rain­bow, to wor­ri­some wooden toys some noisy kid is always scream­ing his head for, all the sou­venirs with the Union Jack embla­zoned on them, includ­ing some cre­atively designed under­wear, and more more more. The best stall was actu­ally manned by a stu­dent from Bei­jing bend­ing cus­tomers’ names from metal and cap­ping it off with a plas­tic but­ter­fly. Beau­ti­ful, use­less kitsch.

CK wryly com­ments on the qual­ity of the Chi­nese cal­lig­ra­phy being sold and I vol­un­teer that he could set up a stall here too if he wanted. “And I’d make more money too. If tourists will buy this sort of crap, they’d buy anything…”

And we bicker back and forth with the sun on our backs and the cool cli­mate kiss­ing our cheeks and our lips, a happy Punch and Judy in Covent Gar­den, a pair of un-touristy tourists, already lost in Lon­don but not really caring.

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Kak Teh & Awang Goneng
Lon­don is one of those cities which you need not inhabit to feel at home. More so when you have friends here: we are head­ing for din­ner with Kak Teh — writer, jour­nal­ist, blog­ger and just an all-round won­der­ful per­son whom I’m blessed to know — and her hus­band, Awang Goneng, who had a wildly suc­cess­ful book (“Grow­ing Up in Tren­gannu”) pub­lished last year. Not their real names, nat­u­rally, but such warm and neigh­bourly non de plumes! Com­pletely with­out airs, which is a good way of describ­ing this cou­ple. You feel at home with them.

CK and I get off at Bayswa­ter sta­tion and take a  brisk walk to Lein­ster Gar­dens where the Malaysian-owned Hol­i­day Villa Hotel is located, and where Kak Teh and Awang Goneng were wait­ing for us in the lobby. Is it a Malaysian thing to seek out other Malaysians when you travel abroad? CK claims all he wants is some chilli with his meals, but me, I usu­ally pre­fer to look up the locals and find out what they do and try and do it too… Ah the tales I have from my back­pack­ing days…

But nay, some­times it’s just great to be with friends and I for­get that we are in Eng­land for the span of our din­ner. A Malaysian buf­fet of nasi lemak and ren­dang, of cur­ries and pap­padum, stir-fried broc­coli and mush­rooms Chinese-style. And a round of teh tarik to start it off. CK’s eyes sim­ply got big­ger and big­ger with sheer joy.

Kak Teh shared sto­ries of what it was like mov­ing to Eng­land right after she got mar­ried and rais­ing her chil­dren on for­eign land, try­ing to keep them con­nected with their roots all the same. And we dis­cover that most of the Malay voice-overs we hear on radio and on flights were actu­ally recorded by her! And of course, we keep on eat­ing while chat­ting the night away, con­ver­sa­tions churn­ing and chang­ing with the courses we chose from the buf­fet line… It’s heart­en­ing for me to spend even a few hours with vet­eran writ­ers like this because it informs me that our words are worth some­thing, that they can change lives…

… yet it’s being with them as peo­ple, as friends, see­ing them flour­ish through­out the try­ing times and good years and remain who they are, and more so, part­ners and best friends — that is truly uplift­ing. It’s hope and a prayer that one day we’ll know that joy of a life­time of being together too.

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Life is a Musi­cal!
The last time I was in Leceis­ter Square I was alone, back­pack­ing solo across Europe as a stu­dent before I had to return home for good. I hap­pily ignored all the big musi­cals like Les Mis­er­ables and Phan­tom of the Opera, and instead went for all the small stage plays, the mono­logues and the mod­ern dance chore­og­ra­phy pieces. I watched Woody Har­rel­son and Kyle McLach­lan bat­tle it out as broth­ers, so close to them on the sec­ond row I could smell their sweat. I admired and laughed at Brenda Blethyn say­ing George Bernard Shaw’s lines in a smaller, less-known play of his. I was a foam­ing fan­boy at Dame Judi Dench and Dame Mag­gie Smith spar­ring with wits and weary wisdom.

Some­times smaller is better.

Now, years later, I think I’ve grown up some­what. Life is too short for too many mis­eries. You gotta laugh while you still can. We wanted a good ol’ musi­cal to shake our bones and tickle us silly. Mamma Mia! and Wicked sold out quickly but we man­age a cou­ple of good seats for Chicago. CK has not seen the film before, but it doesn’t really mat­ter… the real thing, that is, the musi­cal, is quite a dif­fer­ent ani­mal. More vigourous and fear­some with the soar­ing notes and the pound­ing jazz and the per­form­ers in lin­gerie and stock­ings and in the case of the men, not very much at all… It was noisy, bril­liant, excit­ing, bloody and just about a per­fect good time.

Enter­tain­ment, my friend. Now who says life can’t be like a musi­cal also?

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Not­ting Hill
CK asks me if Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant really made the film here. I sup­pose so, I answer, unless they recre­ated the whole of Por­to­bello Road in the back­lot of some Hol­ly­wood stu­dio. Come to think of it, that’s entirely possible.

As we walk along the road, sur­rounded by antiques and fresh flow­ers and fruits and ancient tomes never read and stat­ues of men and women and huge ugly dogs on each side, I tell him, I’ll tell you a story if you buy some strawberries…

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The Dressmaker’s Man­nequin
Hid­den almost amongst a pile of second-hand children’s books and white pails named after flow­ers they no longer con­tained was a dressmaker’s man­nequin which had the finest cloths from a thou­sand lands draped upon its body at one point in time but now was only naked, clothed like an emperor who has for­got­ten why he is parad­ing, for whom does he wan­der and wait for, you wonder?

The dressmaker’s man­nequin does not answer your ques­tions but has a know­ing look anyway.

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Dog­gie!
I fin­ish my telling and CK com­plains it’s not really a story. He doesn’t under­stand it, but then he doesn’t under­stand most of my sto­ries any­way, so that is okay. I’ll tell you a secret and this is what I will share — I don’t under­stand either but all that mat­ters is writ­ing the words and shar­ing my sto­ries. Once they are away from me, who knows where they will go and what they will do? Sto­ries are like chil­dren, you hope for the best for them but you can’t really guar­an­tee any­thing. You can’t know.

He goes off and buys me my straw­ber­ries (dirt cheap at 80 pence a big packet, and sweet too, as we later dis­cover) and some nec­tarines cos they sounded won­der­ful to say out loud. I stay back and stare at a dog­gie sun­ning him­self. Big and happy, head being scratched by a man, prob­a­bly his owner. I want to be that dog­gie. Just happy.

Then CK comes back with the straw­ber­ries and my atten­tion turns (“Straw­ber­ries!”) and we con­tinue our walk.

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Paul Smith & Friends
I’ll be lying if I said we didn’t go shop­ping for clothes. Of course we did. This is the land that spawned Paul Smith, after all. We take the Tube to Bond St. and Knights­bridge, where all the big fancy brands were and Har­rods and Sel­f­ridges. I leave my cam­era snug in my bag and enjoy the view with­out hav­ing to take a sin­gle pic­ture. Some­times, tourists and blog­gers spend so much time tak­ing pho­tographs they for­get to actu­ally expe­ri­ence what­ever is present, the rea­son they are even vis­it­ing some new place, some for­eign des­ti­na­tion. It’s easy to forget.

I’ve never been a fan of shop­ping, espe­cially if it’s just win­dow shop­ping (was there a point of brows­ing with­out buy­ing?), so it’s fun to sim­ply give in to the momen­tum of the moment and go with the flow. Walk along street, walk into shop, check out shirts, pants, ties, belts, try some out in fit­ting room, actu­ally buy some, gasp at how cheap (rel­a­tively speak­ing, of course) stuff in Lon­don is vs. what we get back home, ring up the credit cards, max­ing them nearly to the point of no return, walk out of shop to the glee­ful smiles of the shop assis­tants, repeat.

It’s fun, really.

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Tea & Scones with Yang-May Ooi
All that walk­ing can make one a tad fam­ished and what’s more Eng­lish than tea and scones? CK and I get to do one bet­ter and have tea and scones with a Malaysian/British author Yang-May Ooi (The Flame Tree) who is also an avid run­ner and pro­fes­sional blog­ger on her web­site Fusion View. We meet at Browns Brasserie, a fine post-colonial cafe/pub/restaurant with high win­dows and huge palms grow­ing indoors, giv­ing the dark wood-panelled inte­ri­ors a very posh and pol­ished feel.

This being Eng­land, almost every­one is sip­ping on some beer after office hours. In fact, Yang-May and I com­pare notes on exactly this — beer crawls in the UK vs. food crawls in Malaysia as I share sto­ries of run­ning from one restau­rant to another hawker stall in Kuala Lumpur and Penang and Malacca. If Eng­lish­men binge on beer, us Malaysians must surely binge on food glo­ri­ous food! :)

It’s always enlight­en­ing chat­ting with Yang-May, for unlike some writ­ers she truly embraces the lat­est tech­nol­ogy. She’s the first per­son I know of using Twit­ter, for exam­ple, long before I started using it for my website’s sta­tus bar updates and my friends using it as some regres­sive ver­sion of one-liner instant mes­sag­ing to cir­cum­vent their com­pa­nies’ anti-Facebook and MSN fire­walls. She reminds me how excit­ing tech­nol­ogy can be, and how it can be har­vested to extend what we writ­ers do, and that’s sim­ply shar­ing our stories.

I tell myself, when I return to Malaysia, I need to spend more time with other writ­ers, the way I used to before. Just connect…

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Hyde Park
And because I’ve never been there before, not on any of my pre­vi­ous trips to Lon­don, you took me to Hyde Park. We buy ice-creams from the Ital­ian guy with the great smile and sparkling blue eyes and I am reminded of my friend Manuel (who just had a lovely baby with his beau­ti­ful wife Gosia) but that’s another story I shall tell you another day. We sit on one of the park benches and I munch on the fresh straw­ber­ries you bought me from the Por­to­bello Mar­ket. No vanilla Häagen-Dazs® ice-cream this time but just as good, as you drop the hearts of eaten nec­tarines onto my open palm. You show me how you trick squir­rels into com­ing over to us, you spot a real red fox in the bushes and excited kids and their fathers gather around you and scare the fox away, you show me flow­ers and trees and pic­nic spots you’ve dis­cov­ered before, it’s like you are show­ing me more of your life, a secret life I never known of before.

The sun on the Ser­pen­tine, the boy feed­ing the pigeons, the half-naked men skat­ing and bask­ing, the stone horses and the stone knights they carry, the myths and the leg­ends… Tell me a story, sing me a day­dream lullaby…

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The Girl Under the Tree
The tree called to her, the lit­tle girl with the curls and ringlets in her hair. You are so pretty, why won’t you come play with me?

The girl, sweet lit­tle girl with tight black fronds of her own, peered under the tree’s branches and said, I’m not really pretty, Mr. Tree. I think you are just lonely. You are, aren’t you?

And the tree lamented and agreed, yes, indeed, he was rather lonely.

The lit­tle girl, who was wise in her young age to know she was not pretty but she would grow up to be wiser still and kind-hearted and work to improve Soci­ety and find true love, said to the tree, the very lonely tree, Don’t weep, Mr. Tree. I shall play with you for awhile but not for­ever. I have to go home where my mama is wait­ing with tea for me. But I wish you will never be lonely again and you will always have chil­dren play­ing under your branches and keep­ing you company.

And so it was. The tree was never lonely again, and chil­dren loved play­ing under its shade for all of time. There are many wish­ing trees, but how often do we make wishes for a tree?

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I make a wish under this tree, this tree that you have found and shared with me. May the tree pros­per and remain green and adored for a good age more. May we return one day when we are old and wiz­ened and our lives almost spent after all our years together, and may we make more wishes under this tree, for the rest of our forever.

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LONDON • Lon­don, England

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Copy­right © 2009 Kenny Mah Ying Fye.

~ The Great British Inva­sion ~
      Part 1 • Lon­don
      Part 2 • The Cotswolds
      Part 3 • The Lady of Bath
      Part 4 • Lake Dis­trict
      Part 5 • Edin­burgh
      Part 6 • Return to Bath

June 15, 2009 – 1:15 am | By Kenny Mah | Posted in Arts, Friends, Life, Photography, Stories, Travel | Tagged , , | Comments (107)

107 Comments

  • mavis wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 1:48 am

    this is one of the most orig­i­nal blog posts and pho­tographs I’ve ever come across. how utterly won­der­ful. insom­nia does have some benefits!

  • Sugar Bean wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 3:39 am

    Wow, a very nice post on Lon­don. Nice cov­er­age and very nice pho­tos! Gotta agree with you that Lon­don Under­ground is effi­cient, and con­ve­nient too! Love the city, very lively and exciting!

  • Kak Teh wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 4:54 am

    Kenny dear, you are so kind with your words! It was lovely meet­ing up again — and who knows , we might meet up again…!

  • zewt wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 9:03 am

    hey… when you get to travel to such places… i am sure the fatique can be eas­ily ignored.

  • lotsofcravings wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 9:14 am

    wat a nice pretty sum­mary of what lon­don has to offers…

    nasi lemak in lon­don? i def­i­nitely WOULD not touch that..especially hav­ing to fly 13 hours over there..

  • cumidanciki wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 9:36 am

    so cool! and thanks for the updated map.. il be rid­ing the tube soon:P

    xoxo ciki

  • ladyironchef wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 9:57 am

    The whole­some Eng­lish break­fast, now that’s what they really call break­fast! Very nice pho­tos, i espe­cially like the third one.

    We swiped and swiped, with a twist of our wrist, and a curvy sig­na­ture that fol­lows after, it is sent halfway around the world back to our home. Poof! Done. You are a proud owner of all that that caught your eye; the seduc­ing Paul Smith shirt, the belts that waved at you, the ties that tied you closely around the neck.

    I believe there will be some Good O’ Fish & Chips in the Great British Inva­sion part II? :D

  • Chin wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 10:49 am

    Ahh… the small plays. I drag my son there to watch one on the life of an Irish life. He came out messed up — thor­oughly enjoyed it and later found him speak­ing with the Irish accent for fun as mim­icry is some­thing he does well. That’s th power of the stage on young impres­sion­able minds! Thanks for the exten­sive write-up.

  • Bangsar-bAbE wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 2:33 pm

    Oh…how I miss the big break­fast in UK!! I ate the pork sausages with ham so often, an old British man actu­ally told me I’m short­en­ing my life by 10 years! o_0

    Lovely pic­tures, very very nos­tal­gic… =) Looks like you and CK had a blast!!

  • Selba wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    A won­der­ful story of your Lon­don trip :)

    Ah… how I wish to visit that city again.… yeah… someday!

  • jemima wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 3:27 pm

    Watch out, Brits! The Bea­t­les may have done the Great British Inva­sion of the States.. Kenny did the Great Inva­sion of Lon­don. :D

    Btw, I love the cover of The Jun­gle Book. ;)

    No pix of scones to make me drool? :P

  • Yang-May Ooi wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 3:46 pm

    Hey, Kenny — you are fab­u­lously tal­ented. Your pho­tos of Lon­don are so WAY beyond aver­age tourist snap­shots and your writ­ing con­tin­ues to be very polished.

    I had such fun meet­ing up with you guys for high tea. Yes, I think I will also have to make sure I meet reg­u­larly with more writ­ers — food and thought for the soul!

  • Paul wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 3:52 pm

    Sounds like a delight­ful trip! Makes me miss my time there — damn, the last time I was there’s almost four years ago! I miss Lon­don so badly! Tea and scones anyone?

  • bosscat wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 4:05 pm

    hav­ing a good time.. huh… :D

  • Kaya MeeKoo wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 5:48 pm

    Love Covent Garden…the mimes, the street com­edy, the knick-knacks, the quaint lil shops…

    And…bursting into song now, “lots of choco­lates for me to eat, lots of coal mak­ing lots of ‘eat..”.

  • lianne wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 6:53 pm

    How i wish i am one of those who does not get jet­lag! I just got back from a tran­sit in Lon­don … no sigh see­ing but just head towards hol­i­day inn heathrow, smell the air, sleep for a night before head­ing home to ger­many the next morn­ing. but mannnn, does it not bother you when you were required to remove your shoes dur­ing lug­gage scan­ning with all the virus flu going about at the air­port? lovely post as always … full on moments and description.

  • backStreetGluttons wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 7:40 pm

    When we were in Lon­don some many years ago we were hum­bled by its sheer moder­nity and the feel­ing of step­ping onto the ter­rain of the Masters.

    Over­awed is the right word we guess !

    So it must like­wise have been a ter­rific expe­ri­ence to be at the heart of mod­ern civil­i­sa­tion itself , as is the only lan­guage you dream in, you being a lit­er­ary per­form­ing artise

  • ck lam wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 12:11 am

    Finally get to see hol­i­day post and boy, it was worth the wait. It was indeed an adven­tur­ous hol­i­day plus good food.
    Btw…nice to know your dear friend has the same ini­tial as mine :)

  • Nic (KHKL) wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 9:50 am

    A very dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive of Lon­don. One that focuses on the present rather than the struc­tures of the glo­ri­ous days gone by. I guess sub­se­quent vis­its do that to peo­ple, ya. For me, Banglatown was a high­light of my stay, where Bangladeshi and Indian food are kings. Haha!

    Lon­don ruled and she will con­tinue to be loved.

  • keropokman wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 10:16 am

    Ah… Lon­don sounds so so fun in your post!

    I love the zebra ask­ing the other zebra is that a ps coat. LOL!!

    hey choc lover, just a few metres fr the punch & judy thingy, there’s a nice choco­late shop! did you smell it? buy it? eat it? :-p

  • keropokman wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 10:36 am

    1. yes it’s cute, so so cute. LOL

    2. i shall help you keep it a secret. we bought some from there, but the bulk from some­where else that’s cheaper. :-p the rest of the places did not have spe­cialty range. hehe

    3. btw, our col­league at work started eat­ing curry after we always rave about curry. hmmm maybe CK too? lol…

  • Camemberu wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 12:30 pm

    What a beau­ti­ful, beau­ti­ful travel piece! It draws you in like a spell and takes you along on the trip. Love the multi-faceted glimpses into the mean­ing­ful and love­lier aspects of life. Sim­ply marvellous!

  • mimid3vils wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 4:37 pm

    The map make me “pen­ing” a bit~~ :P

  • daphne wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 8:36 pm

    How beau­ti­ful! Gor­geous pho­tos and insight to the amaz­ing Lon­don! Woah, makes me want to be there right now.

  • the_lighthouse wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 8:47 pm

    first chap­ter in an epic adven­ture? count me in for the upcom­ing parts! =)

  • Pureglutton wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 11:17 pm

    It took me 2 sit­tings to fin­ish read­ing your post! Excel­lent insights — i now feel as if i have been given an inti­mate review of the place :-) More to come eh? Can’t wait to read the rest of your adventures!

  • Pak Zawi wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 7:13 am

    Kenny,
    You brought a new mean­ing to blog­ging. It is a breath of fresh air. Col­laged pic­tures added sophis­ti­ca­tion to the blog illus­tra­tion. How i wish I could be as elo­quent and savvy as you.

  • Tummythoz wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 3:10 pm

    Eh? Did I miss s’thing big? What hap­pened to ‘Devil’?

  • Susan Macaulay wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 3:16 pm

    Great post Kenny. You are an imag­i­na­tive writer and pho­tog­ra­pher — a plea­sure to read your words and expe­ri­ence your photography.

    For a Westerner’s per­spec­tive (i.e. mine) of Malaysia, you might find these posts amus­ing lah (more rough-and-ready read­ing, view­ing and lis­ten­ing than your poetic entry, but a bit of fun nonetheless):

    http://www.amazingwomenrock.com/discover-stuff-with-susan/butchering-chickens-at-kampar-market-in-malaysia.html

    http://www.amazingwomenrock.com/myblog/chant-be-happy-susan-learns-about-krishna-consciousness.html

    Like you, I also share one of my break­fast expe­ri­ences, mine was at Kam­par morn­ing mar­ket lah.… You can see other Malaysia-related impres­sions by search­ing Malaysia on my site.

    Delighted we con­nected through Yang-May :)

  • kristopher wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 9:45 pm

    looks like london’s tourism board has found a new ambas­sador! ;)

  • A Lil Fat Monkey wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 10:45 pm

    I need a hol­i­day. NOW!

  • thenomadGourmand wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 11:28 pm

    so ya finally got dwn to writ­ing bt London..hehe..all tht pres­sure frm fel­low read­ers n blog­gers huh! all tht talk on tea and scones.. and Eng­lish breakfast..come come we go celeb CK b’day over scones at PJ SS2 TheTeapot Cafe?

  • jencooks wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 11:29 pm

    Gosh you wrote your travel in and around Lon­don in such depth and the place you tramped and the writ­ers you met. Such idyl­lic hol­i­day is not just makan angin, you did makan ang moh roti but those con­ver­sa­tion you had with fella Britons will never fade in mem­ory but ever­last­ingly edge in your mind. You and CK head for your MU or Liv­er­pool games did you not?

  • Tummythoz wrote:
    Jun 18, 2009 at 10:31 am

    Was just curi­ous why no read ‘devil’ here ‘devil’ there ‘devil’ every­where.
    The name not d person.

  • Poh Chu wrote:
    Jun 18, 2009 at 7:08 pm

    Ai yah… how come u miss Mamma mia? My favourite musical! =)

  • tigerfish wrote:
    Jun 19, 2009 at 6:31 am

    I remem­ber catch­ing Mamma Mia when I was there. Don­key years ago!
    And I miss hav­ing a good’ol Eng­lish break­fast — perks of grilled mush­rooms and toma­toes, baked beans, and real sausages, much bet­ter than the Amer­i­can break­fast with just sausage links, eggs and pota­toes. :O …end of the day, I still pre­fer fish­ball noo­dles or fried car­rot cake! heee heeee.….

    No chicken tikka masala ?

  • ~ elfie ~ wrote:
    Jun 20, 2009 at 10:40 pm

    lon­don looks like so much fun — 101 things to do, night and day! i want a hol­i­day there too! ^_^

  • Jun wrote:
    Jun 21, 2009 at 8:33 pm

    funny, i grew up read­ing eng­lish sto­ry­books, but lon­don never appealed to me, tho i think u’re won­der­ful at mak­ing lon­don seem almost as mag­i­cal as described in the books ;>

  • April wrote:
    Jun 24, 2009 at 1:41 pm

    Pretty good post. I just found your site and wanted to say
    that I have really enjoyed read­ing your blog posts. In any case
    I’ll be sub­scrib­ing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 8:55 am

    Hey Mavis! Haha, I’m glad we “shared” our insom­nia together on Face­book. I was out­side for most of the week­end and could only find time to write the words to go with these pics after every­one else had gone to bed last night.

    Or was that early this morn­ing? *gulps!*

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 8:57 am

    I think that’s largely why I tried to opt for a brighter, live­lier colour scheme for this set of pic­tures — to rep­re­sent and remind me of the energy and vigour of this once-old-yet-modern-now met­ro­pol­i­tan city.

    Even on a relax­ing hol­i­day, things around us kept mov­ing so fast! :P

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 9:03 am

    Kak Teh, we must, we must must MUST meet again! Your hus­band and you are just about the swellest cou­ple ever! And we had a grand time lis­ten­ing to all your sto­ries and anec­dotes, of which only a smidgen have I man­aged to repeat here.

    Ah, that’s why we have your Choc-a-Bloc Blog where you share your heart-warming sto­ries with your avid read­ers. I never miss a sin­gle post! :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 9:21 am

    Haha, true enough! We for­got all about the fatigue the moment we landed at Heathrow! ;)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 9:29 am

    Oh I wouldn’t be too sure of that, Joe. See, I used to think there were two types of peo­ple in this world (and they were both Malaysians, at that):

    (1) Folks who only eat what­ever is local food wher­ever they hap­pen to be, cos that would taste best any­way, made of fresh pro­duce and pre­pared the way it’s sup­posed to be pre­pared; and

    (2) Folks who need to eat Malaysian food wher­ever they are, even if it means it’s Alaska or Antarctica.

    Now, thanks to CK, I’m older and wiser and realise that it’s okay either way, and for us, we mostly gorged our­selves on the local fare but also had a dose of chilli here and there when we felt like. And that’s what I call a hol­i­day! ;)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 9:44 am

    Ooh, here’s an advance bon voy­age and may you have loads of fun and take lotsa pic­tures and PLEASE don’t take a month to post them like lil lame ol’ me… :P

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 12:39 pm

    The third pic of Chez Gérard? Yup, I liked it enough to have it stand on its own with­out col­lag­ing it… And it was just one of those ran­dom shots one takes while try­ing to catch some­thing else…

    … and I do wish I bought more Paul Smith shirts though. They are bril­liant. CK got the zebra tee which was my fave, but I’m too fat for the sizes they had avail­able. :(

    As for the Great British Inva­sion Part Two, can you guess where we went next? ;)

  • ladyironchef wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 3:18 pm

    hahaha how much rel­a­tively cheaper is it? Oh man, i want their shirt too! how many did you buy?

    I know I def­i­nitely will be sur­prised by your part two, you always have bag of tricks up your sleeves :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 12:43 pm

    Ah, I don’t blame him… some of the plays are still rever­ber­at­ing in my minds years after I sat in the audi­ence. There was this one-woman play star­ring Jo Kukathas called From Table Moun­tain to Teluk Intan that still sends chills down my spine when­ever I recall it… and it must have been more than five years since I caught the play, maybe more. I watched the KL per­for­mance, but I believe it was per­formed else­where too.

    Man, now I feel like catch­ing more plays… espe­cially local ones! :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 2:37 pm

    Ooh, he’s prob­a­bly right about the shorter lifes­pan but what a deli­cious way to go, no? ;)

    As for nos­tal­gia, strange that you put it that way but it’s so true… can we be nos­tal­gic after a month? I guess we can…

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    I’m totally with you on that, Selba. I can’t wait to revisit Lon­don and all the other places we were at in the UK. I guess I am sorta doing that already, with this new series of posts. :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    Say about RM100 cheaper per shirt for some? I just got my striped PS polo shirt. CK got the afore­men­tioned zebra tee (partly pic­tured in the fash­ion col­lage above) that I wanted and also a Paul Smith shirt, blue with neat details on the inner cuff.

    But all is not lost! I found myself a bril­liant Hugo Boss (orange label) short-sleeved shirt at the Gar­dens last nite… that the Diva insisted would look bad on me, but when I put it on, even she was sur­prised by how well it fit. Oh dear, am I devel­op­ing an eye for clothes here? Oh no! It’s the end of the world as we know it!!!! :P

  • ladyironchef wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 3:57 pm

    HAHAH looks like you have plenty of sto­ries to tell about your rewards, write a post on the branded stuffs that u brought! heh. U only brought ONE stripped PS polo shirt?!? Okay, i want to invade Britain, just for their PS shirts. haha

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 3:34 pm

    That’s a great cover, innit? So many books, so lit­tle time (and money to buy as many as I would have liked)…

    As for scones, maybe in future instal­ments of this series? Maybe…

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    Ah, you’re being far too kind, Yang-May. I’m cer­tainly look­ing for­ward to meet­ing with other writ­ers, though I must admit I’d rather feast on the con­ver­sa­tion than to gorge myself on our local del­i­ca­cies which are far too rich for my widen­ing waist­line! :P

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 4:25 pm

    Hey, Paul — let’s do tea and scones in Malaysia. The weather’s not quite the same what with the haze and the heat, but we do have air-conditioning here, no?

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 4:25 pm

    The very, very best. :D

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 4:26 pm

    Well, there are those DKNY jeans and those won­der­ful ZARA pants and… uhm, maybe I just to stop buy­ing so many clothes! Lose weight first and then buy some more! :P

  • ladyironchef wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 4:46 pm

    We can never have enough, clothes. And they are not just priv­i­leges for the ladies, it apply to guys too! You buy a Span­ish label from UK? is it cheaper? haha.

    Pound is weak, the pound is weak. Shop like you never shop before! Flash your cards; AMEX, Citi, HSBC, RBS, and May­bank. Show it to the shop assis­tant, show it proudly! The excite­ment when you hear the swip­ing sound of the card, fol­lowed by, “Sir can you please sign here.” :D

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 4:50 pm

    ROFL!!!

    Man, I loved your lit­tle descrip­tion of the shop­ping process. You’re gonna drive the ladies (and the gents) nuts and send them run­ning off to the sales going on all over Malaysia and Sin­ga­pore, y’know? :P

  • keropokman wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 10:12 am

    Oh you will be sur­prised!
    I bought zara jeans in UK too! lol.…

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 5:57 pm

    Haha, that’s really good — I for­got to men­tion all the music and songs that were in the air the whole time. A mag­i­cal, free-spirited atmos­phere… :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 8:30 pm

    Haha, I know what you mean about the remov­ing of the shoes — it made me very aware about the con­di­tion of my socks! I always check to see that they had no holes with my toe(s) point­ing out! :P

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 15, 2009 at 8:31 pm

    Hey… how did you know I dream in Eng­lish? Haha, but I can­not lie — I do dream in that lan­guage and that lan­guage only! :P

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 9:47 am

    Thanks for wait­ing to read it, dear… I know it’s been a whole month since we returned from the UK and I expected many of you to have given up already on me ever writ­ing about our trip! :P

    And you guys both have very nice ini­tials methinks! :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 9:59 am

    Hehe, you try per­suad­ing CK to try Indian cui­sine. In fact we (the rest of the folks we’d meet on this trip and I) would egg him on to go for Indian food, and he’d always say yes… and then brighten up when we add there’s always another option… :P

    You try con­vert­ing him, bro!

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 10:23 am

    Here’s to buy­ing Span­ish clothes in Eng­land! *woot woot*

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 10:30 am

    1. I know! Ain’t it cute? Darn… I feel like diet­ing now just to fit into that tee now… LOL

    2. We did smell it! Tapi tak beli… went some­where else for that, but I’ll keep the loca­tion a secret for now till the next posts. ;)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 10:50 am

    1. If zebras could talk, I bet they’d gos­sip about colours.

    2. A wee hint: It’s on higher ground. Much higher ground…

    3. Haha, I should have a post about curry then! :D

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 12:54 pm

    Thanks for your kind words, dear… Seri­ously, I wouldn’t how to write a travel piece — I’m really bad at keep­ing track of the names of places and direc­tions and what not. The feel of what we expe­ri­enced — that’s all I hope to share with you guys, really. :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 16, 2009 at 4:41 pm

    Ooh… then you should try trav­el­ling on the real thing… all the switch­ing between sta­tions and avoid­ing the more crowded ones… lol

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 10:27 am

    Not just you, my dear. I wish I was back there too, right now. The heat and haze in M’sia sure doesn’t help, haha.

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 10:45 am

    No epic adven­ture lah, not unless you count mis­ad­ven­tures… :P

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 10:47 am

    Oh dear. Two sit­tings? Maybe I should keep my next chap­ter really short on text and pic­tures. It’d cer­tainly be eas­ier on me… hahaha…

    Thanks for read­ing, dear! :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 10:48 am

    Pak Zawi, thanks for drop­ping by and trust me, my blog isn’t sophis­ti­cated lah… Very the biasa one.. More to learn, more to come, and all that. :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 3:16 pm

    The Devil Wears Prada? Noth­ing hap­pened ma. Still here. But dev­ils are devi­ous and appear­ances aren’t what they seem… ;)

  • Susan Macaulay wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 3:18 pm

    LOL. This IS a travel piece lah !

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 3:21 pm

    Haha, Lyri­cal Lemon­grass just told me as much over MSN and admon­ished me to boot. But hon­estly, when I think of travel pieces, I think of Peter Mayle… and darn. Now I feel like re-visiting France! :P

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 3:23 pm

    Bril­liant! Some­times it takes an outsider’s view (mine of Eng­land or yours of Malaysia) for us to see things the locals won’t nec­es­sar­ily notice or take for granted cos they’ve been so accus­tomed to it. :)

    Thanks for shar­ing your posts… and Yang-May’s a sweet­heart to have con­nected us so. :)

  • kristopher wrote:
    Jun 17, 2009 at 9:46 pm

    my dad’s like no. 2! must have malaysian or chi­nese food where he trav­els, with­out fail! =p

  • ~ elfie ~ wrote:
    Jun 20, 2009 at 10:41 pm

    i think it’s bet­ter to be the first type… u get to try more foods and cul­tures. isn’t that the whole point of travelIing?

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 18, 2009 at 7:38 am

    Ah well… All the Malaysian uncles of the world unite! :P

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 18, 2009 at 7:38 am

    And who might that be? Hmm…

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 18, 2009 at 7:39 am

    Take us with you!!

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 18, 2009 at 7:42 am

    Yalor, yalor… every­one remind­ing me about it. I think the pres­sure came to a boil when we were at the launch of A Slice of Heaven and Bangsar-bAbE asked me oh so casu­ally about it. Pai seh ma, when a boo­ti­ful lady asks you about it, you best get going with it! :P

    Ooh it sounds great cel­e­brat­ing the Devil and the Nomad’s birth­days with tea and scones! :D

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 18, 2009 at 7:42 am

    For a minute there I thought you wrote that I ate the ang mohs them­selves! :P

    Nay to MU/Liverpool cos tak pegi sana ma… Next time, maybe?

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 18, 2009 at 10:37 am

    Haha, I love that — ‘devil’ here ‘devil’ there ‘devil’ every­where — sounds like some Miranda Priestly revival! :P

  • Poh Chu wrote:
    Jun 18, 2009 at 7:10 pm

    I agree with Susan, this is a good travel piece. You should get it pub­lished in a travel magazine. =)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 18, 2009 at 8:12 pm

    Ah, I only wish I trav­elled more… enough to have fod­der for a decent mag­a­zine piece! :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 18, 2009 at 8:16 pm

    We’ll catch it the next time we visit, promise! :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 19, 2009 at 8:38 am

    Lucky you! We missed it this time round but let’s keep our fin­gers crossed that we’ll catch it next round, ja? :)

    And the good ole Eng­lish brekkie? Sub­lime, I tell you, in its aroma and its grease and magic mush­room oils… :D

  • A Lil Fat Monkey wrote:
    Jun 19, 2009 at 9:25 am

    no, why don’t you take us with you? LOL

  • A Lil Fat Monkey wrote:
    Jun 19, 2009 at 9:26 am

    TNG, u very clever hor. Long time no go Tea House d.

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 19, 2009 at 9:29 am

    Haha, too late! I spoke to McCutie oredi… When you two migrate, you are gonna adopt me and the Devil and we’d fol­low you… fol­low you… wher­ever you may go… we will fol­low… *sings and cracks own voicebox*

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 19, 2009 at 9:31 am

    Mari kami sama-sama pegi Rumah Teh! O! :P

  • ~ elfie ~ wrote:
    Jun 20, 2009 at 10:42 pm

    man­ches­ter? oxford? do post soon… don’t keep us in sus­pense! :p

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 21, 2009 at 9:24 am

    Exactly! Couldn’t have put it bet­ter myself. :)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 21, 2009 at 9:24 am

    We’re almost there… ;)

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 21, 2009 at 9:25 am

    Well, when you do end up plan­ning to visit Lon­don, spare some space in your lug­gage to carry us? :P

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 22, 2009 at 6:31 pm

    Ah, there’s a lil child who grew up read­ing Enid Bly­ton in all of us… :)

  • ~ elfie ~ wrote:
    Jun 22, 2009 at 10:32 pm

    then i have to buy a new suit­case — A VERY BIG SUITCASE! ^_^

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 23, 2009 at 9:35 am

    Make that TWO very big suit­cases! One each for both of us, me and the Devil! ;)

  • the_lighthouse wrote:
    Jun 23, 2009 at 7:16 pm

    but ur MIS­ad­ven­tures are even more inter­est­ing! =p

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 24, 2009 at 9:09 am

    Ecks. :P

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 25, 2009 at 10:42 am

    Thanks, April! I always appre­ci­ate new read­ers. :)

  • Poh Chu wrote:
    Jun 26, 2009 at 8:47 pm

    Don’t for­get Wicked too! That’s very good also.

  • Kenny Mah wrote:
    Jun 27, 2009 at 8:39 am

    How could I pos­si­bly for­get? I’m con­stantly reminded that we missed it by a cer­tain some­one… :P

  • richardo wrote:
    Jul 10, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    re: #1. i love paul smith col­ors! esp. the socks! :)

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