Fighting Fish
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Night life & other action
I went to the local Dutch Film Festival. Well-well, a dutch movie about Chinatown in Rotterdam, trying to imitate kung-fu. It was bound to end up as some kind of bad Jean-Claude van Damme movie. It was quite obvious that they were trying to hide the terrible Dutch-English accent of the Dutch born chinese actors, but apparently the only way to do so was to minimise the lines of the actors and even then it was mostly quite corny what came out of their mouths. So to summarise; good but too long fighting scenes to cover up poor conversation in lack of storyline. Fortunately I had recently seen 2 nice other movies ("Pursuit of Happiness" & "Pan's labyrinth"), so I didn't land in an instant depression, although I came close.

Viagra
Mood:  vegas lucky
Topic: Night life & other action
After a well deserved break for a day (which I spent mostly in Bodegas, trying to catch up with my reading), I eventually set off for my S'pore trip. Unfortunately, we arrived rather late @ KL airport, so the MAS-people wouldn't let me board. Fortunately S'pore airlines came (again) at my rescue... Yes.... this is not the first time, in Bali a few years ago I also had to resort to them in order to get back to the Netherlands.

Arriving in the hotel makes it all worthwhile... My first time in a real 5-star hotel. I really owe the GSK-people for taking such good care of me. This morning I had a really nice breakfast and then the symposium really launched.

An enervating day was concluded by Viagra-sponsored Dr. Rosie King ("Some people believe in Santa Claus, I believe in the G-spot") from Australia. A truly remarkable lady, who together with her fellow speakers introduced us to the ins and outs of sexual revolution, the modern myth of hours-lasting orgasms, panicky vagina's and the fact that enema's should be high-hot & hellavalot. It also seems that modern young male Singaporeans are mostly concerned about their penis-length. Mmhh... although that never really was one of my worries, judging to the amount of daily junkmail I receive there's also a lot of people out there who are apparently concerned about that. Anyway, there's quite a number of weird pubs in S'pore, below the pics of one of them...

Top Hat Room
Mood:  suave
Topic: Night life & other action
Last month we had the 3-yearly international O&G symposium of FIGO in KL. A chance too good to be true. I presented a poster about a Hodge pessary ending up in the abdomen and I also volunteered to be speaker coordinator, which unfortunately deprived me of the opportunity to visit some of the presentations that interested me most. I happened to meet three of my former consultants. One of them was part of the very beginning of my career in O&G in the very first hospital where I worked as a Medical Officer. Having always been on good terms with him we enjoyed our encounter and decided to have a dinner later on. Due to extreme rain all three of us battled our way through the streets that had turned into floods all over Chinatown. Since all of us had a good time, we decided to have another dinner together with Liza on the last day of the symposium.
That Friday we all gathered and headed for one of the few remaining colonial buildings in KL, the "Top Hat Room". A small, charming colonial villa, almost opposite of KLCC. We enjoyed a nice meal, after which we proceeded to the first floor. In an attic-like setting, the jazz band had already started playing for a while. It’s been another splendid night, and it’s always good to meet up with old friends and acquaintances that have inspired us in the past…

34 ?!
Mood:  amorous
Topic: Night life & other action
Yes, I know, that was about a week ago. but I can’t just let it pass by unnoticed. I didn’t elaborately celebrate that 34th year. But it was defenitely a quality celebration. My little gem had prepared a special surprise for me in the form of my favourite substance; ice(-cream). It truly was a lovely surprise.

And I love my little gem for all these small gestures of affection. It has opened a whole new world for me, for I have never felt this special before. I think, having both been through quite some rough times, we are able to appreciate each other even more. Sure, I know that many things in life don’t last forever… but I hope that a good thing like this will stay with us for the longest time. It will not be easy. There will be struggles, juggling busy career while establishing a relationship and having a social life. And for sure there will be some other challenges too. But also for sure, this is more than worth it to give this our best efforts.

Spicy Mistress
Mood:  suave
Topic: Night life & other action
The only thing I'm unfaithful to is my blog. NOT that my life is that exciting, but still. I haven't told everybody yet that the movie "Mistress of spices" is another jewel that kept me and my fellow-movie-holic very entertained. True, it was a movie about cooking and food, something that to me is right-away appealing. But it was the fairytale-like atmosphere that got me all cought up. And yes; I am a sucker for this specific kind of romantic movies. On top of that it had so much in common with this other kitchen-cooking-love-movie that I saw many, many years ago in the smallest theatre of Maastricht; "Como agua para chocolate (Like water for chocolate)" based on the book by Laura Esquival. Yeah, "Het Kneipke", the classic, small theatre in 50's style, where you could take your nice special Belgium beer with you inside the theatre and have nobody grumbling about it. Aahhh Good memories for sure, when I was still a medical student with the only thing to worry about how to pass the next exam.

Screaming @ walls...
Mood:  hug me
Topic: Night life & other action
Bangsar @ midnight. Me and my friend having a drink and a chat, she looking at the boys, me looking at the girls, and we both know we’re not gonna do anything anyway. On the way back she suddenly takes a funny road. Not a coincidence we end up at her former lovers’ place… Just checking to see whether he’s home or not… ah so cunning… Men, better be warned; this is what women do hahaha…. Yeah, well, we still don’t know for sure whether he’s out or not, but to comfort her broken heart I start singing my false and loud version of “Last Christmas” by WHAM! Yeah, see, laughing again. I instruct her to go home, scream and moan at the wall, to make her neighbours think she still has a sex life. Remember, I tell her, your bed sheets won’t get soiled and the wall will never complain about being dissatisfied…

Bar flies
Mood:  bright
Topic: Night life & other action
The Luna Bar… I guess called like that for the fact that it is on top of a tall building, has the sky for a roof and thus enables you to stare at the moon and if you had enough of that you can enjoy what is probably one of the best places for a view over KL by night. With a small pool in the middle, a styled bar on one side and a large “window” on the other side, on its both sides a small wall covered by a curtain of water trickling down, it has a perfect, relaxing atmosphere. You can sit in one of the “glass” cubicles to look straight down on KL or at the sitting corner right next to the pool and enjoy the tasteful lounge music. I guess one has to see it with ones own eyes, that’s why I put up some picks of the place.
I took P. & F. there when they visited me last month, because you can’t miss this if you come to KL. A not so close friend accompanied us and we had some (overpriced – which is the biggest drawback of this place) food and drinks. Of course, being ourselves, we wanted to go Dutch, or at least something close to that. Unfortunately our “friend” was not familiar with the expression; either that or she was a rather cunning, professional barfly. Never mind, she pulled the same trick as a few days before, after which our ways parted and the three of us continued to play a few last games of pool in another equally nice place. The next day, after 2 exciting weeks, they left and for me things went back to their usual normal working pattern. Well… almost… for now I also had had a taste of KL nightlife for the first time in a year and it sure tasted good !! That’s why, in the subsequent weeks, I managed to get out there for some more taste, despite my financial- and time constraints. That’s however, when I discovered that it’s good to be a barfly… well, not really of course, but in many cases my friends were so nice as to be aware of my non-waged job and here and there cut me some slack. So… cheers to you all and thanx for all these times you’ve enabled me to join in on the KL nightlife.

Mont Kiara Jazz
Mood:  suave
Topic: Night life & other action
Last weekend I finally visited the Sunrise Jazz & Rhythm Festival 2005. Cipto came home late after a surgical battle with the old man… Having no energy for anything else and me being sick & tired of MCQ’s we decided to go there for 2 hours. Good choice, it turned out. I should have brought my camera cause the setting was quite ok. As the matter of fact, it was a bit similar to the Jazz-in-Duketown-thing in my own country. While sitting down and actually realising that I miss my country the way it is in Summer time, I also felt a bit at home, for the mere reason of ending up in a similar atmosphere. To make it even more complete, I even managed to get my hands on a 2 bottles of White Hoegaarden beer from Belgium… It cost me dearly, but it was definitely worth it and for a moment I was back home again. And as far as the music was concerned, it was definitely worthwhile and good for a second round, either next weekend or next year.

Alexis
Mood:  suave
Topic: Night life & other action
Ha die zus… Tja, nu heb je dan eindelijk ICQ, maar dat werkt natuurlijk alleen als je online bent… (op een moment dat ook ik online ben natuurlijk…). Had nog eens een keer geprobeerd te bellen, maar ik denk dat de telefoonprovider die jij hebt niet de pre-paid kaart gesprekken ondersteunt vanuit Maleisie. Moest gisteren nog weer eens aan je denken, want ik was in een tent, “Alexis” (voor het eerst weer eens “op stap” na weken studeren) die jij ongetwijfeld erg cool had gevonden (zie foto ?). Live jazz in een exclusieve omgeving, onder de klanken van een zeer goede vocale interpretatie van Frank Sinatra (wat meer was dan je kon verwachten van een Chinese zanger die zichzelf “Rabbit” noemt) een goed glas wijn genieten, da’s wat ik werkelijk een geslaagde avond noem.

Thaipussam
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Night life & other action
This is probably one of these days on which the already fragile traffic regulations in Malaysia are really hung in the highest tree. You only need to drive a car for 1 day in KL to understand what I’m trying to say here (or to work 1 night in first aid, when the injured motorcyclists start sipping in one by one). Did I tell that story about the woman who came in from Ipoh (2 hours drive from KL) with the rest of her arm in a cooling box on ice ? Well, she survived, and what’s more, they managed to put on the arm again with apparently intact circulation… bloody wizards, those vascular surgeons. Anyway, drifting away here; I was actually gonna tell something about Thaipussam. This is the big 3-day Hindu festival, with one of its highlights in the temple at Batu Caves, just outside KL. As the matter of fact, it’s quite easy to reach just by taking the LRT monorail-thing and subsequently a bus (for all you cheap Dutch back-packing guys, hehehe). Now I can tell you about the huge crowd over there and how part of it is made into a pseudo-fancy-fair-slash-night-market or about the interesting people who decided to walk for long distances (as I’ve been told) with their back full of hooks and other stuff, but I guess you’d better look at the pics (click-on-the-pick).
Back to the traffic; anybody ever seen that videoclip of REM ? Where the guy just pulls over his car and gets out and starts walking (I still haven’t figured out why) ? And all the cars stop and like a huge traffic thrombo-embolism the whole highway gets blocked ? Well, that’s what it looked like. The emergency lane as well as some areas with road divider markings were used as huge parking lots, people were crossing the highway in a manner as if they were looking for a nice place to have a picnic and some motorcyclists even figured that they just as well might convert the highway in a two directions lane on both sides. Is it a coincidence (if I remember correctly having read) that it was India being ranked as having the worlds most disastrous traffic situation a couple of years ago ? Of course in being a Hindu festival, most visiting people were ethnic Indians. Ah well, whatever, our bus driver, who got his license in Kamikaze-Traffic-College inc. ? got us home safely and in one piece (and today I still wonder how).