A-S-I-A TOUR I:

Hong Kong:

Hong Kong was a blur of shopping malls. I saw a buttload of Uniqlo's and Muji's and now I wonder how much I'll be craving seeing them in person once I am back in Van.

Seeing so many shops and so many people, and sadly getting kind of bored of looking at the clothes (all becomes a blur after awhile...a very monochromatic blur), I started looking harder at the people. And I think this: the fashion sense in Hong Kong, after being to Japan (albeit briefly so this observation could be very superficial) and talking to my Aunt, I am thinking that it is motivated and defined mostly by status and huge well known brands, rather than in Japan it seems to be motivated more by true self expression (you see a lot more 'stranger' looks in Japan than you would in Hong Kong and a variety as well, extremes like over the top outfits seen in Harajuku and then clean looks like Muji and Uniqlo). It doesn't matter what you are wearing, but who you are wearing, and it seems like the opposite is more found in Japan. I know brands and who you are loyal to is a big thing around the whole world, but it seems to be a really dominating and deciding factor in how a person's appearance is defined in Hong Kong.

Kuala Lumpur:

KL's Twin towers! My dad works on one of the lower floors of one of these buildings. I don't know which one.

Aren't we?!

Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia. Okay I am not closed minded or anything (or whatever), but I didn't think I'd be at all interested in seeing this museum, but faced with a bunch of time in my hands and not really knowing what to do in Kuala Lumpur, I went to this museum on a whim because it is one of those big tourist things to do. I say that I wouldn't be interested because I don't really know much about Islamic Art and it just never really held any interest to me. But this museum was beautiful! There was a section that showed various mosques around the world (little perfect models with insane tiny details that just thinking about make my eyes cry), and holy shit some of them are amazing, AND THEY WERE BUILT FOREVER AGO! Really nice and impressive.

I feel like I've paid more attention to the architecture in Kuala Lumpur than in most places I've been to. Maybe because I had/have few notions about the place and to see impressive structures here and there is neat and a bit of a surprise.

I have been drinking like gallons of cold milk tea, god, so! delicious! And everything that I've eaten in Kuala Lumpur (Chicken Rice, Laksa, Chicken Biryani, etc) has been awesome and super good, and is great when you first eat it, but I am beginning to feel the effects of the heaviness/greasiness of it, like feeling mega tired afterwards and thinking, "Man what did I just eat." Anyways.

A really sort of nerve-wracking thing about Kuala Lumpur is the taxis. With most, okay well, EVERY, place that I've been to, you can hail a taxi, and that taxi will take you wherever you want. But here! HERE! They sometimes don't want to take you there (because they want to stay on a certain side or whatever), and if they do take you, they might put it at a set fee, which is higher than if they were to just open the meter and let it run. I don't really understand why they do it and it just makes for a really nerve-wracking experience, especially being a foreigner because I am super not good at haggling and when you want to get somewhere, you just want to (or at least I want to) get there as soon and as easily as possible, even if it means spending like a few dollars more.

Tiny bit of Singapore:

Went to the Singapore Art Museum. It's in a really neat building, (a restored old school building) and I was really impressed with this piece by Donna Ong (beautiful!) and also this collective (Vertical Submarine) and their stuff made me laugh.

Hey!

It was nice catching up! Let's do this again sometime!