Shiny shoes
Highlights of my trip to Manila thus far (in no particular order):
- Balut from the balut guy on the street
- "Malling"
- Eating halo-halo with Imelda Marcos at the Manila Peninsula Hotel, shiny silver shoes and all
XX-press
Back in Malaysia one more time. I think I'm starting to get used to life out here. Granted, life consists of living in one of the nicer hotels in the city so it's probably not so representative of typical Malaysian living.
As for the picture above, this is the express elevator on the way up to the 42nd floor of Tower 1 of the Petronas Twin Towers. From there, I transfer to the local elevator to make it up to the 56th floor where I'm currently working. The 42nd floor is basically my Malaysian equivalent to the 72nd Street subway station in New York. (And yes, that temperature reading does say 28 degrees Celsius. What it doesn't read is the 90% humidity!)
Go East, Young Man
I'm not sure if it's the use of a new flight path (now over Russia and China instead of Europe and the Middle East) or maybe a change of jet stream strength but the flight from New York to Singapore only took 18 hours instead of the 19.5 it used to take. Unfortunately, I couldn't get on any of the 2 earlier connecting flights to Kuala Lumpur so I'm stuck here at the airport for the next 5 hours.
Fortunately, Changi Airport is not without it's amenities. Xbox station, here I come.
Yo! Tax-iiiii!!!
New York is full of interesting experiences...cab rides being a good source of many of those. Sure you'll get the occasional smelly cab driver. And of course, there's always the white-knuckled rides courtesy of the cab driver who's intent on making that green light 5 blocks away.
Then there's the conversations that you can only have with random cab drivers who you'll never again see in your life. So far, I've discussed the pros and cons of interracial dating with insights into centuries-old African tribal feuds and how it lead to this particular cabbie moving to the US. Then there were the insider secrets on how to drink plenty of vodka without getting sick (although I'm not sure self-induced vomiting really qualifies as not getting sick).
Tonight, however, was my first cab accident experience. Nothing to exciting. Just a slight rear-ending by some drunk suits in a rental car with Massachusetts plates who proceeded to pull up next to us to give the cabbie the finger. I can't help but imagine the two guys sitting in that rental car, neither of whom are probably even from Massachusetts, glowing with pride about how "New York" they both are. In general, I've found most New Yorkers to be much more friendly than the generalizations that the rest of the country imagines. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about all the visitors here.
Nevertheless, another exciting NYC cab ride.
