Daily Life in KL

Gosh, I'm a bit slack with this blog.  Sorry!  Here are some images of my first month in KL (yep, it's been a month!).  We had a bout of consumerism last Thursday that included me spending ALL DAY in a mall and a trip to IKEA that night.  Crikey.  Next time I shall visit a park.  

Below are some pics I took while in the biggest department store I have ever been in.  It's a bit like K-Mart, except for one quirk...they sell pets.  Live animals.  In between audio-visual and furniture.  Thistler and I were shocked.  So we did what any bystander does and whipped out our camera phones.  Here you can see a little hedgehog curled up (this is the first time I've seen one in the flesh - the slice doesn't count) and four little bunnies cooped up in a cage, under fluorescent lights, in a noisy, bright, grass free shop.  They were also selling tens of baby tortoises, hermit crabs, guinea pigs and a scorpion.  A scorpion!  Anyone could have let him loose in that store.

                                                          lonely hedgehog and rabbits

Here are some more things I've made recently.  (clockwise from top left) 

1. A handful of brooches made a few days after my first attempt.  

2. Some containers for cotton buds and chopsticks.  So basic - recycled tins and yogurt containers covered in paper.  Works a treat, try it! 

3. More containers - I made these the first week I was here.  We had an abundance of water bottles and not much else so I cut them to different heights and covered them in fabric.  I used a light weight fabric on one and the light plays through it nicely.  

4. Brooches from the same batch.  I'm working with paper at the moment and am incorporating as much recycled material as I can into my work.  This series is loosely inspired by our visit to the Cameron Highlands last month.  

Daily life in KL.  Inside and outside our apartment.

Daily life in KL part 2 - eating habits. (clockwise from top left) 

1. At a local fancy-pants restaurant.  

2. Home cooked meal - stuffed and fried brinjal (a cousin of the eggplant).  

3. The remains of a meal at our local Indian eatery.  

4. The dragon fruit we ate the other night.  It's such a beautiful looking fruit, but a tad bland to taste.  Like a really really really mild kiwi fruit.  A little bit melon-y.  We ate it as is, just scooped the flesh out in spoon fulls.  The next night I got a bit crazy and mashed the dragon fruit up with a bit of honey, poured it over ice and added plenty of lime juice and mint.  If we had a blender I would have whizzed the fruit, honey and ice together.  And maybe added soda water, or used lemonade for fizz and sweetness.  Still, it made for a good and refreshing drink/dessert!

This feels like quite a while ago now.  These are images from our trip to the beautiful Cameron Highlands, about 1 1/2 - 2 hour drive out of KL.  These pictures are of the tea plantations there.  We enjoyed tea and scones at one of these plantations.  Well, the tea was much too strong and the scones were stale, but it was a lovely place!

P.S.  The quality of these images is pretty crummy.  Sorry.  Phone cameras, you know?