I can't drive. Funny isn't it? I lived all my life in Hong Kong with advanced public transport system where driving is expensive and slow.
It wasn't until I started "expating" in KL two weeks ago I found my inability to drive annoyed me more than the packed morning metro in Hong Kong.
Last week off work, with the "protection" of my male Caucasian colleague business tripping in KL, I decided to take my first metro ride in the city!
I arrived at the Ampang Park station soaked in rain, a Malaysian looking girl came to ask me for direction, and I pointed her to the right way. Yes I am new here, with high cheekbones and single eye lid eyes, I cannot be more Chinese looking but yet I was constantly being asked for direction by both locals and tourists since the first day I arrived, and I knew which way to go every time they asked.
My colleague made it to the station so we moved on to buying train tickets, oops, I mean tokens. Ok, we figured out the way within seconds but only to find the smallest note in our wallets is RM 50, not small enough for the token machine! We went to the Information Centre, guess what? The girl only got a big pile of one ringgit notes! Fine, I took them. Threw eight of my one ringgit notes to the machine, and crammed the other 42 bloody one ringgit notes into my little wallet.
We took RapidKL for two stations, and the map said we should change to monorail to Bukit Pintang. Being a Hong Kong trained metro passenger, I assume changing trains always take place within the station; however, it is far from the case here in KL. Changing to monorail means you get out of the RapidKL station without any sight of another train station.
Two tourist-looking Chinese strangers who followed us suggested that we should take a taxi. Luckily there was a taxi, but with my blue-eyed colleague the taxi price accelerated from expat price to generous-American-tourists price, the just-round-the-corner trip costs us RM 20 and a traffic jam of approx. 20 minutes.
When we eventually arrived at Pavilion Mall we were so tired and starved that we gave up the not-too-touristy Malay food search and ended up with some American ribs. The ribs were great, but then the question is how are we getting home? Take the connectionless metro or to get ripped off by taxi drivers again?
We walked. With my colleague constantly laughing at my insensible choice of shoes 3-inch wedge sandals, we walked for an hour to get home. Guess I burnt more calories walking home than working out in the gym that night.
The other night I found a free option to get driven to Pavilion
to be continued.