Places Like These Surprise Me at Times

Last weekend I was called by a friend to her cafe in a leafy and unusually quiet place in the capital of Malaysia. It goes by the name of Danau Permai Cafe. I was pleasantly surprised to see this chilled out, open air pool bar-restaurant thing in the middle of a cluster of condo blocks.

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As tranquil as it was, the funky decor of the cafe seemed incongruous to its surroundings of course, yet was refreshing in its own way, since the tropical exterior could get quite monotonous after spending a day in a city like that.

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It was as if I was transported back to the late 70’s, because of the red and black colour scheme. It was a little unexpected as not many cafes really go with such a look, but I let my judgement slide and enjoyed the 90’s music, that went pretty well with the whole experience. The cafe is one that speaks of nostalgia, I definitely got that.

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Oh but it also looked like fizzy fun, I mean the cola display and cheery staff made me want to give it a shot.

So I did.

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And oh my god, no country makes better ‘roti prata’ than Malaysia (sorry south east Asia), more specially than the men in this cafe. It was crispy and tasted a lot like love.

The piece de resistance was to follow:

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Oh yeah . This is the milo teh tarik. A concoction of delicious chocolate-malt milk in frothy chai, that was ‘pulled’ or made like this…

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It would be great if good old Coffee Bean or Starbucks could come up with a blend like this, maybe it would be enough to make me forget about my surprisingly good time at the Danau Permai Condo Cafe. Yup that’s all it takes to make me happy, food. I’m glad I dived in.

Hitting the Wall

Apparently it’s a good thing, getting no where with work. It’s supposedly an awakening of the creative mind, where it slows down and hibernates, thereby going through a stage of renewal.

This is a bunch of pish-posh an elderly art professor tells people when they’re stuck in a lift for fifteen precious seconds of their life, waiting for the red digits to blink ‘4’ so they can be released from awkward elevator conversation. It’s especially unnerving when the professor is known to have made comments about his students’ breasts growing. Sure his advice sounds great, but don’t take it.

The reason why you’re going through this , or okay people like me are, is because you’ve become a victim of routine and your inner animal is clawing at the surface trying to escape, while you shove it into the daily humdrum of catching that bloody bus at 8.20 not 8.30, so you can hop into a train and get to another bus precisely 4 minutes later, to pop into class 10 minutes late.

The cyclicality of it all doesn’t stop there. It goes on and on; your professor will call your name next, will hit the same points about your lethargic getting-there-but-really-nowhere work, followed by a break where you will pee for 15 seconds and then say hi to the person waiting after you, and then look for change in your pocket while staring at things you’re dying to eat but can’t afford to.

I am not complaining about any of these activities. There’s nothing bad about them, it’s just that if it happens everyday, then there’s a big problem. You’re not doing anything with your life, your hitting the wall of your daily existence and getting no where.

So what do you do? Well I’m trying to figure it out, change schedules, do things in different places, watch something I never would, say something I never would to someone I don’t know. Be an epic pain in the ass. I’m not too sure, but finding out will hopefully be worth it.