Becklee’s Blog

My Friday lunch with Kongchai this time around took us to Fig & Olive restaurant at Sunway Pyramid. There are many restaurants on the floor where the restaurant is located. We walked through this area… looks very middle eastern.

The restaurant looks very nice and clean. When we sat at our table, there were two other people in the restaurant. Then another group of four people came, and that was it.

Is this a picture of figs and olives? This poster was hung on one of the walls in the restaurant. The walls gave us the feeling of being in some old building in Morocco.

Kongchai had the ice cream while I had Moroccan mint tea. The mint tea tasted like green tea, I thought it would be some different flavour.

At first I ordered the fish and chips but the waitress said that it was sold out, and then I chose another dish (can’t remember which one) and she said, the bread was on the way there as they had run out of it. Seems to me like they had a big load of customers earlier on or what. Anyways, I finally decided on this beef BBQ kebab.  Kongchai chose the same kebab except that it was chicken instead of beef filling. We were surprised to find that the kebab was actually very delicious.

The cost of the food:

Grilled chicken BBQ kebab –  RM11.90.

Beef BBQ kebab – RM12.50.

Moroccan mint tea – RM6.00.

Single scoop ice cream – RM4.50.

The location of the restaurant:

LG2, Sunway Pyramid.

I tend to do that too, i.e repeat words. A word is just a word but when it is repeated, it conveys a message. Sometimes, the word is repeated three times e.g. “correct, correct, correct”. I suppose you all are familiar with  “faster, faster” when you want someone to do something quickly. And we don’t say quickly either, we say, “quick, quick lah”. Some other common double words are, “okay, okay”,  “same, same” and “can, can”.

You can also often hear “see, see, see” as in “I told you so” especially when reprimanding a child for disobedience. “You see, you see” is often used when you’re irritated with a stubborn person who does something he was told not to do. And last of all are the famous words from Phua Chu Kang, “don’t play, play”.

Yeah, don’t mess around with Malaysian drivers especially women drivers. Sorry gals, but my niece Melissa thinks that is so, too. We both agree that women drivers don’t usually give way to other drivers and they tend to hog the fast lane. Plus they have some weird sense of direction when it comes to giving signals, e.g. indicating right when they are turning left.

You won’t believe the answer I got from a girlfriend when I asked why women drivers like to hog the fast lane. She said that the speed limit on the highway is 90 kmph so she wasn’t driving slowly, it’s those other drivers who were speeding and breaking the law.

Malaysian drivers somehow know in which direction other Malaysian drivers are going because the indicator lights are hardly ever used. Even if they are used, sometimes the driver indicates left when she’s turning right. Sometimes hazard lights are turned on when a car is moving especially during rainy days and visibility is poor. Sometimes it is also used when the driver appears to be in an emergency like sending someone to the hospital or if his windshield is broken/cracked.

Every space of the road can be used, so long as the driver can get ahead of other drivers, hence the emergency lane is used quite often. And even the motorcycle lane is not spared! And who cares about pavement markings on the road. It’s not unsual to find three cars alongside each other on a two lane road.

The colour amber on the traffic light means it’s time to rev up your engine and increase your speed. It’s no wonder a lot of traffic light posts have been damaged by accidents.

Malaysian drivers like to park their car anywhere they like. If you pass by 1 Utama or the Curve, you will find cars parked along the road outside these two shopping centres even though there are ample parking lots inside. Talking about parking lots, you will find a few crazy ones in there as well. These crazy ones usually appear when the car park is packed to capacity and you have to wait for someone to drive out of his parking lot. I’ve encountered drivers who would drive in the wrong direction just so that he can get to the empty parking lot before others. Sometimes, the one driving out takes her own sweet time loading her stuff into the car and fiddling with her handphone, hair and such before moving out, even though she knows there are people waiting for her to move out.

During peak hours (morning and evening) Malaysian drivers turn into monsters.  It’s a battle between the aggressive and the meek driver. All these things happen at this time… speeding, beating traffic lights, cutting queues, changing lanes suddenly, flashing headlights and driving close behind your vehicle,  just to name a few.  And followed by swearing and showing of middle finger.

When you’re waiting at a traffic light, you would notice some of these at  one time or another …. a lady doing her make-up, someone digging his nose, someone eating or drinking, someone opening his car door and spitting on the road, someone throwing rambutan or duku skins or cigarette butts outside.

The motorcyclists are just as bad. They don’t obey any traffic rules, they ride past red traffic lights. They ride against the traffic and into no entry signs. They can park their motorcycles anywhere, on the pedestrian pavement or any place convenient to them. They will weave in between cars and sometimes knock against a car side mirror. The worst thing is that some of them treat the highway like the race track and speed without a care in the world. And have you ever noticed that many motorcyclists here like to wear their jackets the other way around… I mean with the zipper at the back? I have yet to figure out why. Does anyone out there know why?

I’m not even going to mention the drivers of taxis, buses and lorries. My policy when I see any of them on the road – give way! Sigh, wish I don’t need to drive.