söndag 26 april 2015

Born To Lose 


Kuala Lumpur means "muddy confluence" as it is located at the confluence of two rivers, Klang and Gombak. Before man came here there where only jungle and still, in despite of all the high rise buildings, it is a very green city. You feel the jungle sneaking about just beneath the man conquered surface waiting for its moment to take it all back. This is something that is true in all cities, but for some reason I feel it more obvious here in KL, maybe because its such a young city, the roots of man does not go that deep here as in other cities. Or maybe it is because I live in a jungle hut, and even though its all fake jungle I still feel its out there, waiting for us to make a mistake, to put our guard down. Cause in the end of the day it has been her since dawn of time and KL has only been occupied by man since 1850. You see it all the time, as soon as we abandon a place, nature is there to claim it back.

Below photos is not mine, but stolen from the Instagram Abandonedearth:










We fight nature and does not want to acknowledge the fact that we are the one occupying. We spray the green with poison to kill the mosquitos, cause we don't like them. But they where here before us. In my house I have ants in the bathroom, I want to exterminate them but they are a reminder that my house of wood and concrete is just a fragile shelter against the nature out there. It will always find its way in however much we fight it. We are the once who will lose in the end. Long after we are gone, nature will still be here. Raped, used, reaped, wounded but far much stronger than we will ever be. It just bides its time, confident that victory is already its, and we, us, the ridicules little priggish human race can be at war with it for as long as we wish. But we are the loser, we where born losers and will extinguish as losers.

söndag 19 april 2015

Sunday Funday


As ya´ll know it has been just work and no play which makes Maggan a dull girl. So I decided there must be a change. So today was the day I treated myself to a luxurious spa treatment.
As everything here it becomes an adventure, Im so lost in this world and in this city so only how to get there becomes a challenge. Luckily there is an excellent taxi app where you book a taxi and they come immediately. The reason this app exists is because it is not safe to haul down a cab on the street. You will definitely get scammed and in worst case robbed. Even though I new it was safe I was still nervous since it is first time I use the app and since I am a coward afraid of most things in life I do for the first time. But no worries, everything went fine and I arrived safe and sound and not that much poorer to this amazing area in KL called Bangsar. Since I was so nervous about getting there I was 1.5h early for my appointment so not much more to do that to stroll around in the area, and what an area! This was exactly what I have been looking for. Only low rise, full of nice little shops, restaurants and cafes. Just the kind of place I wanted to live in.  However that would never be possible due to the distance, it takes about 1h with metro to get to my work from there, so it has to stay a dream. But so nice to finally find an area in KL I really like.

During my strolling around I ended up in a food market, as always amazing colours and super-cheap fruit and veggies. I loved to get this authentically KL experience, far from offices and high rise and sci-fi. The people there hardly spoke english but where nice and friendly, and Im starting to get used to the lingo here. If you ask a question the answer will either be: can-can or cannot. In this particular market there was a lot of can-can, so with me to the spa I brought a bag full of sunwarm mangos and delicious watermelon







After the market I had time for a quick coffee and then off to Paradise. Paradise also goes under the name of Hammam Spa. The idea is to offer a turkish bath house experience in KL and the treatment I choose was called "My favourite concubine" - a name that promise a lot.
The reception was nice and friendly, before entering you get to choose the oil you want for your massage and they explain the benefits. I choose a rose smelling one that would be relaxing.
You are then led to the changing room, very small, but they only let one in at the time for privacy reason. The you go to the waiting area where you lie resting in a pink chair. When it was my turn a very decisive Moroccan lady came and took me by the hand and led me into the room for my first treatment.
The room is like a steam sauna room but without the steam, in there you get pored water on you, and then the actual treatment a rough body scrub bgins. Ok, I knew Im not the cleanest lady in da hood but when I saw the amount of dead skin she scrubbed of my body even I was shocked... 
I also realised being washed by someone is a very intimate action, I have never been cleaned and scrubbed by a stranger before so at first I was a bit uncomfortable. Especially since you are not alone in the room, they take two at the time. But my lady was obviously not bothered at all, she handled my body with secure, careful but firm hands as if it was the most natural thing in the world so then I relaxed and just enjoyed.
When my body was cleaner than it has ever been I was led out to the pink chairs agin and offered tea. The girl who had the same treatment was led to the same place and started talking to me. It turned out her name is Jean, she is Malaysian and really really nice. We talked away the time until we where called in to out last treatment, this time we got separate rooms and was each offered a 45min heavenly massage. Afterwards we met again, had tea and decided to exchange numbers. So strangely enough I made my first friend here lying half naked getting roughly scrubbed. But I guess there is stranger ways to meet people.




Today was truly a Sunday Funday, and in the taxi home I felt a slight hint of happiness. And maybe I fell a little bit in love with KL


lördag 18 april 2015

Life so far


Has not been that interesting. I live in a little bubble of my home, the metro to work and my work. I do not see our experience anything else than that, so I have not much to tell about. So I will tell you about some of my feelings and observations within this bubble.

I do really love my home and can´t say enough how thankful I am I found it. Its a little like Amazing Grace: I once was lost but now am found. And it is an amazing grace to have this beautiful jungle hut to hide away in after a hards days work.
My work situation is really crazy, a normal day for me is between 10 -14h sometimes without even a break. And I still do not have time to finish nearly close to what I am supposed to. Luckily I am a fighter and very competitive so I will not give in, I get my strength from the fact that failure is not an option. I do not know how to fail  and I don´t want to learn.

On my way from the metro there is this lovely coffee-place-shed where you can buy a nice cup of coffee on the go. It is called "Happiness Coffee" and they live up to their name. The people who work there always give you a smile and chit chat abut nothing, but its nice. It´s the closest I come to human contact outside of the office. And on top of that on your take away coffee cup everyday  you get  an inspiring message reminding you to not give up, to never give in.





I am still fascinated by the fact I am The Other here. For example on the metro to and from work I am the only blond pale person, including the fact I am one head taller then the rest it really enhances the feeling of being the outsider. It is impossible for me to even dream about blending in. Since this is a muslim country majority of the women wear some kind of head protection, and it makes me think of Europe, how so many countries try to forbid it in different locations or jobs. For example Sweden had an idea of not letting nurses wear any kind of scarf/hijab which is completely insane - I mean how can what I wear on my head possibly influence how I work? I live now in a muslim country but no one try to force me to wear a hijab, how come then that our "modern" western European freedom fighting countries want to oppress women and not let them choose for them self what they wear on their head? I mean seriously, if we are going to forbid what people can or cannot wear i have a looong list of things I rather forbid long before the hijab. To mention a few:

- Catalan hair cut
- People who do not colour match correctly
- Ugly kids
- Uggs
- Bad hair extensions
- Boot cut jeans
etc etc.. the list could go on forever. But, the point is we can not decide what anyone else wears. I would really wish for all these people with all their narrow minded ideas about muslims to come live here, to see well educated smart funny modern women walking around with their hijab, cool Nikes, the latest technology gadgets and maybe they would get an eye opener and let go of their oppressive ideas and stop trying to tell people how to live their lives.
Im not trying to say that muslim is better than western european, my point is that I believe all of us would benefit from go live on the other side of the fence, where you are the strange one. For me it is a mind bending experience and Im still only learning. But to get this opportunity of challenging myself and the culture that has shaped me is priceless and I hope I will come out stronger and with my Doors of Perception more open then ever.





söndag 12 april 2015

My very own Jungle Home


As mentioned in previous post I finally decided to go for a jungle hut and now I have been here little more than a week and so far no regrets.
It is amazing to have so much space to myself and it´s the first time in my life to live in a duplex. Having a two storeys flat connected by a stairs has it´s ups and downs. I love the spacious feeling and love to have separate living spaces. The down side is that my hang-out room is upstairs and obviously I constantly forget things downstairs. The same happens every morning, bedroom is upstairs as well and I think that so far it has not been a morning without me forgetting something there. So it´s a lot of running up and down those stairs. But I guess in the end the price is worth it. Especially since I truly have no life what so ever down here so far. All I do is work, go to, sleep, wake up, go to work, work go home, sleep... and so it goes. Comes weekend Im so exhausted that all I do is watch series and sleep and sleep. So having this amazing place is a life saver. And the fact that I have several rooms to hang in also helps not to get bored with it considering the great amount of time I spend in here.

I assume there is a great deal of fun you can do in KL but so far I have not had the energy to explore any of it, for now my home is my castle and Im totally in love with it.


My Sauna Elevator 
(I was dreamt of one and imagine my surprise when the elevator her looks like a sauna and is hot like one)



My entrance

 The stairs I run



The bridge and entrance to my Master Bedroom


 First breakfast in my Jungle Hut


It´s not a real home until your family photo is framed 
and put in an honourable place


My pool

Outside my Jungle Hut