My KL Diary

  Doraemon for Christmas?　＠LaLaport  BBCC As December arrives, shopping malls in Kuala Lumpur (KL) are putting up Christmas decorations in their central plazas. This year's Christmas decoration at LaLaport BBCC is Doraemon. It's a bit plain for Christmas.    At center stage in LaLaport BBCC There's a 3-meter tall Doraemon standing there, but the robot cat's blue body color doesn't really suit Christmas. Still, it's attracting customers. Recently, the mall has added more anime-themed stores. When the Japanese anime goods store Animate and anime cafe Doko Koko opened in late November, people were waiting to get in. In addition, many anime goods stalls have been set up near the central plaza where the giant Doraemon is. It's a way to attract anime fans and cosplayers from all over KL. On the 15th, Sunday, a local cosplay singer (not sure if she's famous) performed on the stage near Doraemon, attracting a large audience.    Local performer at center stage ne...

    Visit to Kuching, Sarawak capital city             Old city area of Kuching Last week I went to Kuching in Sarawak (3 nights). A while ago I wrote a blog in Japanese about the Sarawak long-term visa (S-MM2H) and it became a popular post, so I thought I'd write about whether it's a good place to live (for foreigners like Japanese people). Old city area fits for sightseeing The basic characteristic of the city of Kuching is similar to Penang (Georgetown) and Melaka. The old town with its historical buildings and the new town that expanded independently. Even though it has become quite a city, there is almost no public transportation and you have to rely on Grab to get around. It's easy to get around for historical sightseeing because the famous places are clustered together. Around the S-shaped bridge (Darul Hana Bridge) over the Sarawak River, there are the remains of the white king Brooke's family, museums, and the old Chinatown (similar to C...

  Behaviors of Japanese People in KL Recently, a Japanese ramen shop opened in my neighborhood. I tried it out on a Friday evening a week ago. It was tonkotsu ramen, and they had many options with subtle flavors, but I didn't want to bother, so I had regular tonkotsu ramen and three gyoza. It wasn't particularly tasty, and the price was about the same as IPPUDO, a famous tonkotsu ramen shop in KL. (Actually, there is an IPPUDO at three level above in the same building.) I don't think I'll be frequenting that shop again. Looking around the seats, I saw a lot of Japanese people. There was a group of older men among a few groups of young people and couples. (Although they were older men, they were probably younger than me.) They were drinking beer and talking loudly. This kind of scene is rare in this country, so they stood out a lot. I thought they were noisy, but at the same time, I remembered that I had been in a similar situation at a bar in Shinbashi, Tokyo, just a we...

  I returned to Japan from October 20th to 25th. On this trip to Japan, I flew from KUL before 2AM to KIX (Kansai) after 9AM, and returned from HND (Haneda) at 11PM to KUL at 6AM. I used AirAsia night flights for both the outbound and return flights. Since I was sleeping most of the time on the plane anyway, it was convenient to have the whole daytime available after arriving. Something strange happened on the return flight. At Haneda, or any other Japanese airport, you are required to check in at the counter again even if you have already checked in online (because they only handle paper tickets, I don't know if it's a system or legal issue). I had no choice but to check in at the counter around 8PM, but at that time, the AirAsia flight I was planning to take announced a two-hour delay (according to the monitor display and the explanation from the counter staff). I heard a group of three Japanese women talking nearby. "It was a blessing in disguise that they delayed it by...

  Recently, a local okonomiyaki restaurant changed the menu they had out front. Something like ‘shogayaki-teishoku’ or a ginger pork set meal, costs 20 ringgits. I went there once when it first opened. I paid 80 ringgits for an okonomiyaki set meal and two glasses of beer. The taste wasn't bad, but okonomiyaki isn't high-end food to begin with. The chawanmushi that comes with the set meal is unnecessary. Whenever I saw them, they didn't have many customers, so I thought they might close soon, but by changing the menu, they might be able to survive a little longer. On the same street, there was also a tempura restaurant that closed after a few months. I forgot how much it cost, but it was expensive, which meant they didn't charge that much for tempura. I never went there. On the other hand, there is an izakaya-style restaurant that is doing surprisingly well. It started out with seafood bowls and yakitori as its main dishes. You can buy beer and sake from a vending machi...

  Easy Trip Abroad: Johor Bahru to Singapore      Queens Street Bus Terminal in Singapore On Friday, September 12th, I took a day trip from Johor Bahru (JB) to Singapore by land. On the way there, I followed the line of people doing the same thing. It was around 9am on a Friday morning, but there were quite a lot of people. Hundreds of people? After passing through immigration at the CIQ facility connected to JB Sentral Station, I lined up and got on the bus. I paid for the bus fare with a debit card when I got on. The bus crossed the bridge between JB and Singapore. It took a few minutes. I got off the bus and went through immigration for Singapore. I had a little trouble with the online entry card to Singapore. After selecting Land and Bus from the options, what should I fill in the "Vehicle Number" (required)? I asked the attendant, and he wrote "BUS" for me. (This is probably the flight number field for air travel, but I wish they would make it a system where yo...

On Sunday, August 18, I went to the live music venue Zepp KL for the first time. I hadn't planned to go. On Friday, I was shopping at LaLaport BBCC and was about to leave when I saw three young women wearing the same clothes handing out flyers. The flier I received was for tickets to KLP48's debut concert. KLP means Kuala Lumpur. KLP48 is the newest team from AKB48 Group. It seemed like the members of KLP48 were handing them out themselves. There were still tickets left unsold on Friday evening... I felt bad for the venue being empty, so I decided to go. It's in my neighborhood after all. I got the cheaper of the two types of seats (at the back), and the ticket price was about 10,000 yen.     AKB48 Group Live in KL 2024 The show started at 4pm on Sunday. About 70% of the seats (or rather, the entire space, since it was all standing room only) were filled, so I guess there was nothing to worry about. Although it was the KL team's debut performance, it was a show called A...

  When I'm smoking, the people who talk to me are the weirdos. By Ben Wada, July 4, 2024 Last weekend, I was smoking somewhere in Bukit Bintang when an old man dressed as a Buddhist monk approached me. He was probably in his 60s and bald, but it didn't look like he'd shaved his head, it just seemed natural. He was wearing a yellow robe-like garment, but when I looked at his feet, I saw that he was wearing ASICS running shoes. He looked like an ordinary Chinese old man. The old man dressed as a monk pushed a gold, oval-shaped charm-like thing (with a picture of Buddha in the middle) into my hand and said, "This is your lucky piece. Take it." He then tried to put a rosary on my wrist. I could tell he was trying to sell me these things. I handed him the charm-like thing and said, "I'm a Buddhist, and I have what I need." Old man: "This is different." Me: "No, I don't need it." The old man gave up and went to talk to someone else....

Five Girls of AKB48 Performs at LaLaport BBCC, KL By Ben Wada on May 19, 2024 As I wrote in the article about the Sakura Festival at LaLaport BBCC, Kuala Lumpur, five members of AKB48, a popular Japanese performer-group, have come. The five performers are Ayane Takahashi, Serika Nagano, Haruna Hashimoto, Orin Muto, and Hinano Kubo . They sang some of their songs at the outdoor stage in the large shopping mall on Saturday, 18th, and Sunday, 19th. I saw it live on Saturday night. Some hundreds of people were there despite the heat.        The girls also held a talk show on Sunday. Some Japanese ardent fans were there, in the costume indicating to support the specific person of  AKB48.              

Water Leak in Shower Room Slow and Useless Administration Office 　 By Ben Wada, May 12, 2024 Shower became useless On April 16 One day I found the shower was useless. The water was very weak.  It was for washing your feet with your clothes on. And the second discovery: the stain of leakage on the ceiling of the shower room.    Stain of leakage on April 14 I contacted the realtor, the agent of the room owner,  to tell the situation. The realtor lodged the complaint about the leakage to the administration office of the condominium. The condo is a high-class one in KL. So I first expected a quick solution. But a comedy began. On April 16, the administration office lady, with two plumber guys, visited my room. Opening the middle of the shower-toilet room, they looked into the backside of the ceiling. They said it might be a leakage from the upper floor room. And they went to see the room, leaving the shower problem as it was. Second usel...