On Sunday the boys (Henry Golding, David Barton-Grimley and Khalid Hilaby) and I decided to venture out of KL for a little rest and relaxation. Thanks to Omar (and Mariq and Effa), we found our way to the waterfalls at Sungai Dua, off the Karak highway. It was actually supposed to be a post birthday celebration for Chuong, but then birthday boy didn’t show up so we had all the fun for him (Happy Birthday Chuong)!

I shamefully admit that this is the first time I’ve been to such a pretty waterfall. Not that I’ve only been to ugly falls, but they’ve all been small and trickly rather than big and gushing. There is something rather magical about falls. Especially when you finally manage to claw your way to the back of one. It is a mixture of silence and noise. To one side the stillness of the ‘cave’ and on the other side the sound of water beating down on the rocks.

We spent the better half of the day just monkeying around, jumping off branches into the water, swinging from ropes and trying to get under the falls. It isn’t easy business because the water was pounding down furiously almost mockingly!

Anyway, here are some tips on surviving the falls (from your professional fall surviver – moi – of course):

• Wear the right gear. Take a tip from Dave who wore his sneakers. We had to walk across a small body of water and Dave thought the best course of action is to just walk through with his sneakers only, which equals to soaked sneakers.
• Bring a towel. Or two. You will need to dry yourself off and nobody likes sharing towels!
• Bring a mat. We forgot to bring one, and had to make do with the rocks around us. It wasn’t horrible but it would’ve been awesome to have a mat to lie on to relax and catch some rays.
• Sunblock. The boys were well and truly burnt by the end of the day! The thing about the falls is that you can’t tell when the sun is working its magic cause it’s so nice and cooling there. But rest assured that you will get burnt, so best to be prepared.
• You don’t need that much food! So we learnt. We brought enough food to feed… a lot of people. Didn’t even manage to make a sizable dent in our ration. So just bring easy to make food (Khalid’s bread and turkey ham slices was a big hit, mainly because it was so easy to put together) and lots of water.
• Be prepared to get wet. It’s a waterfall. Full of water. At some point you will get wet. Wear your swimmers underneath and don’t worry about your hair.
• Pick up after yourself. When we finally made it to the back of the falls, we found empty bottles of Coke! Seriously, it won’t kill you to just throw everything into a bag and carry it out with you. It take about a minute but the effect is priceless.
• Have as much fun as you possibly can! I felt like a child again. It’s been awhile since I was scrambling up rocks, jumping off branches and screaming at gushing water (don’t ask me why but, I was just standing there screaming at the water – happily of course). By the end of the day we felt exhausted but good.

My whole body is aching now but I’m loving it. The boys and I have decided to take a trip out of KL every month just to get away. It doesn’t have to be expensive or very far away. Sungai Dua took us about an hour to get to. Next month we’re going to try Kuala Kubu Baru. There’s Sungai Chenang there and I hear it’s got a real pretty waterfall.

Trala, la, la, la…

All the photos you see here are from Omar’s Flickr Photostream! You can find more photos from the trip there too!

Today while I was searching for an old email I came across an email from a friend that made me smile. That prompted me to go through some other older emails and lo and behold I came across some jewels. I always delete the bad emails (who needs to be reminded of those) and keep the sweet ones. So here are some of the emails that made me smile. They’re dated 2005. They’re from dear old friends and a past boyfriend. Each one is special to me for different reasons:

hi Kat,

back in KL la…have been for quite some time….good job on the telly my realisation is that the “formula” is great to know and sometimes the only thing that one can fall back on when everything gets crazy…but it is only thru the lense of experience that it is embodied…thats where i am at right now: experience…in what ever way it presents itself to me (and almost always not necessarly the way i expect it to be)

have fun on tv!

—————-

hey babe
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
didn’t think i’d forget did ya?

i just got back from chicago
my pic on the chicago reader!
here are some pics of my trip

—————-

Mi querida Hani,

Hi baby, after all those emails from you I cant wait to see you again and talk to you about your trip, it sounds like a lot of fun..yeah I love yachts now (yachts being after you of course).. KL got better now, its finally raining! too bad you are not here to watch the rain with me..well i guess getting burned on a yacht with occasional scuba dives into the crystal water of the sea, surrounded by colorful fishes and  beautiful corals and relaxing times in a Jacuzzi may be some what more indulging than staring at the rain..however i think if at this moment someone would offer me one or the other, I would choose to stare at the rain with you by my side.

What else have i done…its mostly college work, next week i have three presentations, so im working on it now and a paper due a week after that.

Yeah, I miss you and if you can please come into my dreams more often.

Take care baby and i miss you, muah, muah, muah.

———————-

Le sigh..

These bring back memories. Are there any old emails (since I don’t get letters anymore – except from Matthew who always sends me lovely postcards) that you could read that would make you feel better? Go ahead poke around, you might be surprised!

Good times~

Here are some pictures from the shoot I did last year for a telemovie called Taubah. Taubah means repent. Yes, I am the naughty, sex driven, beer guzzling vixen who finally realizes how wrong she is and repents, and marries an ex convict 20 years her senior (but is mightily pious) and lives happily in a village.

Haha! I keed I keed. The story line, while might make many roll their eyes, was actually not as bad as I initially thought it would be. It’s just a story of a girl who wants more from life rather than spend all her time boozing and having random sex. Plus in the telemovie I was meant to be sick – all that boozing had left me with a weak kidney. In a way I kind of relate. I had an experience like this a few years back when I used to party a lot (the wondering about how there must be more to life bit, not the move to the village and marry and ex convict bit).

My friends know that I’m not too keen on the booze in real life. I hardly drink – perhaps a nice glass of wine, the occasional beer, champagne (ah champagne.. yum!). And while I’m not against other people drinking, I do not like it when people can’t control their booze – especially when it relates to me.

I’ve had many instances when guys decide it’s confession time after consuming copious amounts of booze (I don’t mean a couple of beers, I mean can’t stand straight, form constructive sentences drunk). They happen to think it’s a good time to wonder out loud (drooling and smelling) why you won’t fuck them, why you don’t love them, why you won’t go out with them, what is wrong with them, how they thought that we had something between us. Uh.. NO! Bad drunk, bad drunk!

Or women who get soo drunk that they can’t stand (why is it that women get drunk, they instantly lose the ability to walk?), they flop onto the nearest guy, unconsciously puke all over them, make a complete arse of themselves, flash nasty knickers. NO! Ladies! Have some dignity!

Or men and women who get all emotional while drunk and one poor sod will have to babysit them the whole night, while listening to their emo ramblings. Or people who don’t realize or won’t admit they’re drunk and insist on driving, or how they never want to go home, or how they keep repeating things annoyingly. I mean COME ON! Tsk..

Anyway I digress. The telemoviee! The telemovie! FOCUS!

Yeah, it should be out.. uh.. this year? I’ll let ya know when it finally shows. Hopefully it’ll be online so I can watch it too, cause I don’t have a TV – well I do have a TV just no cable or nothing. I only watch the Internet. HAHA! Loser!

Ok ta..

So I’m going to New York tommorow.

I don’t think that anything else can be said after that..

I think I’ll go run around jumping in joy now.

Later..

I’ve made a t-shirt for Richard. It’s his birthday soon.

Sorry the picture is a little low quality. I don’t have a camera now and I took this using my camera phone. The t-shirt says (in the Malaysian language):

Matahari tidak tahu ianya bintang.

That means:

The sun does not know its a star.

It’s a saying Richard saw on a t-shirt in Japan (in English of course). It truly is a saying for Richard. He is the sun but he doesn’t realise that he is a star.

Actually, that goes for all of us!

It was quite simple to make really. I used these lovely fabric dye sticks called Fabric Fun by Pentel.

I was meant to use a light colored or white t-shirt so that the colors stood out, but too late I read the instructions! Still, I like the sedated colors, it gives the t-shirt some character.

These sticks are the easiest to use! And also really cheap. I bought them at Artfriend, Gardens (next to Borders) for about RM6.80.

1. Create a draft of the design you want to use. If you’ve got text, it’s best to use a computer and print out the text so it comes out neat and nice.
2. Put a piece of cardboard inside the t-shirt so that the color doesn’t leak through t-shirt.
3. Stretch the t-shirt. This is rather important. It’s really difficult to draw on if the t-shirt isn’t stretched. It’s not impossible, but makes things easy all around.
4. Put your design underneath the t-shirt (but on top of the cardboard) where you like it to appear on the front of the t-shirt. It is important that you can see the design. If not, you can make a stencil and cut out the design.  I printed my design out, but then my t-shirt color was too dark and I couldn’t see the design through it. So I had to freehand the whole thing.
5. Carefully trace the design using the dye sticks. And then you can color it in, or do whatever it is you want. Get creative!
6. When you’re done, cover the t-shirt (the design part) with paper and iron it – according to the correct temperature for the t-shirt fabric. And you’re done!

Easy peasy~

It is also wise to wash the t-shirt beforehand to get rid of any traces of dye, anti-static fluid or conditioner in it. This way the color will stay on the t-shirt.

I’ll be making another t-shirt for myself. I’ll post it up soon!