Johor Bahru through the backdoor

You will not believe who I meet this weekend!

She was beautiful, had fluffier hair than me and acted as she was a bit better than her sister and mother. No wonder since she just received prestigious awards like “The most adorable female 2012” and “The fluffiest fur (long hair category)” from the Malaysian Cat Club.

Let me rewind 20 hours or so. Friday afternoon I was feeling slightly depressed since everyone I know had left the country due to the up coming Chinese New Year (which for us means no school Monday and Tuesday). Instead of sitting in my cell to dorm room staring into the wall and listening to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra I decided to go and see my Malaysian friend who lives just across the border north from Singapore.

As I passed immigration a thought hit me; going alone might not be the smartest move on earth. I Simply let the thought pass and then walked through customs with a big smile on my face, determined to trust my instinct and excited for some adventure. I love how order turn to chaos and price is divided by 4 as soon as you walk over to the Malaysian side. I have so many stamps in my passport passing in and out now so they started asking questions about my “business” in Malaysia. Note to self: leave the peace signs at home and do not dress as a hippie to upset customs.

I lactose overdosed at Starbucks waiting… and then from no where a familiar face jumps up and down in the crowd screaming my name (his movement reminded me of a Bumbibjörn). We jumped into his friends car and drove towards some suburb of Johor Bahru I would not know the name of. I soon got introduced to so many fantastic people.

There were 7 people living in the apartment we arrived to. Everyone sat on the floor listening to Coldplay, having a sandwich and observing the cats.  So this is where I found them – the adorable fluffy cats. The mother Kittie and her two daughters Cookie and Hahaha. Hahaha was the one with all the awards.

 

It got dark, people came, people left. I felt surprisingly comfortable on that floor considering I was with strangers far away from my world in NUS. It might have been due to their overwhelming hospitality or the fact that they were all totally swag wearing beanies and t-shirt saying stuff like “First one in the gang to die” and “Take a walk on the wild side”. Some of them were working with calling Europe to find investors. They found Swedish people quite rude on the phone. I taught them how to say “Hej Allihopa” and “Slyna” – not sure if that will make the swedes to invest but we had a lot of fun.

 

Imranthedude

All of a sudden it was decided to go to a mall to buy shoes. Everyone wore vans. In the mall we bought more pairs of vans. Almost bought a pair myself. Pretty glad I did not. My neon phase in life was 2008-2009 – time to move on. But they were pretty damn cool, relapse?

I asked one of my best bros to come over and join me on the wild side of the continent, and fortunately he did. So we picked up Paras and went for live music in a bar/restaurant/Sheesha cafe (not sure how to define the place). There was a lot of very well dressed people there and the music was great. I felt like a nerd compared to all this swag Malay youths and also very blond, we saw no westerners all night. This fact was also observed by the band. One of the guys gave me a little speech in the end of the set saying something in style with “This is Sofie, she may not look like us but she is still human and enjoys good music. Please clap your hands for her”. Already feeling to nerdy for this hipp event I turned my redest due to all the attention and clapping (Paras was of course having a hilarious time watching my embarrassment).

 

Toilet door

We roamed the streets of JB, had dinner, meet the band, drank tea, cruised in the car and at some point we were about to head to a chalet an hour drive away (not sure what happend with that idea). At 3 pm we found ourself back on the floor in the apartment with Cookie, Hahaha and Kittie. People had more sandwich, I fell asleep to the sound of a violent action movie, Taken 2/3/4 maybe? How many are they? Remember thinking about destiny and coincidences and that I was happy I went to JB, to try their food , to visit their spots, to touch their cats and to see their world.

Thank you all and please be my guest in Singapore anytime!