Christmas Eve

There was initial frustration this morning after learning that the British High Commission was closed today as well as Christmas day and Boxing day, meaning it could be January 10th before I could leave Malaysia. However, I spoke to the duty officer who promised to speed up the process as much as possible after telling me I was the most polite and logical person ever to phone him up. This flattery and potential rare reward for civility lifted my spirits.

After moving to the posh Swiss Garden hotel for Christmas, we spent the day looking around the Golden Triangle section of KL. There are about five massive shopping plazas in this area and therefore probably the wrong place to visit with a female.

Christmas in the UK seems to get more commercialised and less religious all the time, but in comparison to KL, it seems positively orthodox. Of course there's no reason why it should be taken seriously in a Muslim country and it is quite amusing to find the closest familiar yuletide representation to be an array of santa hats, jostling with the devil horns and theatre masks that are also in evidence. Add into the mix a serious amount of spray foam and the street party that unfolds through out the evening becomes quite a spectacle. It's quite endearing the way that the Malaysians enter into the (unorthodox) spirit of things and even teenagers are content to join in the fun. At the beginning of the evening you were a legitimate target for a spraying if you had a spray can in your hand, this soon progressed to anyone wearing a Santa hat, but of course as midnight approached, anyone and everyone was included in the melee.