Bailar!

Its KL Tango Festival time.

The festivities have been going on for about a week now and after catching the last leg of a milonga whilst I was in Argentina, was excited to try and catch it while it was going on in KL. The Spaniard and I headed over to the Raintree Club located behind Great Eastern Mall after being ditched by five other friends. Luckily two more decided to join us for the night. I thought it was going to be a more chilled out atmosphere with differing levels of technique... but I was wrong.

I think there were a lot of people there who were from some kind of Tango club. They all seemed to know each other, and more importantly they all seemed to know exactly what to do. All those ballroom classes were pretty useless last night as Spaniard and I recollected the lessons from a trusty beginner's youtube clip.

At about 10:30 p.m. we were entertained by a few different performances, from dancers from Middle East, Jakarta, and Argentina. Fancy footworks abound, and then it was back to milonga for all.

Really enjoyed watching everyone there. The Tango is really beautiful. I love the restrained passion, that soft touch that can convey so much. Each couples own tempo, each couple in their own world.

There's one last milonga tomorrow if anyone is interested. Check it out here

KL Tango Festival 2011

The Energizer Night Run

For those of you who dont know, The Night Run drew some flack from a bunch of people and I thought I would jump in to help clear the air on some things that went down. It started off like any other run, I got to Sepang's F1 track with my parents (since my friends bailed on me) and found the parking to be ok - guided and aplenty. Though Malaysians being Malaysians we all wanted to park on the road right next to the entrance.

My mother and I walked around and had difficulty locating the damn starting line. There werent very clear signs for this and we had to walk through a tunnel to get to the other side. As we were exiting the tunnel we saw where there had been a bunch of boxes giving out headlights to the runners. I had received one last year and to be honest was not really bothered by the fact that I didnt get one, though a bunch of people were quite irate about it.

Entrance to the starting line was quite packed, but I just held back and waited for the crowd to leave first. It was really pretty running on the track. As you turned a corner you could see waves of red and white lights just moving by. It really did make me smile and think... life is pretty amazing sometimes.

There wasnt a clock located at the starting line, so not only did u not get a chip to measure your time (last year everyone got one) you also had to use your own watch to gauge what time and how long its been. There were supposed to be two water and medical stations on the track, but there was only one and it was located towards the end of the track, so I personally didnt end up drinking until I ran the second round, which meant that I didnt drink until km 9 or so. Not treacherous but if you think about the half and full marathoners not being able to drink inside the track until they were close to the end, you would understand how bad this would be. We were also lucky enough that no one was really hurt or died like in the Std Chartered marathon last year. But we should really do something before anything like that happens again.

(See that pretty wave of lights at the back? pretty spectacular)

At the end of the race there was a lot of confusion. Again, Im not really arsed about the medal or the goodie bag so I just ended up heading home right after I completed. But a lot of people ended up queing for ~1km or so just to be told there werent enough medals or goodie bags. For those who finished the half and the full, there really is no reason why they shouldnt have this acknowledgement. The emcee was also atrocious, yelling out that people were supposed to line up "here". Dear lady, nobody knows where u are and nobody knows where you are referring to, so could you please be professional about it???

It really did seem like Energizer and their event management company Expose were cutting corners on the race which I think was truly not appreciated by people who had trained and came out to run. In return Energizer has agreed to refund all the runners the entrance fee (btw, ~11,000 people ran the race. 5,000 in the 11km category alone) so thats quite a lot.

Well Energizer, you guys did a good job last year, so I really hope things work out better next year. For now, lets get ready for the Standard Chartered half marathon! and hope that their race is also better managed this year

The women's version of the Superbowl

I am quite excited for April 29th. Some call it the event of the year, some the event of the century. For me, I havent followed one as big in a long time, and its a great reason to bring together my girlfriends for....

Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding! or as I like to refer to it, the women's version of the superbowl.

To commemorate this historic moment, I thought it would be fun to invite a small group of ladies for some nibbles and drinks to watch the (what is touted to be) 8! hours of live footage of the wedding. For those of you in Malaysia, it should start at ~6:00 p.m. or so and is being broadcasted live on BBC, E! (Im not sure if this would be live) as well as TLC or Li (Needs to be confirmed).

As its a ladies only gathering, I thought it would be fun to play out our childhood dreams and so...

Tiara's! for all my princesses

Cupcakes!

Drinks and other nibbles... as well as suggested by E! some inspired music a.k.a. Abba's Dancing Queen.

Since its a small gathering of ~4 ladies, I wasnt going to go all out in decorating the house or whatnot, but I am opening a pool on who can guess which designer she will wear.

Enjoy!!!

***

and for others, to note: tomorrow (Sat) evening is the Energizer Night Run which will take place on Sepang's Formula 1 track. My bib currently has my name on it, but I have to be honest and tell you its pretty tempting to type over it "Schumacher"

After an insane Friday evening of Futsal followed by an awesome night dancing away at Rootz I could barely move come Saturday... and so spent Saturday slipping in and out of sleep and a quite Sunday at a new brunch place : Antipodean in Bangsar, a super expat hangout with child friendly features (a whole corner dedicated to childrens play things and cartoon DVDs) and really tiny space in between. I felt like I was crammed in a can when I could barely slip into my seat (I am a size 2 (or 4) incidentally) followed by an evening of fashion magazines and books Happy F1 weekend!

Painting days

I thought I would share a little bit of what has been keeping me occupied for the last few days

I was walking around the mall (even though Im supposed to avoid shopping) and found a whole Paint-it-yourself section in the children's department at Parksons (you can also find it at the children's dept at Isetan) In a bid to actually save some money and keep myself distracted for a few days I decided to get one (plus Ive always secretly wanted to paint). I chose a 'complicated' Venetian scene for my debut masterpiece - a depiction shown on the bottom right of the box.

Each pack comes with a canvas which has been drafted out and clearly marked with numbers, as well as paintboxes neatly arranged by number.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to fill in the spots marked on the canvas with its corresponding color. A highly addictive activity if I do say so myself. Once I started, I really couldnt stop.

All through the night...

And day...

and the final result....

Ta-da! What a wonderful masterpiece no? You dont even have to tell anyone that it was paint by numbers! Im going to head back to get me another painting, this time I shall transport myself to Santorini.

Great activity if you want to keep yourself occupied indoors. If not, you should head out to Sepang for the Formula 1 weekend, or to KLCC for the Twin Towers Live 2011 celebration of F1. Maybe Ill get my painting soon since they're closing the roads near my house (P.Ramlee and Ampang) to make way for the party go-ers

Paint-it-yourself kits are not just for children, though can be found at the children's department in Isetan and Parkson. Each kit comes with a marked canvas, corresponding color paintboxes as well as brushes. A set like mine costs RM99.90 (RM89.90 after discount), though there are other sizes as well