I have stayed up to watch most of the games so far which broadcast at ridiculous times here in Australia (between 9pm and 6am) and then start work at 9am, so needless to say if it’s not the World Cup fever, it’s probably my immune system dying from sleep deprivation and giving way for the disgusting viral bacteria that is most probably spread through the dirty fumes that my smelly housemate produces. It’s not just the soccer that keeps my attention though. There is so much going on, for example the red cards, the background issues each team has, the new players making a name for themselves and the funny stuff in between.

Now I know not all of you have had the time to watch all the games like me or analyse the soccer to the extent that I go to so I’ve decided to provide you with the things that have entertained me about the soccer so far. This excludes the great class of soccer and the goals scored from star players (you can just watch that on the news or SBS). This is just the stupid stuff:

Counterfeit Players

The World Cup has star names, some of them you may know e.g. Messi, Tevez, Robinho, Ronaldo etc. They are infamous for their skill in the game of soccer and they have developed a brand. Just like all brands, however, there are counterfeits….

Player on the left is Beckham. Player on the right is his counterfeit. I’m assuming he was manufactured in Malaysia. His name is Beckmann.

On the left is Ronaldo. Star player for Portugal. You may know him as the retarded kid on the Castrol commercial. He says “futbawll teks mi meny plaaacccess”. Anyway, funnily enough his counterfeit is on the same team as him. On the right, meet Rolando. He is average and also probably made in Malaysia.

Funny Names:

With all the different nations coming together, it is inevitable that I would find some names funny. Here are some that made me giggle like a school girl:

Meet Oh Beom Seok. I wasn’t quite sure how to pronounce this but luckily the commentator mentioned his name once he got the ball. The correct way of pronouncing this name is (o-bum-sock).

This is Gaetan Bong. HAHA

And this is Emmanuel Kone… hehehe Bong and Kone…get it? Hehehe

Soccer Players in Showbiz

This is Georgios Samaras. According to some made up sources, Samaras has been chosen to play Jesus in Passion of the Christ 2.

There are rumors spreading that Dreamworks have convinced Sergio Ramos to play Monkey in their latest remake of the brilliant TV Show Monkey Magic. Jackie Chan will be producing.

Player of the tournament:

Runner Up: GERVINHO

Gervinho earns the spot of runner up for player of the tournament so far for his amazing hair style which manages to ride long yet cover none of his forehead. What a forehead… more like a fivehead.

And the Player of the tournament so far is!!!! …..

Vincent Enyeama – for taking a Jabulani ball to his balls and living to tell the story. Seriously though, he has done well for Nigeria as their goal keeper, putting his body on the line, and putting soccer before his future children on the priority list.

Things I’ve learned:

It is very expensive to get a haircut in South America. At least I assume this because of all the players with long girly hair:

Thank you to fifa.com for the profile shots of the players. Very amusing stuff.

Our trip started off with a 7 hour-ish flight to Kuala Lumpur from Brisbane International. The flight was great and we were looked after well by the flight attendants. Just remember that alcoholic beverages are free on international flights so ensure you build a great rapport with those that can hook you up with a few beer cans at once. By the end of the flight I was nicknamed ‘happy hour’ by the crew.

We were quite happy to hear we had arrived at Kuala Lumpur. The airport is great because there are signs everywhere. If you get lost in Kuala Lumpur airport then you’re probably one of those people who can’t follow recipes, ikea instructions, treasure maps etc. and should probably not travel alone.

The first thing I noticed about Australia (which Malaysia was lacking) is the warm welcomes and friendly conversations you get with airport staff. In Malaysia, the help desk lady looked as if she was mad at us for asking her a question…. I was a bit dumbfounded by the whole thing. The guy who let us into the country death stared us the whole time he was checking our passports and then waved us through the gates without saying a word. He thought he was a police officer or head of a Malaysian scooter gang or something. He also didn’t do his job right as he didn’t give us back our departure cards to keep. WHATADOUCHE.

Once out of the airport things were a bit better. We made our way to the city which is about 45 minutes away from the airport. Along the way, the drive is fairly scenic with various buildings which are worthy of snapshots:
This seems to be a stadium of some sort. Not sure what it is but it is very patriotic with the flags. I think it looks nice.

I find KOK MOTOR very reliable.

Then there was the Colosseum! It’s strange that they don’t put these on the KL brochures.

But let’s not forget the Petronas twin towers. The tallest twins in the world and what used to be the tallest building in the world before Taipei 101.

Finally we got to our hotel where I found out that Malaysia has no etiquette for queues, door opening or elevators. I have never been so agitated by people in my life. At one point we were waiting at the hotel counter and about to be served when a guy tried to stand in front of us and get served first. I had to physically grab the back of his collar and pull him backwards. He must have thought “how rude of me to do that” to which all I can say is “When in Rome, be an arsehole like everyone else (or something like that)”.

A trip to the China town markets totally made up for the rudeness. This place has stalls upon stalls of knock-off merchandise. Each stall varies but for the most part the quality of the gear is quite amazing. The knock-off Rolex watches are scratch proof and work on perpetual motion (no need for batteries). Needless to say we bought a few of these. They sell at roughly 100MYR which is around $30AU:

Issmeister just wanted to be involved. He has a poo legitimate Casio on.

I also bought lots of clothing. The Issmeister got into this bargaining battle with one stall and he ended up getting 2 Lacoste polos for 30MYR which is about $5AU a shirt. Usually the acceptable price is 2 for 40MYR. I bought lots of polos and many beer t-shirts. I also bought handbags for gift giving. Make sure you don’t get ripped off with a low quality bag. You can get high quality bags for about 110MYR but a lot of stalls try and sell the crap ones for about the same price. Go to a larger stall. They usually have both good and bad quality. Just ask for the good quality stuff which comes with a larger price tag.

I got really sick during our stay in Malaysia and spent quite a few days in the hotel room. I only recovered a few hours before the flight to the Maldives. I caught some kind of China town market flu which gave me instant fever. I was quite lucky as they would have caught me under the thermal cameras and sent me into quarantine if I was still sick at the airport; totally ruining my holiday. I was still able to do a little bit more shopping though….

This is the pavilion shopping centre. It is quite massive. The other massive shopping centre in Malaysia is the Mid Valley Megamall. Both are great places to shop but if you walk down the street on the right of the Pavilion there is a huge line of designer stores. It’s a yuppie street but quite impressive.

Speaking of impressive:

Yes! You are looking at a McDonald’s delivery scooter. Have you ever wanted a quarter pounder at midnight but couldn’t be bothered making your way over to Maccas? Of course you have! Australia really needs to get their act together and get some McDelivery Scooters!

Another thing that impressed me about McDonald’s in KL is the prices of their meals (note that the airport McDonald’s is more expensive). I bought a large spicy McChicken burger meal (which was 6/10 on the spice metre and rocked) for 9.60MYR which is about $3AU. They also sell Ribena and Milo on tap.

Our time in Malaysia was kind of at an end. We had another day in Malaysia after our time in Maldives and Sri Lanka on the way back home but we had pretty much done all the shopping we needed to already.

Oh… and this is pretty funny:

This is a street sign they have near BB shopping centre. It’s a packed street full of people trying to aggressively get you to enter their store or massage parlour. The sign warns of purse snatchers. We should get a bogan warning sign at the Logan Hyperdome.

Anyway…we packed our bags and headed to the Maldives for a very short overnight trip. The plan was to stay there for a few days but my mum wanted a bit more time with her family over in Sri Lanka, so we had to sacrifice beautiful weather and nice beaches for bad weather and smelly alleys.

We ended up having no records of our stay in the Maldives. We arrived in the beautiful Malé where I was as drunk as a fruit bat that found a barrel of fermenting fruit hooch and drank it all. We were drinking whenever we felt bored so the wait at the airport and the fact that this old school 1970s plane they put us on had no personal TVs made me drink my boredom away. The flight was roughly 4 hours and I could tell this plane was from the 70s because the fuselage smelt like old people and it had flamboyant wallpaper. I figured someone else would take photos but alas the rest of the group started feeling sick and started vomiting. All I remember is reading a ‘Welcome to Malé’ sign and that’s about it. Mum says it was beautiful and she doesn’t even like water so it really must have been a lovely place.

We then got on the plane and headed over to Sri Lanka.

1. Play with a gun

I was so sad that I couldn’t get to play with a gun. This was the major thing I wanted to do but no matter how much money I flashed I couldn’t get a gun to my hand. Apparently they would lose their job if they let me play with their piece but I think I just didn’t have the right connections because my cousins have been able to play with guns in the past. It may have been easier during the war I guess? This is as close as I got:

2. Chase a monkey

3. Play cricket with street kids

4. Ride an elephant

I bought this elephant for $40

5. Give a poor person lots of money

I was initially going to give one person a lot of money but ended up giving away a lot of money to various people that told me sob stories. They need the money more than me anyway. I took a photo just for the purpose of completing my ‘to do’ list of the money I gave to our driver.

15,000Rps is around $150. I thought it was a nice figure considering the fact that he gets paid that amount for a month of work. He was highly appreciative.

6. Slap a cow on the arse

I had a failed attempt at slapping cows on the arse but promise you I was able to slap a buffalo on the arse. It took off in the opposite direction and it was quite hilarious. The cows are so skinny over there compared to the Aussie cows here. P.S My hair is oily because I had just gotten some weird body massage where they tried to break me in half after rubbing oil everywhere and told me to keep it on for a few hours. WEIRD!

7. Wear a stupid cap everywhere

8. Find a giant guava

I was hoping I’d find a larger one. Last time I was in Malaysia I found a guava that was the size of a rock melon. It was ridiculous. This one doesn’t compare but is still larger than the usual. I guess it just wasn’t the right time for the giant, mutated, rock melon guava.

9. Get drunk with a non-english speaker

This is Dinesh, our driver. He doesn’t speak a word of English. Well I taught him how to say sperm but that’s about it. We got along like a house on fire. He would listen to what I had to say and just smile. I got him really drunk on pina coladas. It was the first time he’s ever had a cocktail and loved it.

10. Ride a scooter in a hotel hall

We bought electric scooters in Malaysia for about $100 and decided to charge them up in the hotel room then take it for a spin at night. That was kind of fun. I kept banging into hotel room doors.

11. Buy a single cigarette

This is my single cigarette! I bought it for 19Rps which is about 19 cents. You basically just walk into a food store and go… 1 cigarette please. They pull it out of a packet and give it to you…. huh!

I thought, wow cigarettes are so cheap. I should start smoking…Why don’t I smoke?

And then I started acting pompous with my single cigarette and realised… that’s why I don’t smoke.

12. Bribe a cop

I was worried about this challenge. I didn’t know how I could get this done without looking like a total idiot and having a valid reason to bribe a cop but the challenge dropped in my lap (so to speak).

Our driver was charged with overtaking dangerously – a fine of 500Rps which is $5AU (haha). Later, on inspection of the driver’s license, the police officer found that he was driving a heavy vehicle without a heavy vehicle license. The driver had to stop driving and make his way to the police station to pay the fine. I walked in with him as I was paying for the fine. The cop that actually booked him took the money. I gave him an extra 500Rps and asked if our same driver could drive us to the van depot so we could get another driver (even though we kept the same driver because he was cool). The cop said yeah… so I said … can I also take a photo? And he was fine with it…after all I paid for it hehe!

The police over there actually get a commission for handing out a certain amount of fines. They are happy to take bribes.

13. Challenge a local at pool

It was close. We ran out of time. He was really good! I won the first game, he won the second, I won the 3^rd but we really needed to play to the best of 5.

14. Drink out of a jug

The jug is made out of pure glass (not plastic). It’s heavy and could do a lot of damage across someone’s face.

15. Eat something I’ve never had before

In Malaysia I ate some deer chilli dish. Apparently deer meat is eaten often in New Zealand but I have never had it before so I was keen on trying some. It tasted great! I don’t know if it was just the way it was prepared or the meat itself but I smashed the plate of deer meat. Recommend++

16. Drive a trishaw/tuktuk

These are actually quite hard to drive. They have scooter like gears. You have to turn the handle down to drop gears and turn it back towards you to hit a lower gear.  The clutch is sensitive and I found myself holding it down and just revving the juice out of the lawn-mower-like engine.

This ‘to do’ list brought some great memories on a trip that came with natural adventure and challenges. Why not try make a ‘to do’ list on your next trip abroad? I’m sure you’ll find it just as fun as I did!