27 March 2006

My first trip to Kuala Lumpur

Yes ... finally i have gone for my first 'business trip' and it was to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. I went on my own - no one from the office to accompany and make sure that I don't goof up. Luckily the pp that I went with knew that I was a complete idiot and did not expect much from me. haha. Yes ... you might be thinking KL? ... please!! But then this is the first time I have been to KL since .. since they had the twin towers. (I have seen it .. and it definitely looks nicer on pictures. The pollution does not do it any good.)

I got to stay in Bukit Bintang, which was THE shopping district. But all the talk about KL being a shopping paradise, I only bought 3 shirts and I had to find them in Isetan. They were cheap though .. after the sale. And also the thing is their dept store seems to have a better range of shirts than the Singapore ones.

Luckily the meeting went as planned and nothing big came up. Also I was able to leech off some free wireless and I was able to talk to pp back in the office .. so at least I have support. :)

I was not able to sample as much of the KL food as I wanted though - was only able to go to the Overseas and Hakka restuarants. Then the rest of the meals of at the hotel - yummm... breakfast buffet. I love free flow of egg omelette. *drool* I was however able to use the gym .. this is my attempt to assuage my guilt.

My next trip is probably coming up soon ... I wonder where I will be going. I might be Tokyo but I cannot confirm.

7 March 2006

Meaning of A-tas

Recently I just realise that a new word has appeared onto my radar. 'A-tas' ... i slowly realise that it means high-class (in a perjorative sense), as in "oh, that person is so a-tas, she doesn't even want to take the bus.' But the question is where did it come from? I only heard of this word last year from a classmate and she laughed when i said that i have never heard of it before. Now it seems to be everywhere - cognitive dissonance? Once i know of its exisitence, i notice it everywhere.

So where is the word 'a-tas' derived from? A malay word? *pause for 1 min* .. back from my fact-finding mission (aka google). atas IS a malay word - meaning 'above' which makes perfect sense now.

atas - malay for above, which is also Singaporean slang for high-class. How interesting!