Brussels and Kuala Lumpur
By Mike McCaffrey
To me, Brussels was one of those posts that just sort of came and went. An older European city. Kind of struck us as always being gray, and that seemed to carry over to the people we met: quiet to the point of almost being invisible (just an opinion). I used to catch the tram to work daily, and this is what I saw EVERY day on the Tram … never laughter … never anything …
Brussels did have the Grand Place (and those GREAT chocolates!), however, and it was pretty spectacular to see . . .
The above is just MY personal opinion, OK? Others might have totally different opinions of Brussels.
KL was certainly “different.” Lush … tropical … off the beaten path. We lived on the bottom floor of a place that belonged to one of the Princes of the realm there. These folks were enormously wealthy/powerful. That building had six units; two were occupied by Embassy folks.
To the bottom right was a covered carport. And yes, we had a pool and outdoor lawn furniture at our disposal. Kind of snazzy, eh? I recall one Italian family making full use of the pool, many times at night. Then, one very rainy day, I just happened to glance out the balcony door and … AND …
GADZOOKS! HUGE MONITOR LIZARDS!!! Turns out all the locals knew those things lived UNDER the pool! They’d usually make an appearance at night … but the Italians luckily missed them (they didn’t go back into that pool … never!). Malaysia had a mixed population: Malays, Indians, and Chinese. The Malays had the guns; they controlled. The Indians had a festival coming up: DUWALI. They offered up meats to their gods. One day, a posse of Indians came to visit the pool, all bearing hatchets and swords. They knew about the lizards under the pool and flushed them out. Hack … hack … no more lizards from that point … the Italians were happy.
That was the SUV I brought with us to KL, a brand new Ford Explorer. One morning, it was my turn to get into the office and open it up for the day. I opened that gate to the left and: BEES … zillions of BEES! They totally covered that wall next to the SUV! What to do? I HAD to get into the office, but had thoughts of what those critters could do to me!!! So I gingerly … VERY gingerly tiptoed out, trying not to look at them, and managed to get into the vehicle and head to the Embassy. My wife told me that the bees started taking off at first light and that flocks of birds of all sizes feasted mightily on that swarm as they took flight. The Indians feasted … the birds feasted … just that kind of place, I guess.
A local organization put on a yearly festival at a large stadium nearby. They knew there was a large Japanese population in the city and asked them if they would like to participate in the ceremonies that year. My wife somehow got involved and offered to teach a bunch of Japanese ladies a traditional Japanese dance for the festival. I returned home from work one day to see this in our backyard (minus the lizards):
The festival was very impressive, and the Japanese ladies gave a great performance. A guy who was stationed there with Panasonic caught my wife during the performance …
Well, I’ve had my two lattes to this point, and time to move along. Wishing all a great day . . .