Well, we've managed slightly more over this week and a bit. Tedious end-of-semester things have lingered, like the un-dead, but there has started to be time to turn to other work, such as writing and language-learning. And we've been out and about a little more.

Ramadan continues, with decorations in the malls and colourful gift baskets in the supermarkets. Malay kites seem a popular motif this year, and (as with other major festivals) traditional interiors are prominent design features.





For two weekends running, we've walked into town. Last week we went back to Lai Foong for more of those excellent beef noodles, and then walked on to KLCC, via an adorable cat.





This week we went back to our favourite Petaling Street food court, and then walked, via Bukit Ceylon, to Pavilion, where I tried my first cold brew coffee. Pretty nice. This was a "Nitro" version (nitrogenated for extra smoothness, supposedly), so I guess I need to try one that's not, just for a comparison...

Our MPO treat this week involved Ravel's Mother Goose suite, Stravinsky's Petrushka, and Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, played by Nemanja Radulovic. We heard the concerto at the open rehearsal the day before, and it was fascinating to experience the soloist, conductor, and orchestra finessing the performance.

I have long memories of this piece of music. It was one of my small collection of vinyl, which I played on my not very epic second-hand stereo, and I remember coming home from gruelling teaching practices (flippety-flip years ago), and winding down with classical music such as this. I love the way the violin glides on like a ballerina, poised and elegant and ethereal.

The combination of an amazing performance, and a fairly unusual concert image (black leather trousers, knee-length lace-up boots, short black jacket, and black T-shirt) made him hugely popular with the Dewan Filharmonik audience. I've never seen an autograph queue of those dimensions. (Apologies for the picture quality. I insisted on keeping it, for the record, despite its fuzziness.)





In honour of Winter Sonata (which we're thoroughly enjoying), I tried Sopoong's dosirak (a 1970s-style Korean student's lunchbox). This version had rice, little eggy-sausage pieces, rice, seaweed, red chilli paste, and a fried egg (and came complete with turnip soup and the usual side-dishes, although presumably in reality it wouldn't have done).