Long time between posts. Soooo busy... But here's a quick round-up of the bits of the last couple of weeks that weren't work:

When you know you're going to see a Belgian movie set in Japan, then what you need are Belgian waffles made with Japanese ingredients and served with green tea ice-cream. Which is what we had at Madame Waffle at Midvalley. Nice enough, although not nearly such good value, we felt, as our Pudu waffles.

Tokyo Fiancee was something of a disappointment. Belgian woman, born in Japan, but mostly raised in Belgium, returns to Japan with the aim of becoming "une vraie Japonaise". She meets Rinri, a Japanese with a fetish for France. They fall in love with each other's aura of foreignness, and eventually it all ends in separation.

There are some amusing moments, and Japan is, as always, very photogenic. But, although the movie sends up stereotypes, it never quite rises above them itself.

We are used to censorship at these European film festivals. Sex scenes, naked bodies, sometimes even kissing -- all get the cardboard treatment (ie, a card over the lens). It always amuses us that the sound continues. You have no doubt whatsoever as to what is happening...

Anyway, in this case, it was clearly an amateur censor at work. You could imagine his internal monologue: "OK. Look sharp. Bit of nudity coming up. Get the card over the lens. Oops, I've covered the subtitles. Never mind. This bit of dialogue probably isn't too important. Are we done yet? Just slide the card along to see. Yep. We're good. Oh, no, there's a breast again. Quick, quick -- put the card back, put the card back! Dammit, I've covered the subtitles again. Slide the card up, slide the card up. Oops, too far." Etc.

We've enjoyed a couple of MPO concerts in the period since the last diary entry. Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite, Saint-Saens's Piano Concerto No. 5, and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 6 made up the programme for one. The other consisted of couple of pieces by Richard Strauss (the Serenade for Winds and Horn Concerto No. 2, written sixty years apart) and Beethoven's wonderful Eroica Symphony.

We continue to savour Thursday breakfasts in Bukit Bintang. The Bintang Warisan hotel does nice Malaysian items. And we've found another great chapatti place, further down Jalan Bukit Bintang. Paradise. That's just the name. But the chapattis are pretty celestial.

And last weekend we had dinner in a Sri Lankan home in the neighbouring tower of our condo. Delicious home-cooked food. And lots of travellers' tales (our hosts lived for a while in Dubai, and our fellow-guests were Catalonians hoping to migrate to Canada).

All good. But I would like this terribly-busy-ness to abate at least slightly...