Tuesday, November 21, 2006

TAPDANCING IN BANGSAR

One of my shortcomings is that I have a penchant for (what I presume to be) spiffy titles like this one. They just pop into my head and don't leave me peacefully until I've used them.

Anyway, if you live around here, it's common knowledge that Bangsar is synonymous with cool happenings, shopping, a wide variety of food and dancing (or clubbing, as most of the people know it)

It is something of a curiousity, but I have a feeling that regardless of whatever other forms of dance that may be present, tapdancing may not be one of them. As I said, I'm going by gut feeling, so if there is tapdancing going on in Bangsar, then I'm afraid I have to eat my shoe.

(PS: I think they should have the Riverdance performance here; it's awesome)

But I digress...

This is a story about me, Bangsar and shoes.

One of the few attractions of Bangsar is the food, especially since it has a myriad of restaurants
serving banana leaf cuisine. I'm not particularly a fan, because when it comes to banana leaf food, my grandma makes killer dishes (minus the leaf, that is). So obviously I prefer eating what she cooks.

To those who are unfamiliar with the term, banana leaf cuisine means Indian food (usually south Indian) that includes rice, curries (chicken, mutton) and vegetables served on a banana leaf instead of a plate. This apparently gives the food an appetising aroma and enhances the flavours.

However, when the gang meets up in Bangsar for lunch, banana leaf cuisine somehow always manages to sneak into the picture.

We did the Saturday afternoon in Bangsar thing twice this year. Living about some 40 minutes away, I usually take a train and get picked up by one of the friends at the LRT station.

As always, I'm the kind of person who prefers shoes to open toed heels - very dangerous footwear, I should add. That is open toed heels, not shoes.

I wore a pair I bought a few years ago. At the train station in Bangsar, my left foot felt funny... the sole was slipping of the shoe. This was followed closely by the right foot. I was horrified, as I can hop on 1 foot, but if both shoes were unusable, then I might as well be dead.

Nevertheless, I didn't die, but both my shoes gave way in the end. There I was in the middle of Bangsar town, dragging my feet on the sole of what was formerly my shoes while holding the top of the shoes in my hands as I didn't want to litter. And all those people looking at my bare feet. The vulnerability I felt at that moment is beyond words!

My friends fetched me, and I ended up buying a pair of Reebok flip flops at Bangsar Village for an absurdly high price for flip flops - RM 45.00 which is about USD 12 (that was the cheapest available, and I had not much money, and I left my credit card and ATM card at home for safety reasons) I might add that normal flip flops are about RM 15.

The second time around, I went with shoes once again, this time though, I made sure that they were quite new (less than a year old), and things were just fine, or so I thought.

However, to my horror, the material that coats the shoe started peeling off to reveal the insides which were of a horrible colour. And with each step I took, I felt the heel coming off, and all other fears connected with having no shoes to walk with flashed through my mind.

I made it back safe this time, but barely so. Next time we have banana leaf at Bangsar, I'm going tapdancing! I don't care how...

7 comments:

  1. woah -ho, you seem to havereally bad luck with shoes. Personally my shoes aren't in much better condition but thats because i dont really like buying new ones once the old ones are torn.

    Wrt the bnanana leaf, here in south india, i avoid using banana leaf, mainly since we indians aren't believers in hygine, so you don't know what extra 'flavouring' you are going to get with your food via the leaf!

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  2. Are the streets of Bangsar made of acid, that they keep eating your shoes?

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  3. Terra Shield,
    I think that you have no choice but to start springing for more expensive shoes;-) I once went to a cocktail party at an ambassador's house and my heel of my stiletto broke as I walked through the front door. I gave the heel to the guard to hold for me and then pretended that I had two high heels for the rest of the evening, which of course was completely ridiculous.

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  4. kartik: bad luck is what it is... I would have used the shoes once or twice and they're fine... then when I end up in this particular place, the shoes let me down. :(

    aunty: the streets of bangsar are just fine... It's just my luck

    princess: ok... Will do it soon

    maryam: I'm not sure if the price of the shoes could be a factor or not, in fact I'm quite sure that the first pair was pricey as it lasted so long. Too bad it chose Bangsar as it's burial site

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  5. Bangsar used to be the cool spot for hanging out with your friends ... but things have definitely changed since then, haven't they?

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  6. Pugly: We still hang out there at times because there are some banana leaf fanatics among the friends, other than that there's nothing really much to do.

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