Angry Thoughts (14/3/18)

Warning: foul language ahead.

1) It effing takes me 45 minutes to drive to HKL from Bandar Baru Sentul. The same distance that only takes me 25 minutes of walking. I can’t stand it!  It’s so frustrating when your plans are spoiled because of traffic. This is one reason why after more than 1 year of transfer here, I’ve only properly driven the car and parked it less than 10 times. I don't know how you commuters get through the daily grind but I just can't, as I'm just chronically fatigued as it is. Don’t tell me to just not drive in that case; I had no choice but to drive for the past few days.

2) I don't get us stupid Malaysians. We need a sign to tell people to not pee at the ablution areas of prayer rooms. We throw away diapers full of shit right next to benches near prayer rooms. We shit on the floor and walls of public toilets. We die if we don’t leave our piss on toilet rims. We have no right to demand anything out of our politicians if we ourselves are not accountable at all towards others.

People will pee here

3) Have slinkies gone extinct from the face of the earth? Yesterday we tried to search for one and couldn’t find any. This is the most pressing issue of all: an angry child is a biopsychosocial-spiritual hazard (I’m currently in the chronic pain rotation).

Since we no longer know how slinkies look like..

4) Stephen Hawking just died. The intellectual community just lost someone important. He may have been crippled but his will was stronger than most. He will be missed.

5) I find it ridiculous that any shop in a relatively low volume mall with only 25% of its seats occupied could have something as bland as bread (let alone spring rolls) run out. Where’s the inventory management?

oBike

I was up for some thrill-seeking behavior  yesterday, so I decided to try out the oBike  service. I’ve seen the bikes strewn out all over KL, but I didn’t want to try it out with full-blown KL traffic or with a recent rain.

In my quest to become healthy, wealthy, and wise (and failing miserably), I’m always looking for ways to increase my NEAT in an efficient manner. So I try to climb up the stairs and use public transport whenever possible. 

With me working in the PICU the past month,  it has become more convenient for me to simply walk to Quill City Mall from the hospital, go to the gym, and then go back. My usual option of going back home would be to take the monorail  followed by the LRT.  But efficiency is also important for me; I heard that cycling is faster than walking and riding the trains. As my gym session finished at 10:30 pm with no preceding rain, I felt that this was a reasonable opportunity to try out the service as the heavy KL traffic would be much lighter (but I’ll talk more about this). 

On the way to the gym earlier, I did see a bike  available near the Quill City Mall entrance. So when I left the mall, I went back to the place where I saw the bike earlier.  I then opened up the app:

So I opened up the app, and that’s the first alert to come up. I’ll talk more about these designated parking zones later. 

The app then displays locations of potential bikes and how to get there if you want to use/reserve it. 

Parking  areas are also displayed .

You may choose to go directly to an available bike, or reserve one instead; you’ll have 10 minutes to reach the bike and unlock it for your use. 

Once you choose to unlock a bike, you will need to scan the QR code of the bike (present at the handle or the mud guard) to finally unlock the bike. 

QR code at the handle. 

Bike locked. After a few seconds..

...Bike unlocked. You can adjust the seat height but not much else. It is a single gear bike, at a relatively low gear (I’m guessing only 3rd gear). It is relatively at a better gear when going slightly uphill (for those who are not semipro cyclists), but definitely makes it a struggle when trying to cycle really fast alongside motorcycles and cars along Jalan Tun Razak and Jalan Pahang.

Once the ride is over, you press the “End Now” button and ride ends. 

When you end the ride, the app will lock the bike (via Bluetooth) and calculate the charges (I presume partially retroactively). 

On the oBike map this area (near the Sentul Timur LRT station) is not marked as a designated parking area, but why not? 

For the past 2 weeks I’ve used the bike to either go homefrom Quill City Mall (where I lift) or from the hospital. From Quill City Mall, the ride time is about 30 minutes, taking me through Kampung Baru, Jalan Tun Razak, Bulatan Pahang, then finally Bandar Baru Sentul. This is relatively comparable to the travel time by Medan Tuanku Monorail station to Sentul Timur LRT, or walking a few more minutes then take the LRT from the Sultan Ismail station; both take around 30-40 minutes. 

So how do I find it?

Pros: 

1) My usual travel fare is cut from RM 3.20 (I think) to 50 cents. Any form of savings is okay depending on your point of view.

2) It definitely increases my NEAT. With this, cardio is naturally incorporated. 

3) The service is available 24/7. Even when there are no more trains. This especially important as I like to go to the gym as late as possible (when the gym is as empty as possible). 

Cons: 

1) With the route I travel, biking during the safest times are paramount. It’s safe only if the traffic is light (midnight) or unusually very heavy (usually from nighttime construction work with the MRT); during other traffic conditions, you are at the mercy of the other motorists whizzing beside you.  The single gear is a real disadvantage when entering Jalan Tun Razak and further on as it’s really difficult to speed up.

2) There are too few designated parking areas (and you’re penalized if you don’t park in one). This is especially true near my apartment; there are none, not even near the LRT station which has dedicated bicycle parking areas. But the service is too cheap to make the penalties hurt anyway.

3) We Malaysians are just pricks; too many of the bikes have been vandalized. I see the service heavily used near the construction areas (where I presume mainly foreigners use them to get around). If you’re not keen on using the service, leave the bikes alone!

Overall, I think I will be using this service whenever it is available. Cycling as a different stimulus makes my thighs hurt (I do have a 34 BMI) in a way that deadlifts and squats never have...  

Christmas Travel

I went back to Melaka by bus on Friday, which became a 2 1/2 hour journey due to the typical Malaysian holiday jam. 

I made a mistake by not buying the return ticket the next day; there were predictably no evening tickets left for Monday.

So a decision was made to ride the Komuter from Tampin. The last train would be at 7.50 pm.

We almost made a mistake by departing from Padang Temu at only 6.40 pm. It would have been a lose-lose situation whether going via the PLUS highway (jam from every one leaving Melaka) or AMJ (the dreaded 100 traffic lights). We got there just in time via AMJ, and the Komuter ride took 100 minutes to Bandar Tasik Selatan (the train doesn’t go straight to Sentul). Not bad considering that the jam back to KL began even all the way from Pedas/Linggi. The only horrible thing is that it takes an hour just to reach the station.

Written on generic 80 gsm paper with Faber Castell e-motion (Pure Black), Diamine Blaze Orange.

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