My ears are made for music, not words. That is why family and close friends would agree just how stubborn I can be. I don't mind being stubborn. In fact, I enjoy being stubborn for the day I am not, one'd better call the police to report alien abduction. But I digress. 

My ears are made for music, not words. The only time I dislike this simple fact is when my ears are torn between music and the husband wanting to talk about something. You see, my ears are weird because when they're determined to listen to something, I can literally feel movements on my eardrums. No kidding!

So last evening we were in a taxi - caught in the infamous KLCC jam no less - and there was this song playing on one of the radio stations. English-speaking radio station but a Malay song. But I could understand why it was getting that 3-minute-plus airtime. If one ignores the words and just focuses on the female voice and how the instruments were played, it could easily be described as Indie-pop meets acoustic jazz. As for the voice, it is most likely someone from a non-Indie background, distinctive, calm and honey-smooth. If this was Malaysian, then Malaysians would have someone to be proud of.  

The song was simply beautiful. I had no idea who sang what. My ears were piqued (read: eardrums!). But JL started talking to me about the real problem with Malaysian traffic. 

Well we had a great laugh with K and W over half-racks of barbecued pork ribs each and drinks, with stories about kids' schooling, marriage, maids (hot topics in Malaysia and Singapore!), power plants, Muar, and why, in future, we should just let our husbands choose which beer for us to drink. All this fun while I made a mental Post-It to look for the song tomorrow.

I did just that this morning. All it took was a Google search for "malaysia malay song jazz norah jones" and several clicks later, who-sang-what was no longer a mystery. I fell in love with Yuna's Terukir Di Bintang. The 26-year-old UiTM law graduate is in fact making news performing in NYC. Love her headscarves, by the way.

Two things: my ears are made for music; Malaysia Boleh exactly the way it should be.     

For those who don't understand the Malay language, ukir is to carve or engrave; bintang means star(s). The singer professes her love for that special someone, in that the love she has for him has already been carved onto the stars. 

A poignant touch in ending the song on a dominant chord - a semi-cadence as one calls it. Sweet.

Check her out at www.yunamusic.com.

Now and then, the Husband would tell me how much he misses his mother's osso buco, cassoulet, creamed spinach, cookies, ice cream, insert-dish-name. No one does it like she does. I understand how he feels. Because I miss his mother's cherry clafoutis and today, I've been intensely craving for it.

The photo you see here was taken early last summer. The top-view shot of just a quarter of the dish was not meant to be "stylish", but simply because that was all that's left. And what'll I give just to have a portion of it now. 

In fact, back then I made some mental notes about making clafoutis in tropical countries (where cherries are either not available or available at a premium and not sweet at all). Apart from cherries, I think the clafoutis would work well with mango. In particular, Thai sweet lily mango that has not entirely ripened to the point of mushy; or Taiwanese mango which is sweet and able to hold its shape well despite the heat.

We've been staying in Kuala Lumpur for six months and yet, there are still days when we find ourselves annoyed by how things are run here. First, let's just talk about KL taxis. Back in August last year, there were two types of taxis: 

1. Good-looking blue "Executive" taxis which are easily found at major shopping malls, at a surcharge of RM2 just so some uniform-wearing chap would wave at the driver to pull up at their "counter". Meter starts at RM6 and subsequent increments of 20sen per 100m.

2. "Normal" taxis that are either red and white (the most common), English mustardy yellow or lime green ones. These range from very clean (lucky you!) to downright dirty along with that smell of sweat gone stale. Eewk. Meter starts at RM3 with 10sen increments (per 115m).

Ask me again today how many types of taxis there are in KL and my answer is two. Honest and dishonest. And I had learnt enough to say that greed has no race. One just can't tell, really. 

Our best trip so far is by this guy who drove us from Jalan Ampang to Menara Telekom and back one afternoon. His vehicle wasn't in its best condition but he was very pleasant. In fact, we boarded his taxi again recently, not knowing it was the same guy. We got into the taxi, he started driving and at the junction, turned back and asked if we remembered him. 

That evening though, he was apologetic throughout our journey to Pavilion -- the taxi's air-cond has given up on him earlier and was barely blowing. We were caught in the peak-hour jam and I felt sorry that he was perspiring and apologizing at the same time. He dropped us off at the nearer (albeit more difficult to turn into) entrance of the mall simply because he couldn't bear for us to be in his near-stuffy cab any longer.

A few other good ones: young Pakistani chap who grew up here earning his keep; grandpa who drives only five to six hours daily to keep himself occupied (one son is a doctor and the other a businessman); this pro-opposition joker who has no qualms "critiquing" the ruling party and its leaders; and the one who drove so efficiently his meter barely jumped. Ooh I think this one deserves his own paragraph:

See, I forgot to mention that for normal taxis, the meter stays at the RM3 mark for the first kilometer. It was Sunday late morning (read: super-smooth traffic) when this guy drove us to Pavilion taking the most direct route. By the time we reached the mall, the meter was not even RM5! Nonetheless we paid him what would have normally been. Why should one be penalized for being honest and efficient no less?

The blue executive taxis are rather okay if money is no object. Granted there are some pleasant drivers but only a handful. The rest of them - or at least the ones I've encountered - behave like they're part of a gang. They bully their way through traffic just because. Efficiency is the least of their concerns as they may even take you for a ride, literally. 

We never entertain drivers who name their price for our intended journey. My personal opinion is that they should just be bank robbers and pull off a stunt or two every quarter of the year. Then there're those who use their meters only because they had already been tampered with. And the ones who use their yet-to-be-tampered meters but think we're tourists. Hence they find cheap ways of ripping us off by adding the RM2 call surcharge (one even "explained" that it was a new government tax while another even challenged us to file a complaint!) or driving a longer route for that little extra. Well, JL sure looks like a tourist and as long as I keep my mouth shut or speak only English, the drivers can't decide if I am local. 

Here's the bottom-line on taxi drivers: there're only two types (honest or dishonest) around so cross your fingers, don't judge them by their appearances, and reward a good driver when you encounter one.

It was a weekday evening in late April 2010. I was in the bathroom when the husband walked right in to show me his iPod Touch. Holding it very still, I read an email he received and the moment I understood what my eyes saw, chains and cuffs started to break apart in my head. Finally! The ticket out of our mundane routine which was, frankly, getting stale. 

The next two months saw us packing up the condo and shipping all our belongings back to France. It was a milestone for us as a couple -- it's not me moving in with JL and it's not us moving from one condo to another within 3 km. We were moving out of Singapore, like, vacating! Liberating but not without stress. Till today I still believe our families must have thought that we've lost our marbles. 

We spent a couple of weeks with JL's family in France and had already started our virtual recce of Harvard Square, apartments for rent, mobile phone service providers, home furnishing, etc. Our first evening upon arrival - July 10 - we walked on the streets and immediately I told the husband, "I feel comp-lete-ly at home already!". My ears were buzzing because of all the foreign languages we heard. Every other face we saw was somewhat Asian. Every other corner there was a street musician strumming and singing summer-y tunes.

Within the next five days, we secured our tenancy agreement for a tiny apartment down Brattle Street, next to Hi-Rise Café and a chocolate shop popular with tourists. Home was barely 700 sq ft that came with a fully equipped galley kitchen, one bedroom and one bath. Suddenly, we had personal accounts with Ikea, Crate&Barrel, Amazon and Walmart. And hey, there's even one with Peapod for our home-delivered groceries!

That first month in America, we wished our "world's local bank" had a local branch in Cambridge. The nearest HSBC as it turned out was in New York! So there: Citibank 1. HSBC 0. Our other "learning point" had something to do with a self-proclaimed "Ikea Guru" on Craigslist. We had to pay him not to touch anything and leave the apartment. Not quite the kind of experience one would expect from the land of the free. Fortunately though, we met some great born-and-bred Americans in the months ahead who remain good friends till today, despite the physical distance between us.