Day 4 (Malaysia): Mid Valley Mega Mall

Too much shopping and food.

We began the day with some kaya bao (steamed bread buns filled with coconut jam) and lo mai gai (glutinous sticky rice).

Day 3 (Malaysia): Hakka Mee, Salted Egg Yolk Tofu & Portuguese Egg Tarts.

Slowly getting less sick. Sleeping ALL THE TAIME. The ladies laughing over seeing themselves on my blog. This is getting meta.

Day 2 (Malaysia): Kuay Teow, Roti Canai & Yummy Duck

I woke up late today (cough, cold, headaches…SUPER SICK) so I only had two meals.

Breakfast at 1pm: fried egg on kuay teow (flat rice noodles with bean sprouts), roti canai (indian flatbread made with flour, egg, fat and water) and a thin curry.

Day 1 (Malaysia): The glorious food journey begins.

Be warned. This is a long post with lots of pictures of delicious food.

That said, we begin with my dinner on the Air Asia flight to Malaysia from the Gold Coast.

As a kid, I loved plane food. All the different compartments were like bento boxes, super fun.

This… less fun. I’d ordered the vegetarian meal, and thus got vegetarian lasagna. The quality was akin to a frozen meal – oily tomato sauce packed with dried herbs, more cheese than pasta, overcooked spinach and what I presume were two thin slices of mushroom. The meal also came with a bottle of water, handy given my sore throat.

Vegetarian Chicken RIce

Yeah, I know it seems like an oxymoron. Vegetarian chicken rice? You’re not one of those tofurkey meat-bashing freaks are you?

Well no, I’m vegetarian because I just prefer not to eat meat. That and I had an eating disorder when I was 14, and I became vegetarian as a socially acceptable way to restrict my kilojoule intake. I stayed vegetarian because I prefer the lifestyle. Of course, nowadays, my diet includes high-fat, high-sodium but damn tasty and full-of-vegetables-dishes. Like this one.

Art Style: Killer 7 vs Braid

At first glance, Jonathan Blow’s time manipulation puzzle-platformer Braid (2008) and Suda51’s experimental action-adventure Killer 7 (2005) appear to have almost nothing in common, although both lead players down paths of reflection. Braid’s impressionist scenes are full of light, pastel colours and flowing detail, whereas Killer 7’s noir tales rely on shadows, bold colours and sharp minimalism. Yet both games are often named as supporting examples in the ‘games as art’ debate. According to Henry Jenkins (2005), it is the emotional impressions created by games that qualify them as art, in turn allowing them to be stylistically categorized. Thus, in order to decipher the intended message or purpose of games, both the aesthetics and mechanics of games must be taken into consideration. This is highlighted by Chris Crawford’s comment that cosmetic aspects of games are necessary but supporting elements, secondary to the dimension of interactivity (King, 2006, p. 125).