Recovery

Magic medicine

Yesterday I spent most of the day napping, and taking the Chinese medicine The Man got for me.

"Take this," he said.

I read the label. "It says it's for distended stomach," I said. "I don't have a distended stomach." I looked down. "Well, no more than usual, anyway."

"Ignore what it says," he said. "It has stuff in it that will help you."

I took it.

"Oh, and take this one, too," he said.

I didn't bother reading the label this time.

After napping most of the day I was feeling quite a lot better. By dinnertime I still didn't really want to go out to eat, though, so The Man went out and bought some tofu pudding and soybean milk, which I wolfed down so fast his eyes popped. I guess my appetite was coming back after all.

Then it was bedtime, but although I felt sleepy I couldn't drop off. I thought I should, though, and lay there twitching and listening to the noises around the hotel, which I hadn't noticed the night before. There were some dogs arguing, rather musically, I thought. Doors sometimes banged in the hotel. I got hot. I turned on the air conditioning. Then I got cold, and turned it off again. The Man snored.

Around 4am The Man woke up. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at me.

"Can't you sleep?" he asked. "We could go out and have Dim Sum and porridge. That place opens around now..."

I stared at him. "It's four in the morning!" I said.

"I know. It opens early, and it's REALLY good."

"You're just a walking support system for a stomach," I informed him.

We sat and chatted for a while, then both went to sleep, and slept until the phone rang. It was the man at the coffee shop of the hotel, informing us that it was now 10.30 and breakfast was only served until 11. He was concerned because we missed it yesterday and it was included in the price of the (cheap) hotel.

How kind of him to think of us. We hurried downstairs just in time.

Shopping

After breakfast we went over to Shukran, my favourite place for roti chanai, for a second breakfast (yes, I have my appetite back!) and then went shopping for a while. The Man worried about me. Was I well enough for this? We took a taxi to the shopping area we wanted to go to, and bussed back. Normally we'd walk.

Visiting a friend

In the afternoon I visited a French friend. (Yes, I know. I visited English friends in France, and now my French friend in KL. It doesn't make sense to me, either.) The Man didn't want me to go.

"You'll get tired," he said.

"But I'm feeling fine, now," I told him.

"I don't trust the feeling," he said. "If you get tired it might come back."

I went anyway. I haven't seen this friend for five years. Actually, I'd thought he was in Paris, so it was a surprise to find out he was in KL.

Dinner

I still felt fine after visiting my friend. He wanted us to go to a concert with him tomorrow, but I'm leaving in the evening. Bad timing.

The Man and I went to Chinatown instead, and bought some movies and a few other things. Then we went to a good Chinese restaurant The Man had found the night before.

"You have to have the mushroom noodle clay pot," he told me. "I've been feeling guilty about having it yesterday when you were sleeping. It was REALLY, REALLY GOOD."

So I did, and he was right. It was SCRUMPTIOUS.

Just as we finished eating a fuse blew and all the lights went out in the restaurant. The waiter brought a candle (eventually) and we sat by candlelight, sweating and drinking the rest of our tea.

Superwoman

That had to be one of the strangest and shortest flus I've ever had, if it was a flu. Either that, or the medicine The Man gave me has turned me into Superwoman. I have been on the go all day, it's midnight, and I still feel FINE.