Everything under the sun and now, the sea

On Sunday, I woke up at 8 a.m. to catch the MPO Open Day performance at noon.

It’s not that it takes me two hours to choose want to wear and make sure that my shirt matches the colour of my eyes, but the ticket booths open at 10 a.m. and it is gonna be free.

Free – the word that makes normal Malaysians go wild and kiasu (Hokkien meaning "scared to lose out").

Or is it the word "sale" instead? LOL.

Anyway, what was supposed to be an MPO outing with AC turned out to be a group one. This was because they (the same people from the day before) decided that they wanted to go as well – they like to do something they haven’t done before.

AC and I reached KLCC a little after 10 and the queue was unbelievably long. My friends coming along turned out to be a blessing in disguise as they managed to get tickets for themselves and us.

However, they got circle seats (the expensive ones) leaving me with AC sitting at row K. Which I didn’t mind really. At least I have someone who can explain what instruments the people on stage were playing and other information about the MPO.

I know I shouldn’t be complaining, but I wanted the circle seats too! Hmmph.

A few movements, concertos and overtures from Mozart, Strauss, Beethoven, etc were performed, conducted by Datuk Ooi Chean See, who (if I am not mistaken) is the only female Malaysian conductor.

By the way, the new MPO season starts this Saturday.

It was my first time at the MPO and I admit that I was truly impressed with the hall and the performance. An absolutely wonderful introduction for me to the world of live classical music.

An hour later, I emerged from the hall feeling a bit light-headed. Most probably from the knock on the head yesterday. Or it could be hunger.

But the girl who is leaving next week wanted to check out the Aquaria (Singapore Sentosa Island’s Underwater World equivalent right in the heart of Kuala Lumpur).

The school holidays have just started and needless to say, the queue to the Aquaria was as long as ... er, I don’t know actually. We were coming from the car park and we could only see the end of the queue.

Yup, we couldn’t even see the head of the queue. The Aquaria guy told us that it’s a two-hour wait to get in.

Two hours? Forget it.

So we left the Aquaria.

Walking back to Suria KLCC, one of my friends, SZ was being friendly and chatted with AC. I am not sure what they talked about, but it was then that it struck me.

OMG. I forgot to tell AC that they know about my sexual orientation. Therefore it would be perfectly logical of them to think that I was on a date with AC.

Which means that they know he is gay too.

Which is not something he is comfortable with – being out to five other people at one go. And definitely not something he wants.

So I made him feel anxious again. Hmm ... I do have a tendency to do that to him, huh?

Another one of them asked me whether we are going out. And whether we are on the same channel (same wavelength).

Sigh. I was so not in the mood to explain. For crying out loud, it was just our second meet!

We split into two groups as they wanted to buy something, and suggested we go our own way as it would be boring.

So AC and I went to have lunch at the recently renovated Signatures foodcourt. And I was reminded why I loathe coming to KLCC on weekends.

It’s the people. Or more accurately, the number of people. The Chinese calls it yan san yan hoi (literally means mountain of people, sea of people. Figuratively, it means very crowded and people as far as the eye can see.)

I apologised over lunch about not telling him earlier about my friends knowing about my sexual orientation.

We talked about other stuff – the guys he liked before, the cute guys he likes to watch on screen, the guys he likes who are almost always straight, the guys who asked him awkward questions and er ... I don’t really remember what I talked about.

I usually put people to sleep at ease. And I could tell he was getting more comfortable with me, not taking into account his "accidentally being outed" incident.

After that, we caught up with the rest who were having drinks at Chocz. Everyone was tired from yesterday’s excursion (and maybe the classical music too?) and decided to call it a day.

Initially I wanted to go to PT Foundation’s Sunday Session and AC was interested to go too. It is from 3.30 till 6. But I had to leave at 5 for dinner and it wouldn’t be nice to just abandon him there, would it?

We then decided to go another time. He went to Sungai Wang and I walked around a bit more before leaving for home.

I was so tired that I went to bed at 10. Before my eyes closed, I wondered, "It’s back to work again tomorrow. Damn, where the heck did the weekend go?"

["Everything under the sun" is Suria KLCC's tagline.]