A day’s diary.

It’s Saturday, past noon. The Batik Influencer and I have set up post at F2.09.

It has been a pretty good start.

Except for a little “odd step”. As Jeannie and I were lugging big heavy bags of our “wares”, with more bags slung over our shoulders, literally with no hands free, just wanting to get these things to our booth as quickly as possible; a young representative from a U.N. booth, stopped Jeannie to ask her if she would like to be a member or something like that. I understand that this lady was trying to make a sale. However, she should have had some common sense to see that we were in no position at that very moment to entertain her. Jeannie gave her a stern look and continued towards the lifts to go up to our booth.

The beginning had some pretty good music streamed across by someone from another booth nearby.

A collector (chemist by profession); picked up some cars and key chains.

Another person, a teacher; came soon after and bought some key chains, too. And then, another person, one who bought quite a few key chains last month and the month before that, stopped over and said he will come again later to acquire more key chains when less people are around.

Once the people started coming to check out the Batik Influencer’s Batik Cape Creations, there seemed to be no stopping. Jeannie was in her element, sharing the influence her grandmother, who was from the east coast state of Trengganu; imparted with her the beauty of batik. Her grandmother used batik everyday. Jeannie also loved the uncountable designs and the different hues and colours of this traditional wear.

We had a steady stream of people visiting our booth. Besides the batik capes and key chairs, several Hotwheels and Matchbox cars were sold as well. The 1979 Corgi “WonderWoman” car has found a new owner, too. The buyer, appreciated the mint condition of this 44 year old model.

In between the day, while I manned the booth; Jeannie went to ronda-ronda (1) the food fair on the ground floor. One of the first purchases she made were the currypuffs from the same lady she bought these delights from a couple of times before. They were consistently tasty as the previous purchases.

Jeannie also bought more than 1kg of dokong langsat (a Malaysian fruit). The lady was selling it for RM8 per kg. Jeannie decided to buy 1kg. However, the lady kept tambah-ing (2) more and more dokong langsat until the weighing scales showed RM10 worth. Jeannie obliged her with the extra sale.

Doughnuts – of the delicious kind! Jeannie bought homemade pack-of-4 doughnuts (Queen’s [King’s?] English spelling. The Americans spell them as “donuts”) for my lunch. These doughnuts were really good. There aren’t the branded ones you get from the two top chains of doughnuts stores. RM10 for a pack of 4. We aren’t too sure if the seller is going to be here at Amcorp Mall every week from now on, but she will be here tomorrow. However, this young entrepreneur is here whenever Amcorp Mall has an F&B fair. So, if you are looking for some great Sunday morning or afternoon bites to go with your “mugga” (coffee) or “cuppa” (3) (tea); head on to the doughnut booth at the entrance of Amcorp Mall.

Met Gary, when a couple of Corgi cars for sale on the table, caught his eye. He said he has some of the same models… and we started talking about many things we have in common. Gary said he is in USJ, Subang Jaya, on most days, after sending his daughter to school. He shared with me more cool (one place in SS12 has large ceiling fans) places that I have yet to visit. A large part of our discussion was on “leatherpotato“, how it started, why it started, where we are now, and what the immediate to short term future has in store for it. Looks like I’ve got my work cut out. Interesting.

Jeannie and I popped by (more like we took turns) to visit Khatijah Marianne’s booth, “Anne Rocks”. She and her husband have got many, many items personally designed and coloured with passion, to colour your homes and offices, for any occasions. Drop by their booth on the 2nd floor.

Marianne came over to have a look at Jeannie’s batik capes. She was witty as usual. She’s a lovely, lovely person. If you can manage to coax her to sing, she may sing for you. She is the daughter of Michael Magness, a pioneer member of the famous Malaysian band, “The Strollers”.

Jeannie and I decided to call it a day at around 5.45pm. The good playlist of music which we heard from the time we settled at our booth, was still playing. Lots of great songs were on the playlist throughout the day.

As for the lady representative of the U.N. that we met at the beginning of the day; we will give her some time (that is if she is still there tomorrow) on our time schedule, to listen to what she has to promote. We wanted to give her some time on our way out at the end of our day, but the U.N. booth had already closed.

NOTES:
2nd Floor, Amcorp Shopping Mall,
Booth 2.09, Level 2
Amcorp Shopping Mall,
8, Jalan, Persiaran Barat, Seksyen 52 Petaling Jaya, 46050 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
Date: Sept 23 and Sept 24, 2023
Time: 10.00am to 5.30pm (can be extended to 7.00pm)

1. Ronda is a Malay word for roam or in this case, “visit”.
2. Tambah-ing. Tambah is a Malay word for “add more”. In this case, the “-ing” part is just jazzing and having fun with some English.
3. Mugga is my expression in relation with coffee, as “cuppa” is to tea.