Escort Quest : Japanese High School Students Pt. 1

Last week, Aaron and I were invited to partake a special quest for 2 days. I'll be splitting the whole story into 2 parts : Day 1 and Day 2.

Day One (kids from Hiroshima high school)

Quest giver : Evian (acquaintance from Japanese language class)
Quest details : To escort 4 Japanese high school kids around KL.
Quest conditions :
We must bring them to 4 key areas and take pictures as proof.
We must contact HQ at various checkpoints.
Japanese kids must not take any damage.
End the quest with no less than 4 kids (wouldn't hurt to pick up extras though nyuhuhu)
All 4 kids must survive.
Time limit : 8.30am - 5pm
Party members : Evian, Aaron, Shana (me)
Quest route : Berjaya Times Square > KLCC > Pasar Seni (Central Market) > Jalan India > Lot 10 Isetan > Sungei Wang > Berjaya Times Square.

One particular guy so happy to be surrounded by girls... especially 4 Japanese lolis.

I actually wasn't going to go for this one because I wasn't feeling well the night before, but after my sleep I was feeling fine so I rushed and caught up with them at Central Market. They just finished visiting the Indian Temple near Central Market, which unfortunately was under repair or renovation (the temple). The kids had to take picture of the temple covered with scaffolding instead.

My party members told me they went through Petaling Street earlier, and as they went through all the stall/shop staff on the side were throwing lots of "kawaii!!" at the group. The 4 girls were shy and a little scared by all the attention, while us guides were baffled at how the vendors knew they were Japanese just by looking.

All through the trip, the biggest complaint was the heat. The girls would all say "Atsui!" (hot) each time we set foot out from somewhere with air-con and "Suzushii!!" (cool) each time we entered an air-con area.

One of their key photo areas for some reason is the Isetan inside Lot 10 (I thought Isetan was in abundance in Japan? =/ ) and because they couldn't stand the heat, we thought we'd eat in the food court in Lot 10 instead of the intended Jalan Alor. If you haven't been to Lot 10 lately, they renovated the LG foodcourt and Isetan supermarket, it's got a huge selection of good food now. We were showing the girls around the food court but it was then that we learnt this group of girls were told something from their teachers.

Me : Is there anything you cannot eat? Spicy stuff, seafood, anything?

Japanese Girl (JG) : Almost everything we don't think we should eat... spicy food, fried food... preferably no meat... and tomatoes.

Me : ...tomatoes? You can't eat them?

JG : Yea, tomatoes.

Me : ...how about shaved ice (ais kacang)? I'll buy you guys one to share? It's famous here.

JG : No thanks.

Me : So you don't want to eat anything here?

JG : ...because it's dangerous.

Me : ...dangerous? How so? O_O

JG : We heard the water is not clean like Japan's water... so we're advised not to eat in food courts...

Me : ...I see.

In the end, they bought sushi and bento from the Isetan supermarket (which probably was made with the water they're afraid of).

I wonder what kind of horror stories their sensei told them about our water, but it's true though that if you didn't grow up here, your body may have effects from our water (my kid Canadian nephew and his family was hospitalized for food poisoning after staying here for 2 days, the doc said it's because they're not used to our local water, since their mom who is my sister in law wasn't poisoned even though they all ate/drank the same things). I guess it's better safe than sorry for them, but we told them that tourist heavy areas and good hotels should be fine because they have reputations to maintain, so don't worry too much.

The tomato thing was still a mystery to us, but we guess they must have been told horror stories about pesticides too.