Space Warp Found in Kuching, Sarawak

Guess what? There are two places in Kuching where there is a gateway between different universes! I'm not kidding!!

In these places, it is possible to travel from one reality straight into another one without any need for sophisticated futuristic technology. All you need is a car, a pair of feet and bucketloads of patience. I am, of course, referring to the Wisma Saberkas shopping centre, and the Crowne Plaza Riverside (Parkson) complex.

Places like this are found everywhere in many Malaysian cities, especially Kuching. They usually have level upon level of shops (mostly selling mobile phones and electronic toys), and always have a big, multi-storey car park tacked onto the side somewhere.

Which causes a serious problem for the urban space traveller, intent on a hassle free afternoon enjoying the Malaysian Shopping Experience.

I can't understand: why is it that whenever I go to do my shopping or to have my hair cut in the Parkson complex, I can never find my car when I come out? Why do I always forget which level my car is on when I come out of the Saberkas building?

The reason is that there is a strange time/space warp situated in both buildings, just at the point where the car parks and the main shopping centres meet. How do I know this? BECAUSE THE FLOOR NUMBERS IN THE CAR PARK AND THE SHOPPING CENTRE DO NOT MATCH EACH OTHER, THAT'S WHY!!!!!

If you park your car on level 4, for instance, you have to enter the shopping centre on level 8, not level 4, which you would expect logically. If you come out of the shopping centre at level 6, does that mean you will find your car on level 6? NOOOOOO! Because it's been mysteriously altered by the space warp machine installed near the entrance!! You'll find your car on level 4! Or level 9!!

This is so much like a science fiction novel by Dan Simmons, called "Hyperion". In the story, human beings, with generous help from artificial intelligences, have devised a series of space gateways which enable one to literally walk from one planet to another through wormholes in space. So, one of the features of the book is a thoroughfare constructed from segments of streets on different planets linked together by wormhole. A great idea for a high-speed link, and you don't even need Broadband. Instant interstellar travel without the jetlag or the airline junkfood!

But, when this technology is applied to the planet Earth, in Kuching in 2007, it just causes chaos! I just can't understand it, why can't the people who designed the car parks in Kuching just leave them alone, without having to resort to futuristic technologies which must be costing the Malaysian tax-payer billions of Ringgit, not to mention the astronomical electricity bills…

Or maybe I should not scoff at this excellent example of locally-grown technology, and instead I should celebrate this marvellous piece of Malaysian future-tech that reminds us that "Malaysia Boleh!" ("Malaysia Can!"). Maybe, maybe not…

But seriously, folks, let's face it, it is rather confusing using the car parks in Saberkas and Parkson. You would expect, wouldn't you, in a perfect world, to find that the floor numbers in the car park would at least nod in the direction of some sort of parsimony with the floor numbers in the shopping centre itself.

Or if they didn't, you would have thought that the Management would provide a handy map for us IDIOTS who hold PhDs in linguistics and who have walked the convoluted streets of New York and London and San Francisco without getting lost.

Fu-Yoh, as they say in Kuching!