Category: Kuala Lumpur

Chinatown

Leave a comment

IMG_3749

The Guan Ping Festival was in full swing when we got to Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur last Sunday. There was a procession down Jalan (meaning ‘street’ in Malay) Petaling consisting of lion and dragon dancers, these lovely ladies, stilt walkers, as well as representatives of the local Indian and Malay communities. The festival aimed to bring prosperity to local businesses. There were hundreds of people in the streets watching the parade and presumably they bought food and other things from the numerous stalls and shops that exist cheek by jowl in Chinatown. The shops along Petaling Street sell made-in-China tat and designer knock-offs. But look past that and up at the buildings and you get an idea of what the old Chinatown must have looked like. In the Lee Rubber Building we found the wonderful Peter Hoe store and cafe (go to this article http://www.kuala-lumpur.ws/magazine/peter-hoe-beyond.htm to see why I loved exploring this store). And later on we found the Old China Cafe (http://www.oldchina.com.my/) where we had a drink and enjoyed the ambiance. So good that you can still get a taste of the old Chinatown.

My birthday treat

2 Comments

concert hall

We spent the weekend in Kuala Lumpur and went to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra’s Brilliant Brothers concert. The impressive concert hall is at the base of the PETRONAS towers. When you walk towards it at night, the lighted towers loom overhead and are a marvellous spectacle. The brothers were Canadian violinists Timothy and Nikki Chooi. They played a duet in the first piece, which was Bach’s concerto for two violins complete with harpsichord. This provided a quiet start to a rousing concert that included Saint-Saens’ violin concerto no. 3 and Bruch’s violin concerto no. 1, with each of the brothers in turn playing the solo part. It ended with Tchaikovsky’s overture to Romeo and Juliet, which uses almost every instrument in the orchestra, including all the drums, the cymbals and a tuba! I loved it. And I enjoyed ambling back across the park to our hotel in balmy late evening air. My first birthday in Malaysia has been great!

National Textile Museum

1 Comment

IMG_3383

While exploring the centre of Kuala Lumpur we came across the National Textile Museum. The museum has four huge halls filled with examples of magnificent fabrics (batik, beaded, threaded with gold and silver, and many others) specific to the various ethnic groups that make up the population of Malaysia. Also on display are beaded slippers, gold and silver belts, headdresses and jewellery. It is a visual feast!There is a wonderful museum shop where pleasant Malay women will help you to find the perfect authentic garment, sarong or piece of fabric. The museum is housed in a beautiful building adjacent to Merdeka (Independence) Square, which in turn is beside the padang (field) and the Royal Selangor Club. This was the centre of British colonial life in what was then Malaya. Cricket was played on the padang and the colonials would meet at the club for tea, drinks or dinner. The Square is where Malaysia formally gained its independence from Britain. This is represented by a black marble plaque and an enormous flag on a 95-metre flagpole. All this and the array of splendid buildings that surround the Square is a good way to find out something about the history and people of Malaysia.

Sightseeing in Kuala Lumpur

2 Comments

IMG_3372
Instead of going down to Kuala Lumpur and back in a day when Jim has meetings down there, we went down last Sunday, did some exploring and spent the night, ahead of Jim going into the Shah Alam office on Monday morning. KL is a huge, bustling, bewildering city so we decided we’d find a shopping centre, park and then use public transport to get around. We drove into the frenetic Bukit Bintang area and parked in the first underground parking building we came across. On leaving the lift, we found ourselves in a hellish shopping centre, full of tiny shops and kiosks and hundreds of people, with no indication of where the exits were. All the overhead signs said “Shops” or “More shops”! We knew we were on the ground floor but, when we asked someone how to get out to the road, he said we had to go down two more levels. So “ground floor” didn’t mean we were at ground level! I have never been more thankful to leave a building. Things improved rapidly after this. We found a wonderful bakery, which also smelled of the coffee they served, and then got onto the monorail. This is an efficient, cheap way of getting around the centre of KL. From the monorail station, the sight of this beautiful mosque (see pic above) greeted us. It is the India Mosque and was built in late nineteenth century. Since only worshippers are allowed in, it was as well that we also came across St Mary’s Cathedral (see pic below), where evensong had just begun on this Easter Sunday.
IMG_3388

Reading

1 Comment

IMG_3042

Anyone who knows me knows that I spend a lot of time reading. Jim took this pic of me in our hotel room in Kuala Lumpur a couple of weeks ago. He had meetings over two days so we stayed the night in the Gardens Hotel. There is a spectacular shopping centre adjoining the hotel – miles of shops, including all the designer outlets – Gucci, Armani, Kate Spade, Michael Kors, etc, etc – and an amazing food hall. While Jim was catching up on emails, I ventured out in search of coffee. I eventually found the San Francisco kiosk, where they were amazed that I wanted no sugar in my coffee, and scuttled back to the room feeling very much the country bumpkin. I also had the prospect of a day on my own in KL, ending with finding a cab to take me to the company’s offices to meet Jim. It doesn’t sound onerous but the size of the city, the number of people and cars and the maze of roads and highways (called expressways here) was daunting. So a coffee and a bit of a read was what I needed before my big adventure. I was reading The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal. I’ve been tardy getting to this book, which was published in 2010 when it won the Costa Biography Award. It has been on my reading list since then, so when I saw a copy in Browsers in Hamilton, I pounced. I can highly recommend it.