Having exhausted myself working towards a presentation last Thursday, I decided to give myself some much needed time off on Friday. I didn’t really make any plans for this day, yet I wanted to do something special so that I wouldn’t be wasting it away sleeping or watching T.V. In the end because of a new staff member from Spain, I went sightseeing around KL centre, to the places that I’d not been before and also to places that I’d seen 3 years ago. That’s right – I became a tourist for a weekend.
I shall upload the images from my city walks from the past three days later, but I wish to mainly talk about the places I went to and how I felt about them.
Firstly we went to Merdeka Square (Independence Square) which is the site of an old Cricket Field. They have left the grass square and built around it some very nice colonial buildings – my favourite being the High Court Building. From here we decided to walk to the Petronas Twin Towers via Little India. Little India was a shock to the system. Total Sensory Overload is what I’d call that place and I would mean it in the nicest possible way. From the throngs of people walking past you to the sweet and spicy smells wafting over to me from the numerous street vendors (Hawker Stands) and the sound of Tamil songs blasting from speakers placed outside on the pavement – this place was a million miles away from the streets I’d seen so far here in KL.
By comparison, the Twin Towers were majestic and graceful, but also quite sterile. The obligatory shopping centre below the Towers (KLCC) felt like it was made for tourists. The high end brands filled the numerous floors of this complex.
South of KLCC we walked towards Bukit Bintang – a street which links five shopping centres together and in itself forms a spine of retail outlets. While here it was back to the hustle bustle of the shopping street. The interesting thing about Bukit Bintang was the gradual change in clientele from the high end KLCC-esque Pavilion Shopping Centre to the fairly Indie fashion orientated Lot 10. Passing these five shopping centres, you were bombarded with people asking if you were interested in Thai Foot Massages. I was informed later on that if one was to continue down that street, you would begin to encounter the seedy underbelly of KL. Thankfully we grabbed a taxi back to the safe haven of our own shopping centre / Service Apartment hub of Sri Hartamas, well before encountering any such ladies of the night.
That night, we were invited to try the Malaysian national fruit, Durian. The tagline “Smells like Hell, Tastes like Heaven” was misleading to me, as I would class it more as “Smells Foul, Tastes Worse”.
