cakap cakap...Sights, Smells and Sounds of KL.

What I miss about KL would need a month of telling. The craziness and loudness of Brickfields. The sights, smells and sounds of Chinatown.The wonderful aromas of appetising delights wafting towards you as you enter Kampong Baru. It all conjures up possibilities that soak your senses with anticipation of things to enjoy! Good food with good friends sharing good conversations. All to be had for a pittance. For what I would pay for one Big Mac Value Meal in Adelaide I could have a meal for four in Brickfields, Chinatown or Kampong Baru…and still have change!    

Go upmarket to Bangsar Shopping Centre and you are in another world. You need serious money to have a meal with friends. I dislike the money I have to spend to sit down at the food places there but it is just right to talk business with friends and acquaintances. You can hear yourself converse and you can carry on with your business of talking business with your business friends and acquaintances unhurriedly. And you will see familiar faces going about their business of being seen in the right place at the right time. That is BSC for you.

KLCC is exquisite. Cheap food or expensive food. Supermarkets or named brand outlets. Just looking around or shopping. Anything you want to do you can do at KLCC and you will not be disappointed at its ability to entertain your every mood and fancies. I was enthralled from the first time I walked into KLCC and I am still enthralled when I walk into KLCC again and again on any given day! All that you want to eat or buy, all that you want to see and do and all that money and dreams would make you want to wish for, within reasons, KLCC will deliver. A wonderful experience that challenges all of your senses – sight, sound, touch, smell and taste are all there to be enjoyed at KLCC.

I know there are many five star establishments all over KL. None more so within the Golden Triangle but I most enjoy spending time at the Melting Pot at the Concorde. You sit and indulge your taste buds on an array of Asian and Western dishes while your eyes feasts on the sights of KL passing by those huge open vista of windows that brings KL to you and yet allows you to be comfortably enveloped in an oasis of comfort and serenity with the physical closeness of Jalan Sultan Ismail within touching distance –so close and yet so far.

I know the traffic is horrendous – no matter what the hour -  but Jalan Bukit Bintang is surreal when you drive through it in the cool comfort of your car – windows up. The hustle and bustle of people making a buck at every corner of the street …let me say that again…the hustle and bustle of the Chinese people making a buck in the street of Bukit Bintang promises the locals and the tourists plenty. What earthly delights money can buy, Bukit Bintang will most probably sell. All this with PDRM IPK (Selangor Contingent HQ) looking benignly from a hill overlooking Bukit Bintang.

There are many other spots in KL that holds good memories for me. The Coliseum for one, A place my grandfather have frequented in his heydays and one that I hope my grandchildren too will – and what my grandfather saw as he walked into the place I hope my grandchildren too will see unchanged – even the waiters that seems never to have never aged – well not much beyond 70 years anyway!

The Flea Market at Amcorp Mall in PJ is a must on most Sundays. Starting at the basement where the really old treasure are lurking amongst the many stalls – if you are prepared to look and haggle. Some of the stall owners are not too keen on selling what they have got unless the price is right – not for you but for them! They would rather keep their treasures for another week for them to enjoy as there is always the next week to sell it. My favourite buy has been a wooden boat with its outboard engine still functioning if you hook it up to a battery – and I got it all for RM$8. Someday I will pass it on to my grand daughters and let them share it….though I suspect it will probably last a few days before the boat sinks under the weight of the cargoes those two would want to pile on it to see what it took before it does sink. For now I have it beside my work desk to be gazed fondly upon by only me  and when the mood strikes me, hook on to the battery to see if the outboard engine still turns. But my wife thinks of it as she would think of any empty milk carton – to be discarded in the bin at the earliest possible opportunity!

After a few hours at the Flea Market we would adjourn to the nearby A&W for lunch…well more for the Root Beer really – served in an ice frosted mug that takes your breath away as you take your first long gulp at its precious fluid. I have been abroad many a time but no Root Beer has come close to satisfying my taste buds as this A&W Root Beer in PJ! And with a gallon or two of Root Beer in the takeaway container we head back to more contented then when we left Bangsar.

And why am I not back in KL? Ahhh