Cycle Away

This is something new for KL. oBike is a bike sharing system where you use a smartphone app to book a bicycle point one point to another in town. That saved you from hailing a cab or Uber while helping to reduce pollution as well as keeping you healthy.

I downloaded the early this week, topped up some credit but has yet to use the service. The bikes in town were parked strategically making picking and dropping off the bike convenient. Anita was keen to try as well and we might just try that in the coming few weekends.

Hopefully the service could be maintained as the idea was certainly a good one. My fear was our culture of maintenance and responsibility were still generally lacking. The service owner must keep their bicycles in good nick, otherwise the public would stop using them once the initial novelty wore off.

As it stood, it was certainly a welcome sight when you see a row of bicycles parked neatly as you leave the MRT.

#PokokPercuma Pokok Power

I only learned about the event on the afternoon when I was making my way around town. It was my first walk since the end of Ramadan and I was curious to see what was happening.

After finishing my clinic, I soon realised that Anita were away for a wedding and I had to go out for a lunch. A quick search on the net and I learned that in conjunction with the World Population Day - to be honest I did not even know what that was - LabDNA organised an event at Medan Pasar giving away free plants while hosting a small party and sing song.

The event was scheduled to start at 4 pm, running until the evening. I reached there too early and the organiser was still trying to get things sorted out. I decided to sit down for some coffee first before coming for another look. No joy and the sky looked like it was going to rain any minute soon.

I couldn't since I have errands later on the day. To be honest, since I was taking the LRT, I don't think I was able to carry any plants with me this time around. Good idea. But I wished that the publicity would have been more viral. Next year maybe ...

Stop at MATIC

“Interpretasi Hitam Putih Jalanan”. That was the title. Enough to intrigue me and on the sunny Saturday afternoon, I decided to go and have a look.

It was a local exhibition on street photography, all in glorious black and white featuring local photographers with a number of international contributors. Well curated and well presented. The venue as MATIC, in a purpose-built room ideal with such exhibition with plenty of natural lights and cool ambiance.

I found some of the featured photos intriguing and at the same time familiar. There were plenty of KL flavours in them and some of the landmarks were easily recognisable. Certainly the theme being black and white, made the photos contrasty and gripping. I always preferred narration and again I struggled to grasp the overall direction of the exhibit. But that does not mean that I did not enjoy what was on show.

I wished that the exhibition was better publicised. I only learned of it from Facebook. There was no dedicated website, and the mention on the MATIC webpage was only nominal. The exhibit will go on until until the end on the month - 30 March 2017 - and it was certainly worth a visit.

Parking was an issue if you were driving. I got duped into paying RM10 as I was told that I was suing a private parking. To encourage local visitors, they could have made the parking cheaper at least. Usually I would’ve parked at KLCC and walked, but with Anita coming along, it was too much of an ask for her to walk across. Again, local authorities conspired to make those who wanted to explore KL that much more challenging ...

Just too Quick

I heard that last week, the Red Arrows were coming to Malaysia as part of a promotion tour and they would be doing a fly-by over the Twin Towers. The plan was scrapped at the last minute due to bed weather to the disappointment of many.

Last Monday, over the Twitterverse, I learned that they managed to rescheduled and would be doing a shorter fly-pass late on Tuesday afternoon. I planned that I would be at home when the time came since I couldn’t make it into town.

Armed with my zoom, I only managed a couple of frames since my views were blocked. The tiny glimpse which I had was enough to keep me happy …..

Scorching

I spent Monday mainly indoors. During lunch, I joined Anita at a restaurant near our apartment and at that point experienced the searing hot of the current heatwave. It was bordering on brutal.

And apparently Malaysia has yet to experience the worse of it. That was just the beginning.

I needed ice cream ....Searing hot during lunchBy late afternoon, things was almost unbearable. My clinic was done early and I finished my ward round before packing things up for home. But not before a quick stop at the mart for some ice cream.

I understood that schools in Perlis and Kedah would be closed for the next couple of days due to the weather. My boys were having their exams this week and will be having their Easter break soon. Not sure what the plan would be looking at the weather. Idlan was keen to go to Penang, but judging from the weather report, things were worse up North. Maybe Fraser's Hill may be a better bet!