First MRT Ride

It had to start somewhere.

Even though half of the MRT line connecting Kajang and Sungai Buloh had been opened for the last 6 months, this was the first time I tried the ride. After parking my car at NU Sentral, I walked along KL Sentral towards the connecting station at Muzium Negara. A nice walk - across at least 6 escalators which were moving faster that I used to.

This way ...Then up this escalatorWalk straight on towards the entrance to Le Meridien and HiltonAnd further on ...After about 10 minutes, I reached the station proper, tapped my Touch & Go card, down another escalator to the platform. Very frequent train - every 8 minutes on that Saturday afternoon - which each train stretching along the whole station. It must have been 8 coaches per train at least which definitely made the journey both pleasant and efficient.

The coaches were also more spacious that the notoriously cramped Monorel - which not only had less frequent services, only served a couple of coaches per trip. It was night and day.

Everything was well postedAnd then we go deep undergroundAnd we go deeper ....Finally we reached the terminal. And time to get the tickets ...On the whole, I was very pleasantly surprised. It was more in keeping with KL heading towards a World Class city. The shame was the project was delayed a few times. Such public transport should have been in place 10, if not 15 years back. The fear moving forward would be the investments put in for maintenance. Generally speaking, we are good at building but slow to act and service what is crumbling ...

Now we are at the platform ...To the left, or to the right?Make sure you catch the right ride ...Finally reaching Bukit Bintang. Another escalator up ...Definitely worth a try and I personally would be using it more as the trip from NU Sentral to Bukit Bintang was nothing but pleasant. Best to take advantage of the 50% discounts before Merdeka.

Visit to Muzium Negara

The last time we visited the Muzium Negara was when Idlan was still a toddler. 2008 if I wasn't mistaken. We didn't enter the building. We just lingered outside and Idlan remembered the locomotive parked outside the museum.

We went to the museum last Sunday afternoon and this time we entered the building and looked at the exhibits. The boys were quite interested and on the particular afternoon the place was relatively empty.

At the central hallway in between the two wingsI remembered this stairs from my schooldaysExhibit-wise, the museum was divided into four compartments over the couple of floors. Imaginatively named Hall A to D of course. Going from memory, we had the natural history exhibit, Malacca and history of early Tanah Melayu, Kesultanan Melayu and the latest one being the Merdeka exhibit.

The other exhibits were pretty standard - what you'd expect from a National Museum, but the Merdeka exhibit was rather good I thought, although I would've curated it slightly differently. They should've emphasised the actual struggle against the Malayan Union and what the real Merdeka struggle was all about rather than shoehorning and streamlining the history as if we were reading a textbook, prepared by Kementerian Pelajaran. I didn't discover anything new. There was no critical analysis. For example, what were the roles of Sir Tan Cheng Lock and Tun Sambanthan? Were they just there to make up the numbers? We would appreciate some anecdotes. Like when they stopped the negotiations to watch a football match at Wembley. Some juicy bits like that.

After all, you had to pay to see these exhibits. Please not them be propaganda instead. I knew it was only RM2 to enter, but still we had to pay.

It was definitely worth the visit, but it would take more to make me come back anytime soon.