KLJJ #033 - Ombak KLCC

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe daylight has a pale, hazy cast as I leave Suria KLCC, and the humidity makes itself known almost immediately. I’m heading to Ombak KLCC, the new mall that opened in August 2026. There is a buggy available, which seems a sensible response to the weather, but I decide to walk. It is under ten minutes away, after all. My shirt may have a different assessment by the time I arrive.

The route through KLCC Park is rather pleasant. With the distant buildings softened by haze, my attention settles on nearer things: the texture of tree trunks, the edges of the planting and the changing surfaces underfoot. People pass through the frame, and I adjust my pace to give them room. These small negotiations are part of filming a continuous walk. Occasionally, someone falls neatly into a composition; more often, they have somewhere else to be.

Ombak’s architecture gives me plenty to consider when I reach it. The name means “wave” in Malay, and the flowing lines make that connection easy to understand. I keep looking from slightly different angles, watching how the curves overlap as I move. Inside, I work my way upwards through the seven levels, looking across the open spaces as much as ahead. A person moving through such a large interior gives it scale in a way that an empty architectural photograph rarely manages.

At the top, the open-air rooftop offers a welcome change of setting, although the view is largely defeated by the haze. I had hoped for a clearer look across the city. Instead, the more distant buildings are reduced to faint outlines. Looking harder achieves very little, so I turn my attention back towards the foreground and the building itself. There is usually something worth noticing once I stop insisting on the photograph I came for.

I suspect Ombak will become popular as more people discover it. The easy walk from Suria, the park along the way and the rooftop all give it appeal beyond the shops. For today, I’m glad I passed on the buggy. The walk gave me time to look, and the new building gave me a reason to keep going. A clearer rooftop view can wait for another visit.

KLJJ #032 - Around Bukit Bintang

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSaturday afternoon in Bukit Bintang, and Kuala Lumpur had that slightly muted look the haze brings. The sun was there somewhere, but without much conviction, and the usual hard contrast of the city had softened. I started at Low Yat Plaza with a new camera in hand, the Insta360 X6, and began walking towards Pavilion. New cameras always alter the rhythm a little. You notice the street, but you also notice yourself noticing it, while quietly wondering whether you have actually pressed the right button.

The walk along Bukit Bintang was busy in the usual way. Traffic edged forward, delivery riders threaded through small gaps, and people crossed the road according to their own interpretation of timing. The haze took some of the harshness out of the light, which was not necessarily a bad thing. Shop windows became mirrors, catching passing faces, signage and fragments of buildings behind me. These layered reflections are often more interesting than the obvious view. Kuala Lumpur rarely presents itself neatly, and I think that is part of the attraction.

I stopped at Fahrenheit88 and wandered upstairs, where I came across a photography exhibition called Malaysia Through Us. It featured 60 works by 30 contemporary artists and looked at Malaysia through several themes, including people, Kuala Lumpur, food, hidden places and the future. It was a pleasant coincidence to stumble upon it in the middle of a walk with a camera. The idea was simple but effective: Malaysia seen not through monuments or grand statements, but through how people actually observe and experience it.

I found myself drawn to that premise because it is not far from what street photography does at its best. It pays attention to small things: a gesture, a face, a patch of light, a shopfront, a bit of clutter, someone waiting for someone else. These things are not important in themselves, but once framed they begin to say something about place. Perhaps not something definitive, but enough to make you pause.

From there I continued towards Pavilion. It was crowded, as expected, although there was nothing particularly dramatic going on. No large event, no grand display demanding attention. Just people shopping, meeting, waiting, walking and looking at their phones. That suited the walk perfectly well. Street photography does not require spectacle. Most of the time, the interesting moments arrive quietly and disappear before anyone else notices them.

I lingered for a while watching people move through the open spaces, passing beneath oversized screens and polished façades. The scale of the advertising is enormous, but the human moments remain small. Someone stopping to check a message. A child tugging at a parent. A couple disagreeing over which direction to go. A person suddenly turning into the light. These are the moments I tend to remember more than whatever was being advertised behind them.

Eventually I turned back towards Low Yat, cutting through the Sungai Wang side of Bukit Bintang. This part of the walk probably surprised me most. Sungai Wang Plaza had become noticeably quiet in the post-pandemic years, and for a while it felt as though the place had lost some of its old pulse. On this visit, that feeling was different.

There was noise again. People browsing, eating, hanging around, moving between shops. The corridors had life in them. Sungai Wang may not have the polished finish of the newer malls, but that is partly why it remains interesting. It feels more grounded, more connected to the street outside, and less determined to impress.

By the time I reached Low Yat again, the haze was still hanging over the city, softening the skyline and taking the edge off the afternoon light. But at street level, Bukit Bintang was anything but subdued. The place felt busy, slightly messy, familiar and alive.

And perhaps that was the real subject of the walk. Not the new camera, not Pavilion, not even the exhibition. Just Bukit Bintang continuing to change while somehow remaining itself. Old malls finding new energy, people filling the pavements, and the city carrying on beneath a hazy sky.

Sometimes that is enough.

A Rearranged Sunday

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSundays have their own liturgy, and mine began, as it usually does, with football — though today's offering was more passable than gripping, the kind of match you watch out of habit rather than genuine appetite, coffee doing more of the entertaining than the game itself.

Ward round followed, and mercifully it was a smooth one — everything in its place, nothing that demanded more than the usual attention. A good ward round has a way of setting up the rest of the day nicely, like a well-tuned instrument before the concert actually starts.

The concert, in this case, was meant to be a photowalk, plans already half-formed in my head for wherever the light looked best. Dayabumi had other ideas — car park closed, no explanation offered or particularly wanted, and just like that the whole itinerary needed rewriting on the spot. There's a specific irritation to a plan undone by something as mundane as a barrier and a padlock, though I've learned by now that photography days rarely survive first contact with the actual city.

Bukit Bintang absorbed the reshuffle happily enough. Ramen at Lot 10 for lunch, which did the job of resetting the morning's minor disappointment rather effectively — hot broth has a way of putting things back into perspective. From there, books at Starhill, a browse that needed no justification beyond its own quiet pleasure, and a stop for coffee where I tried a Kulai blend — fruity, interesting, and priced as though it knew exactly how fruity and interesting it was. Worth it, probably. I'll decide on the second cup.

Then the rain arrived, as it does in this city with theatrical suddenness, and the mall did what malls do best in such circumstances — became a holding pen for anyone without an umbrella or a plan. I wasn't fighting it. There are worse places to be marooned than somewhere with coffee, books, and air conditioning already accounted for. Anita, meanwhile, was over in Gombak, the day unfolding along two separate tracks that would eventually reconverge over dinner.

That reconvening happened at Ali Cafe, a meal that asked nothing complicated of either of us after a day of rearrangements and rain.

The evening closed on two very different registers. First, finally starting Star City, the For All Mankind spin-off I'd been meaning to get to for weeks — a quiet, unhurried way to ease into the evening. Then the rather more chaotic pleasure of the British Grand Prix, which delivered exactly the sort of late drama Silverstone does so well. Charles Leclerc took the win after the race finished under the safety car, a result that had rather more to do with late misfortune for others than dominant pace of his own, but a win is a win, and he'll not be troubled by the small print.

A day thoroughly rearranged from how it started, and none the worse for it.

Walking the City Awake

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoSunday started with purpose and good company. Azul and Robin were already waiting when I arrived — our walking group has become one of those fixtures that anchors the weekend properly. This morning brought a few new faces too: Jon, Andrew, and Santik, who folded into the group with the easy camaraderie that seems to happen naturally when people walk together. There's something about moving at the same pace that shortcuts the usual small talk.

Breakfast was at Al Baik, which set us up nicely for the miles ahead. But then came the gut punch. Light Capture Cafe — closed. Gone since January, apparently. I stood there processing this with the particular devastation reserved for discovering a beloved spot has vanished while you weren't paying attention. You always assume these places will just be there. They aren't obliged to wait for you, of course, but it stings nonetheless.

Medan Pasar remains under renovation, still wrapped in its scaffolding and promises. KL is a city perpetually in the process of becoming something — whether that something is better or simply different remains to be seen. We stopped instead at Makan.BUZZ, which was living up to its name with an energy that bordered on infectious. Full tables, good noise, the clatter and hum of a place that knows it's doing something right.

From there, we cut through Central Market and threaded our way through Chinatown towards Merdeka 118, the tower making its presence felt long before you're anywhere near it. The real destination, though, was the lobby — Azul has his work displayed there, which is no small thing. It's a grand space, all height and light and polished surfaces, and seeing someone you walk with on Sunday mornings represented in a building of that scale gives you a quiet thrill. We admired it properly, because that's what friends do.

The return leg took us to Dayabumi via the MRT, legs pleasantly tired, the morning's mileage sitting well in the bones.

At home, I caught the first episode of Star City over lunch — the new For All Mankind spin-off. Early days, but it has the feel of something that knows where it's going. Enough to warrant a second episode, certainly.

The afternoon turned domestic. A drive out to WMart and Bangsar Village for groceries, which is the kind of errand that passes for leisure when you're in the right mood. There's a meditative quality to choosing ingredients when you already know what you're cooking.

And what I was cooking was wagyu. Sunday steak night remains non-negotiable in this household, and wagyu elevates the ritual to something approaching reverence. Seared simply, rested properly, served without fuss. Some traditions don't need improving, only honouring.

A full day, but the right kind of full. The kind where your feet ache and your kitchen smells wonderful and you've seen a friend's art on the wall of the tallest building in the country.

Starting to Wind Down

With Raya only a couple of weeks away, the motivation to grind down to do the work had somehow gone down. I still have another call to do next weekend before I would be off for a week this coming Raya.

We decided to stay in KL this time around, shelving the original plan to return to Penang. With Anita’s father still weak and my Mum’s decision not to travel, the final decision was pretty straight forward. The boys also only had a couple of days off school. So travelling did not sound like an attractive option.

We will be spending much of the Raya at Bukit Antarabangsa. I would probably be relaxing, venturing on a photo walk or two. I was sure there would be plenty of visitors over those few days, which would keep Anita occupied.

I have at least four Berbuka event next week. And come Friday would be the last on call for Ramadhan - I had a total of four. My last clinic would be on the Wednesday before Raya. Hopefully things would be quiet by next week.