That Giant Ketupat

Suria KLCC had always use the area just by the fountain entrance to erect monuments. It ranged from Xmas tree to giant lantern for Chinese New Year. This time around for Aidilfitri, it was almost the same as last year, a giant ketupat!

Not exactly original but there you have it.

At the central foyer, there had a stage and a stalls, all around an old kampung house. There was a traditional troupe playing when I visited, popular with the tourist.

As usual, we are obsessed with building tall structures and breaking records. The tall ketupat was recorded as the tallest ever built in Malaysia, with a sign proclaiming so ...

Pasar Seloka Raya

Anita read somewhere that there was a bazaar going on at Publika. She wanted to buy some items there and asked if I can drive her there.

Being a public holiday, getting a parking spot could be tricky. But it turned out that there were plenty of pace at the lower levels. Once there, you just needed to climb on the escalator to get to the shopping floors. Quite convenient.

And the bazaar was great. After half an hour, Anita could not make up her mind about what to buy. There were too many optins and since the place was packed, it was difficilt to get any service. Maybe she should come back during work days when there were not too many people.

The bazaar mainly sell clothes. It was a great place to get Raya clothes for children, The dresses were damn cute, so were the baju melayu. There were also ornaments and cosmetics. The one stall which attracted my attention actually belonged to the singer, Amy Search.

I ended up buying some lights for the balcony for Raya decorations. All battery operated and portable. Definitely a great place to spend an afternoon shopping with plenty of cafe and restaurants - alas, it was Ramadhan. Great place to hang around ...

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.

Ramadhan Walk

Since I was off for the first day of Ramadhan, I decided to take a ride into time en route to pick Anita up from Gombak. It allowed me to stop at the bank to settle some bills and took my camera with me.

That famous monorel bridge at NU SentralWaiting for my ride ...Decorations at NU SentralPacking them in ..I just got myself a new lens and was eager to give that a go. Ramadhan and the hot sunshine did not stop me.

One of the many arches near Central MarketMedan PasarStill too early for Aidil FitriWalking around Medan Pasar and Central Market at that hour was not really my idea of a photowalk, but there were quite a few subjects to aim at.

The ever-familar KL TowerThe number to call ...Masjid JamekMaking my way backThe new setup I tried - the Leica CL with Summicron-TL 23 - was a dream to use, especially as I usually use a manual setup. Focussing on this combo was fast and usually accurate despite the lens wide open. Contrast may not be as great as the Summilux-M 35 which I normally use, but the convenience of autofocus made up for it. Time to get more mileage on the lens and get use to the renderings ...

The Ramadhan Traffic

One thing I had always worried during Ramadhan was making the trip back home in time.

After a long day, the last thing you wanted to see was heavy traffic. And during Ramadhan, more often than not, this had been the case. A journey which normally took 20 minutes could end up an hour.

From the start of Ramadhan, I could see the problem right from my own balcony. Only on weekdays. But the traffic would start from the bottom of Jalan Lembah Pantai/NPE junction right up Bukit Pantai. Coming home from work, I could easily spend half an hour inching towards my apartment from the NPE exit. Excruciating!

So, on the days where I would be late, I would have to return close to berbuka time. Usually the traffic eased off by 6.45 and became non-existant by 7.15. Not fun though ....