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 ...

Monday at Publika

Even though it was located only 10 minutes away from our apartment, Public was not a common place for us to visit. And it mainly to do with parking. We were stuck in huge queues to get in and out and in the end, we never bordered going there again.

We were banking that the place would be deserted during this long weekend and we were right. There were not too many people there. The CNY decorations were being dismantled as well and quite a few of the ships were still closed for the holidays.

Anita wanted to buy some tidbits for the apartment for decorations and there were a few stores there selling cute items. One thing about the place was the food. There were tons of restaurants there, both in Public and the streets surrounding it. We ended up having Thai Boat Needles and the restaurant was located right in the end of the mall.

There were too many things that caught our eyes that in the end we ended up not buying much. We may head out there again in the future once we decided what we wanted to buy.

Pandamonium

The 1600 Panda project was doing its round across Malaysia and for the final two weeks, them cute pandas would be stationed in Publika. It was a WWF project to raise awareness on the decline of the species and the 1600 pandas represent the 1600 pandas still left in the wild. Or at least when I was told.

I took the boys to visit today, and it was havoc. Publika was chock full of people. Parking was a nightmare and to make matters worse, we arrived during lunch hour and could not get any seat to eat. It was a struggle although we finally got one. Ben'd even had a 45 minutes waiting time. We went elsewhere instead.

The queue to get in to touch the pandasAfter we were fed, it was time to get into some panda action. The queue to enter the cordoned area to have a close-up of photos was just too ridiculously long. So, only a few selfies and snaps were done before we muscle our way out.

Best to come either late morning or maybe later on in the afternoon. Sunday lunchtime was definitely a bad idea in anyone's book.

The pandas were cute though. Smaller than I thought. Definitely worth getting the snaps ..... Shame that Publika would their final local stop. Not sure when they would return ...

Sunday at B.I.G.

The B.I.G. - Ben's Independent Grocer - at Solaris Dutamas was an imposing store at so many level. It was located on the Lower Ground, and one could never miss it.

We could spend the whole afternoon at the place alone. There were rows of groceries, plus a couple of nice cafe to sit at to pass the time - code for husbands to sit down while the wives were doing the shopping.

We sat down at the cafe yesterday to have lunch. The food was OK. The lasagna and pizza were great, but the salad not really. In fact it was rather disappointing. It was meant to be a Mediterranean el fresco twist to it, but fallen miserably short.

Sitting for lunchThe salad was not really nice at allThe lasagna however was superbLet's ask what Irfan thought of the pizza .... self explanatory ........ and the mocha was not badAfter lunch, my boys went berserk at the grocers. Especially the more domesticated Irfan. He kept piling up the baskets with all sorts of food. Idlan couldn't care less. Everything was clearly and well laid out. And the other plus about the place was the majority of the staffs there were locals. Communications was easy. The butcher however was Australian .... which was a bit strange.

I wonder what that big "B" was doing in the middle of the aisleDefinitely a place to visit. A nice place to spend Sunday lunch, if you have some groceries to do.

Publika at Solaris Dutamas

It had been raining all afternoon. We initially planned to take the boys out to the park in the afternoon but the thunderstorm changed our mind. We then drive to Plaza Damas to let the boy loose in the indoor gym, but that too was closed. After a quick snack, we drove across the road to Publika as we had been curious about the place for a number of months. And it was a revelation.

The place was much bigger than we initially thought, even with not all the shops were opened. The anchor tenant, Ben's Independent Grocers - or BIG - more than made up for that. The place was a groceries shopper heaven! Upmarket - slightly less than than Jason's at Bangsar Shopping Center, but bigger size-wise. But that was just half of the story.

By the main entranceI was not joking when I said that the place was spaciousHmm! Artwork?Mooo!There were seats scattered around the walkwayIdlan trying out one of the chair. Verdict: uncomfortable.The place was spacious and parking was plentiful - although bear in mind that KL was quiet today with the city dwellers still making their way back from kampung after Raya. We explored some of the shops, but what struck me was the emphasis on space. The corridors were wide, airy and full of natural sunlight from the clear ceilings. There were also some artwork - mainly designed from garbage littering the walkways, with seating area tucked away at regular intervals. It was easily 200m from one end to the next, and there we also shops in the walkway outside. It would take one whole day to really explore the place.

There were interesting artworks lying about. Idlan was sure that this was a girl robot. I wondered why?This one was right colourfulWe didn't have the chance to venture outside. Maybe on the next visit.A quick dinner stopBy the toiletThe whole Solaris Dutamas complex was not just Publika - this was the main shopping mall. There were office buildings parallel to the mall, with roads linking the buildings. There were plenty of restaurants and offices around there, which I was sure had an exclusive ring to it. Where is your office? Solaris Dutamas. Got class maaan!

After a couple of hours, we decided to have a quick drink, then off to groceries shopping at BIG. It practically had everything ...... And that would require a separate entry .....