KL City Gallery

This was something new that I discovered. Not exactly a museum, but a showroom for the local handicraft company ARCH - famous for wooden gifts - to promote their products. But it was done tastefully in the form of man exhibition centre.

Located right opposite Dataran Merdeka famous flagpole, this converted colonial building host a gallery about KL in the past as well as a unique model of the town the size of a room.

They served plenty of information - could be more - as well as promote local events such as walks and bus rides. The great location could certainly be a hub for tourist activities but the promotions was pretty basic. I stumbled into it after seeing the bright red 'I live KL' sign sitting at its door. Cool stuff indeed.

A room-sized model of Kuala LumpurModel of Bangunan Sultan Abdul SamadA great idea but something which should have been done by the local tourism board rather than a private company due to a clear conflict of interest. The collection of old artifact was pretty basic. I felt that more effort should have been made for it to carry the title of a city gallery. This was more of a showroom. Can't blame ARCH though. It was a genuine effort on their part to start all this.

Central Market Today

It had been a while since in last visited the Market. And it was even longer for Anita. She wanted to buy some gifts and after looking at some items at Jonker Street, she wondered how much was the difference in price between Melaka and KL. Suffice to say that it was a lot.

The place was pretty quite which was expected this being a Tuesday. A few tourists about but January was hardly a peak time for visitors in KL. Still, things remained very expensive.

The huge way motif overlying Kasturi Walk Do come inAlways had this thing about the tiles at Central MarketThe Kasturi Walk was now fully ready. It was still being erected when I last ventured here. But one thing certain about the place was the impression that the visitors would get. They would think that Malaysia and Indonesia shared the same dialect. Most of the vendors here employed Indonesian to man their shops. Something that the authority should into very seriously.

The restaurant at the second floor still served a mean tom yam. But again, only a couple of the staffs there were local.

Some of my previous entries on Central Market can be read here and here.

A Walk in Town

The weather was nice and I have a couple of hours to kill. 10 am on a Monday morning and in was on leave. My camera was with me and Pasar Siti Khadijah was only 10 minutes away by foot.

Off I went without much hesitation.

The traffic in the morning was quite happy. I walked past the bus terminal, made a right turn and before I knew it, I was already at one of the entrances of the unmistakeable facade of the market.

It was the day before Aidil Adha, and I wasn't expecting the place to be crowded. But minis the crowd, I felt that place lost some of its photogenicity. I managed to squeeze out some decent photographs but ,in us the crowd people were aware that in was snapping at them.

I hung around for about half an hour, before deciding to head put to Bazaar Buluh Kubu next door. Again, my timing was bad. I was too early.

It was around 11 and only a handful of the shops were opened. Colourful, but again minus the crowd, I couldn't slip in to take photographs.

The sun was really high by now, and I took some time taking in the cityscape. They still have plenty of old buildings built after the war at the city center. Mostly built with art deco influence most needed refurbishments. The area around the bus terminal caught my eyes. And one particular bakery was calling me in.

More about the bakery later. As for now, let's just enjoy the snap and the ambiance.

Link to the photowalk slideshow can be seen here. More write-ups from the whole trip here.

Part 6 Kudu bin Abdul

Restoran Kudu bin Abdul. This was my Dad's favourite nasi kandar shop in KL. We as a family had been coming here since the early 80s, and we visited the shop on the day that the original owner died after a fall at the shop in the 90s. It had since been run by his children, and since then the food had never tasted the same.

We still come here if not for the food, for the atmosphere. There restaurant had a storied past. The great Tan Sri P Ramlee was a regular here when he was still filming right before his death. It was a taste of Penang, outside Penang. The curry was so spicy that if you enjoy the food with your fingers, you could still smell the spices on your hands a couple of days after! It was that tasty.

The last time I visited the shop was a couple of years back with my Mum and Dad. We stopped here when we were walking by towards Maju Junction - the shop was located on the last row before the intersection of Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman and Jalan Sultan Ismail. It was still early for lunch then, but still the crowd was already building up. SInce I just had my late breakfast not so long before, I had to give the place a miss.

Maybe I'll visit the place again in the next couple of weeks with my Dad. It had been a while since we both came …..

The walk was blogged here.

Part 3 Let's Get Wet

On we marched. And soon we were onto series of corridors away from the rows of shophouses. The Chow Kit wet market was actually smaller than I thought. It used to be bigger, but the back half - towards Menara Safuan had been cordoned off for development. A new market was recently opened in half of the space and these certainly looked more organised. It looked like the old market would be slowly phased out in the future, a sort of upgrading.

These are certainly fresh. Not the likes that you find at the supermarkets.Look at these maize. I could sink my teeth into them ....Going bananas!My fellow photographers getting stuck in as well ....Not sure how they taste like, but they sure smelt nice!You might wonder if the place had lost it charm with the relocation. Personally I felt that the charm had left the place some years back. There were a couple of reasons for this, first the generational change of the vendors, and secondly the people that made up the vendors now.

In the wet market, the majority of the stall owners were still locals, but they were of the newer breed. They do not run their own business anymore but rather letting the place out. As a result, the people manning the shops were no longer locals. They were Indonesian mainly, and as a result, the produce and the people actually coming to buy the produce were not locals anymore.

Let's be honest, I couldn't tell if they were bargains to be had here ....I was told that the fresher the fish, the clearer the eyes looked. These were certainly clear ....Hoofs anyone?Super fresh coconut milk!I remember that the meat and fishmongers were mainly Malays and the Chinese mainly sell fruits and vegetables. The Indian would mainly occupy the dry part - in shop rows - selling spices and the likes. Chow Kit used to be a one-stop centre where everything went and you could find anything there. Obviously time has changed. And I was left to reflect at the cafe at the exit of the market when I sat down to enjoy my breakfast with the other photographers. How time has changed …..

The entries were compiled here.