kuala lumpur: klcc.

Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia.

My journey today is along the Kuala Lumpur's Golden Triangle which is the city's main shopping hub.



Petronas Twin Tower. Malaysia's pride and joy. This skyscraper costs 1.6 Billion USD to make. But over the years one can't deny that it is a tremendous investment tourism wise for the country.

I swear the place seems to change everytime I come here. Land development never seems to stop.





KL is not very big, so it makes sense for them to build these huge buildings to accomodate.





This is where we stayed. The suite was very comfortable. A living hall, 2 very large bedrooms and a kitchen.





It is still early in the morning but the LRT station is absolutely packed with people.





I figure most of the are out shopping since it's the end of the month and most had just received their salaries.





Not being a KL native, I kind of struggled to adapt travelling by train. First, the ticket booth was so confusing that I spent several minutes looking at the maps, not knowing what to press. Second, at the check in counter, I did not know that you have to scan the ticket chips to get inside.

But the people around are helpful. Always ask if you're lost during travel. You absolutely must to save valuable time.





I liked the look of our taxis. I think that a red,blue Proton Saga turned taxi is such an iconic image of KL the same way the yellow cabs are to New York City.





KLCC Park. The story was that the park's designer wanted to give greenery around the park so that in his words "leave the world a little more sensitive and a little more educated to the importance of nature.





You can see people jogging and walking, children playing by the playground, families having a picnic - just like a nice park should.





Lots of school children here today. I'm thinking there's a school trip going on.





One can't help but notice all these towering skyscrapers surrounding the park.

Next to the Twin Tower is Maxis Tower, the headquarter for one of this country's leading telco company.  Speaking of telco companies do you know that phone SMS are basically free profit for these telco companies? 

A text message is at max 160 characters. In a computer system, 1 character = 1 byte. So at most a text message could be 160 bytes. The data for an SMS is so small that a 0.5 second phone call is equivalent to 1000 phone SMS.

Outside of maintenance cost, they are having a healthy profit for each SMS sent.





Lots and lots of people around the lake. The lake is named Lake Symphony.





A group of photographers doing a photoshooting outing.

You can tell how diverse our country really is from these pictures.





There's an event of sort happening here. My sister said she saw a celebrity (Maya Karin I think,my memory seems to fail me today) amongst the crowd.





Inside Suria KLCC.





We actually skipped shopping in Suria KLCC because our plan all along is to shop around Bukit Bintang. The most famous place there is Pavilion Shopping Centre which is where we are going now.

We are going there by foot.





The pedestrian walkway connects KLCC & Bukit Bintang. This project was supported fully by Petronas which in their words,  is a way of them giving back to the community.
The walkway is fully air conditioned.




The walk took us about 10 minutes. That was at a very leisurely pace as well. Security guards are aplenty so the walkway feels very safe.





Personally I think we need more projects like this. Anything that benefits the public is something to root for.





The walkway ends here.

I'm sure this place has a specific name, I can't for the life of me find the correct info for this place.





Lots of expensive looking restaurants and bars here.





I was told that come afternoon, the place will be packed with people notably tourists.





Next.





This is Pavilion Shopping Centre. One of if not the most famous shopping centre in KL.





We we decided against going inside at this moment. My sister decided that she wants to go somewhere else first. "Too find some clothes first", in her words.





I just agreed and followed.





We walked forward and I thought we were in a different country for one second here. The surroundings, the architecture are very foreign. I asked my aunt, who were with us from the beginning if she felt the same and she nodded.





I am sure we were not the only ones thinking that way.

One last look before we move on.

Just a random picture.





For all intense and purposes, KL's transportation system is quite good. LRTs, buses, taxis are aplenty. But I'm sure much more improvements can be made - especially regarding LRTs.

This was the place she's eager to go to, Lot 10 Shopping Mall. The mall was packed inside. People moved around like a pack of stucked sardines. I tried some clothes, even wanting to buy one but cancelled my desire after seeing how long the que was. Even the fitting room was packed and people were trying clothes on the fly around the mall.

Still the atmosphere was something you don't experience everyday.





After all is said and done we went out, and walk back towards Pavilion.





I'm glad because to be honest, the place doesn't fit me anyway. I was never a clothes guy anyway. Most of my clothes were bought by my mom.





The weather was hot. Thankfully it was just a short walk to Pavi, about 200 metres in my estimation.

Let's get inside before I'm dehydrated.

The place is huge. We splitted up and I followed my mom window shopping.





View from the third floor.

I followed her shopping for shoes (though at the end of the day she didn't buy any.).....





And find some ornaments and garnish for the house.





After all is said and done, we stopped by Dr Mahathir's bakery franchise The Loaf. I have to say the breads here tasted delicious. Well worth a stop.





The variaties of bread here are staggering.





And of course, we stopped by a nearby souvenir stall and bought us some souvenirs. I bought 2 t-shirts for myself. One blue and one black.





It was a fun trip.

mangroves & coconut trees.

I consider this to be a sequel of sort to the entry " a fishermen's village" which I wrote last year.

We're back in Besut, Terengganu. It is still dusk and the azan had just been recited. I woke up to a loud rooster's crowing.





However the cold sea breeze isn't really helping me in wanting to get up. I rolled myself into my thin blanket several times over but alas, the alarm clock rang not long after. I had no choice but to get up from my slumber.





Do not that this is still a little over 6 AM in the morning. I went out after a quick Subuh prayer for a walk around the village.

Passed by a few village people, one in particular asked me why am I taking pictures all over the place. I replied with a simple "it's for my assignment ma'am."





This lake or river of sort is where my father would take a bath every evening when he was young. He said there used to be many puffer fish (ikan buntal) residing in here. I'm not sure if there's anyone who's taken a bath here anymore. The place doesn't look particularly clean.





Around 7 AM I went back home to take a bath and clean myself up.





Everything is set.





Our plan for today is to go inside a mangrove forest. It's me and my 2 cousins. I was told by one of my cousin that the view in there is amazing.





Off we go - no not to the mangrove but out for breakfast.

We stopped by my aunt's small but lively stall.





Quite a lot of people during this time. We ate nasi berlauk and nasi dagang. We were also given some food to bring along there.

We didn't exactly leave early. You see mangroves have a cycle of low and high tides according to the time of the day. The low tide cycle will start around noon.





So we had a stroll to kill time.

We were at Kuala Besut which is very near to my village. This is its bus stand.




Behind it is a taxi stand. Lots of foreign tourists around the area. Should be good for the local economy.





We set off to Jerteh next. It is a 20 minutes drive from Kuala Besut on a good day. Not very far.





Not many pictures taken when I was here. Not too many people also. We went to a nearby food court for a nice drink.

Played with my cousin's Galaxy SIII.  Personally I think the phone is amazing, a big deal is made about it's ergonomics but I think that it's fine. The Galaxy Note on the other hand is too big for my liking. 

But I agree with most people online that Samsung should reconsider its Touchwiz UI which brings the phone down a lot. Sometimes there would be lag and stutter, which shouldn't happen at all with a phone of this spec and calibre. A shame that they used a Pentile screen though.

As you can see this picture was taken on the 17th of September. Samsung had just announced the Galaxy S4 a few days ago.

I ordered tea, while my 2 cousins Hafiz and Faiz ordered coffee and teh tarik respectively. Living in Egypt, I had grown to love tea as much as the Egyptians are. But overtime I find myself taking a liking to coffee more and more.





Next destination - Kampung Pengkalan Gelap where the mangrove forest is located.





It is such a nice and sunny day.





Perfect for a glass of coconut juice. My personal favourite is mixing coconut with sirap bandung. Why the locals do not do this is beyond me. Try it your self at home if you have the time.





This is the place. It is not exactly like what I had in mind before we came here. I was expecting a more out of this world, jawbreaking beautiful scenery which is kind of a ridiculous expectation.

Over time and looking back I do appreciate the diversity that nature has to offer. If you were to ask me today how did I think of the place - without doubt in my mind that I think this place is beautiful.





Lots of fire ants though around the area. My skin is all red from their bites.






Unfortunately for us, we were not able to buy any rubber shoes as the shop was closed on that day. What this means is that we will not be able to travel as far in as we originally planned to.

But improvising is part of the adventure, so we don't really mind.

However it is sad to see the place in this state. It is just not that well maintained. The story going on is that the state offered the repair tender to the villagers.  In theory this sounds great - a win win situation for both parties. But more often than not, it all falls apart in reality. Due to lack of skilled workers, the work done is less than stellar. You can see it for yourself.

It is really important to hire the right person for a job - that is an important lesson I learnt.





We're going down to the swamp. No rubber shoes but my cousin said it will be alright. "Look out for the spiky twigs though when walking," warns him.





We went down barefooted. Since it's low tide now, the water level is just above our ankles which doesn't make walking that difficult. But it's slippery sometimes and there are loads of toadpoles and small fishes swimming around.





I thought this was a water-lily at first.





My cousin leads the way.





He is currently doing his Master's research here so the place is like second nature to him. His thesis is related to breeding and growing swamp crabs, or something like that.

For a person like me, I can't fathom how one would like to spend months and months in a place like this.





But I think one would grow to like it if they were here long enough.

Lots of green foliage, which is pleasing on the eye.





And the scenery is straight out of a Discovery Channel documentary.

I had to be really careful passing through the area. The sand mud coupled with the little twigs almost made me fell down a couple of times.





The sound of the forest is really relaxing. My cousin said that it was the sound of water flowing out due to the low tide.

We had lunch with food given from my aunts. I ate nasi berlauk coupled with kuih cara. We cleaned up the place after we had finished, making sure not to loiter.

We walked straight towards a nearby lake. Lots of butterfiles around the area.

We can cross to the other side if we had a boat. My cousin said that the view is far more beautiful over there than here. But that would require us to have rubber boots which again we don't have.





I'm spent.





The river had lots and lots of little fishes swimming around. I washed my face and cleaned my feet and had two or three gulps of water to quench my thirst.





We went back to the car, and stopped by a nearby road stall where I finally had my glass of coconut juice.