As we were approaching our long National Day weekend, my wife and I had planned for a 3-night vacation trip to KL, the capital of Malaysia last week.
For many years, we had traditionally stayed in S’pore to gather at my sister’s place for a family potluck dinner and watch the NDP fireworks from her balcony. All of us would also wear red T-shirts to celebrate the occasion. But her condo was en-bloc’ed last year and she had to move out. Also for this year, our younger son was joining his group of friends for a trip to the Cameron Highlands. So my wife and I decided to plan for a weekend getaway to KL too.
Our last trip to KL was in 2019 to attend my niece’s wedding. This was just months before Covid hit us and the global lockdowns happened. It was a lovely big family group road trip. We enjoyed eating a lot while celebrating the grand wedding in style.
We decided to take commercial coaches to and from KL for this trip. They now have luxury coaches that cost about 2.5 times more than no-frills buses. We took a day of leave and left on Thursday morning to beat the crowds to spend 3 nights in KL and return home early on Sunday.
The pickup point was at Jurong East and a bus took us through the S’pore and Malaysia immigration stations via the second link where we transferred to a luxury coach for the 4+ hours ride to Berjaya Times Square. A concierge served us breakfast and drinks on the bus and we had a 10-minute toilet break in between.
With Grab easily accessible, we went to the service apartment we had booked via booking.com. It was a one-bedroom 500-square-foot apartment with a living/dining area and a kitchenette. The condo was new, construction was completed in 2023 and it was full of Airbnb guests like ourselves.
We immediately set out to Lot 10 food court for a late lunch and shopping around the Pavillion Bukit Bintang area. In between, we decided to have a beer for a tea break to watch the shopping crowd. It was so cosmopolitan, much more than S’pore. We saw many tourists from the Middle East, China, India and South East Asia.
We just had to eat durian hat tempted us with many such shops on our walk back to the apartment ;-). We rested for a while before heading to the famous Alor food street in the evening for a sumptuous seafood feast. As expected, we over-ordered whatever we fancied and ate too much. We ended the night with a drink at a nearby bistro that had a live band playing pop music.
The next morning, we had a slow and easy morning visiting the gym and chilling in the room. The famous Oversea restaurant we wanted to visit opens at 1130. It was a short walking distance away from the condo for a late brunch meal. After lunch, we walked around the Pavillion area again to do more shopping. I went for an expensive scalp treatment while my wife was busy shopping for clothes for our boys.
After depositing our shopping stuff in the apartment in the late afternoon, we headed to Bangsar to check out the bohemian place that reminded us of S’pore’s Holland Village. It was a quiet, laid-back atmosphere known for its drinking holes and Nasi Kandar food. We had a drink and then settled for a disappointing dinner. We headed back to Alor again as we wanted to have durian for dessert and try the squid stick I had eyed the night before.
On the final day, we had a relaxing morning before trying to beat the crowd to the 1100 opening time of the famous Heun Kee clay pot chicken rice for lunch. Then it was to KLCC for more shopping and a 90-minute foot reflexology session. We then walked back to the apartment to rest and prepare for the highlight of the trip, a degustation dinner at Petaling Jaya.
We went a bit earlier before the 8 pm dinner time slot and they recommended a nice cocktail bar beside it called Terumi, the tender bar. Nice avant-garde bar counter with exotic cocktail concoctions. Dinner was at Chipta 11A Curated Dining and we chose the MYR 500 per person menu and ordered a nice bottle of sake. It was sitting at the counter watching the chefs prepare each dish in front of us. It was a long 2.5-hour dinner affair. I was a bit knocked out by the whisky cocktail and sake by the end of the night…
We had to pack and get ready for an early morning 0730 coach ride back to S’pore. It was uneventful and we reached home by 1 pm, refreshed from a nice and lazy long weekend vacation. I am amazed at how vibrant KL has become during this trip.
Malaysia seems to be at the beginning of a boom with IT data centre investments and an increase in tourism. I really hope that they will finally get it right this time and leverage their proximity to S’pore to make it a win-win result for everyone. It has so much upside it can offer and develop once it eradicates the old corruption problem and catches up with the many years of stagnation and decay. There is so much potential ahead of them if they do it right this time after so many false starts. Hopefully, they have seen the power of the synergy between Shenzhen and HK to aspire to be the same now between Malaysia/Johore and S’pore.
It’s time to pivot again soon for my halftime adventure. Within the next 6 months, I hope to transition to the next phase of my life journey. I am positive that many new doors will open in front of me and new life experiences to keep me occupied and engaged with what life has to offer me.
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