Getting to know KL

Posted: July 12th, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: kuala lumpur, travel, vacation | No Comments »

I moved to Kuala Lumpur for an academic leave. I sometimes write about my experiences here, but also check out my instagram.

My uberBLACK ride back to Plaza Rah from the restaurant I had wondered to because of the inaccurate address of another restaurant in Yelp took longer than expected yesterday evening. 35 minutes for a little over 2 kilometres means that the traffic at the part of KL I am staying was extraordinaly bad. The driver explained that next week is Hari Raya Aidilfitri, the big holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan, so everybody is shopping for stuff this weekend. Next weekend, during the holidays, the city will be so deserted that I could cross the road without looking both ways, he said.

I have been in KL only three full days, two of which have mostly been spent apartment hunting, because I have to move out of the free accommodation at Plaza Rah provided so kindly by the university I am attending here on Wednesday next week. I finally picked the studio in a building which was closest to the university and although the building had just been finished and there was no furniture in the room yet, the nice real estate agent guy explained that everything will be ready by the time I move in. The building itself is quite something, like most new luxury condos in KL, with a lobby that has an art gallery feel to it. All of the luxury condos have a gym, pool etc as standard, one even had an infinity pool on top of it, offering stunning views of the KLCC skyline while swimming.

I am still getting to know KL, but everything is more close and compact than one would expect from a city of 1,6 million people, but people rarely walk anywhere. It is very hot and if you walk for a while you will become sweaty, so that makes sense. I have been mostly getting around with the monorail and light rail transit (LRT). The monorail is extra cool, because: a) it is not so common; b) it goes through the city centre above the streets, offering great views.

Yesterday I ended up spending half a day at the Bookfest@Malaysia2015 at KL Convention Centre, which this year celebrates its 10th anniversary. I only visited the English books hall, which was gigantic and where I bought eight books for ca 50 euros, including some about Malaysia. There were also authors speaking, including someone who was billed as the Godfather of Singapore Fashion.

KL makes you feel like you almost live in the future: the monorail, the skyscrapers, the congestion, the commercialism, the diversity of people. It also allows glimpses to the past: there are hawker stalls and small family houses that look beautiful in their wornout state.

tl;dr: KL is cool.



Leave a Reply