Visit Malaysia Year 2007!

Every so often, the Malaysian government feels the desire to remind its citizens those past and present as well as ones that those global citizens that we all like to consider ourselves, that the country of Malaysia is indeed worth a visit.

This year is one such a year. Being a past citizen, I felt it only my duty to make use of the cheaper air flights and tourist attractions to pay a visit to my grandparents and relatives alike, take a much needed holiday break from China and introduce a Greek to the pleasures of the Msian eating factory.

Having once had to travel frequently from London to Sydney, the "short" Beijing to KL leg was welcome relief expecially when accompanied with the mandatory eating of late night wanton noodles at 2am in the morning. It was good to be back and great to see Dad as well ;-).

Senia arrived the next night, on the god blessed Air Asia cheap flights system. Unfortunately with her Greece bound luggage (she was leaving Australia) the overweight luggage fee made it very much a full price affair.. Despite that, spirits held high we had another late night supper serving of Hokkien mee at the good old SS2. Ah 2 from 2, Msia was looking good especially since the Bah Kut Teh had been ticked off earlier that day as well.

Next morning after more meatball noodles and Kway Teow washed down with Kopi Ais, we proceeded on the very untouristy journey to visit the graves of my grandparents. Morbid as this may sound there is a definite cultural funny side to this! Chinese as you know are really into 'feng shui'. So much so that they are also into it once they have departed life as they know it. We discovered that one very entreprenuerial Chinese gentlemen had played on this desire and had decided to go into the business of graveyards.

Bit of feng shui "Dragon"

On prime plots of land hemmed in by mountains on one side and sea on the other, coupled with a few dragons drinking from flowing streams, a business has been made of selling mini plots of land to older people as their graveyard.

This all inclusive service includes, the design and construction of your gravestone of choice, engraving as well as lifelong maintenance and care for your belovedly chosen plot. These depending whether you are facing mountain sea or the breath of a dragon all differ in price. You can even design graves with furniture to have your after life cup of tea and even those shaped as piano's so that you can listen to the dulcet tones of Shanghai singers to relax your departed soul.

Music for your soul anyone?

Now one may laugh at this concept but business was no laughing matter, they were talking about expanding their grave management services to Taiwan, China and the rest of SE Asia. Who needs shopping centres when one can sell plots of land to the baby boomer millions for higher than the price of a shop! You gotta see the attached photos..

The rest of the time in KL was relatively normal so to speak. Lots of eating, yong tau fu, chicken rice, roti canai and late night mamak stalls were all ticked off. Old friends Alvin Bol and Adrian Chua were caught up with and Senia was showed the grand tours of the embassies and the occasional very cool jazz club / bistro that KL has to offer. All that was left was to partake in the very Msian young person pastime of movies and shopping. Of course we did the occasional starbucks and watched several movies including transformers and Harry Potter twice but the shopping was a stand out this time. And boy did we shop!

For those of you that know me, you are aware that I am the quintessential male, I only shop to buy and do so very quickly. So it was also to my surprise that I spent 3 whole days walking around shopping with Senia. Dalian was a dry pit for clothing so I was determined to make up for lost time. Sungei Wang, Times Square, Mega Mall, KLCC, One Utama were all walked explored and bought out. Mid year sales and up to 80% off brands that fit me were too much fun. Tshirts, jeans, jackets, bags and shoes later, it took a whole new suitcase to take home what Senia and I mustered up. I am glad that sales only come 2wice a year! Having worked in the shopping mall industry for over a year now there were many things that could have improved in Malaysian malls but prices were not one of them!

Senia of course did the mandatory sight seeing, Twin towers, Merdeka Square, various Mosques, Railway station, the muddy confluence where Kuala Lumpur got its name. Even a trip to Genting Highlands, the casino and our old regularly frequented country club Awana was paid a visit. However nothing was more spectacular I thought then the Putrajaya development.

As a bit of a background, the old Prime Minister Mahathir had a dream to create a parliamentary city that would show the world the wonder of Malaysia. We were shown around the project by my uncle Nick who was able to give us the inside goss seeing that he helped design and build some of the housing developments. The dream of Putrajaya involved building housing, courts, government offices on a previous rubber estate. Modelled on Canberra to certain extents I was told stories of how bridges were built prior to man made rivers and lakes being dug and filled. No expense was spared for this project, grand architecture, glamorous palaces, invitations to the best restaurants in the world to open up branches here. However whilst the project has cost billions, made millionaires of many rubber estate owners and construction companies and probably made a significant dent in Petronas the National oil company, the place is still relatively deserted and housing only a fraction of the people that the plans originally intended. Another example of developing governments getting a bit too full of themselves in my opinion and making the rich richer and draining the national reserves for those very much needed funds of the future. But hey it looks magnificent!

The second part of the trip was a very relaxing and nature indulging trip to Redang island on the East coast of West Malaysia. 4 days which included lying on the beach, snorkelling, reading and not much else. Will let the photos do the talking here.

So all in all, visit Msia year was quite a trip and will go down as another fantastic experience in Msia. Sights, sounds, shops and food were pretty much the words of the trip as they always are but hey one still does need these experiences from time to time. Bring on Visit Malaysia year 2010! haha For all the other photos check out the posted website. http://picasaweb.google.com/terence.koo/MalaysiaJuly07