So my job had required me to travel out to China for the very first time not so long time ago. China had always been in my bucketlist for as long as I could remember, but given the geographical size of the mainland and the existence of so many interesting places that I wanted to go to, my plan for a trip to this gigantic nation would always halt because I could not decide where to go first and where to go later.
It really was a very last minute call and before I knew I had to scramble all over to get all the requirements done especially the Visa which was not easy to get given the very limited number of slots per day at the Chinese embassy in Kota Kinabalu (picture above). But of course where there is a will there is a way and before I knew I was already travelling to KL where I’d stay overnight before taking an early morning flight out to Hong Kong where I’d have to jump into a connecting flight over to Shanghai.
I really thought the stopover was just a matter of dashing across the departure hall to another gate and jumping into the waiting connecting flight. How wrong I was, as I had to totally get out of the departure hall, ran a few stairs down to the check in counter and do another round of check-in, security check and all, all in one hour! I was quiet exhausted by the time I landed at the Shanghai International Airport about 8 hours after I left from KL. Urgh.
The first thing that I noticed the moment I stepped out of Shanghai airport was the cold weather. I haven’t been to a four-seasoned country for so long that I had almost forgotten the existence of cold winter. The cold washed over me like a splash of acid and the macabre realization that I did not bring a winter coat with me took me to a momentary state of panic attack.
So the plan was to catch up with the rest of the entourage at the Shanghai Train Station, except that it was not THE Shanghai Train Station but more like ONE of Shanghai Train Stations. Either the communication was bad or the taxi driver was too dumb to even care, but he dumped us off at the wrong train station. By the time we noticed that we had less than one hour to find our ways around and took another taxi, this time to the right train station.
So from the train station in Shanghai, we went on a pre-booked bullet train ride to another city called Wuxi. It was late in the night when we arrived at the hotel in Wuxi, and the tugging hunger had prompted us to brave through the extreme cold to look for a restaurant. Most of the restaurants had closed so it was quite a relief when we finally found a small restaurant that served quite good food. Believe me, the taste of a soupy hot meal in a late winter cold is always unmatched!
Following a pre-arranged itinerary, we spent almost the whole first day at a factory doing what we were there to do. We went out briefly for lunch, which was at a Halal restaurant since some of the group members were Muslim. It was quite a feast and the restaurant was quite fancy too. Letting the Chinese hosts do the ordering, it was probably one of the meatiest lunches that I had ever had in quite a long time. They ordered mostly lamb, which was cooked fresh and almost without any of those smell-absorbing spices and gradients that we usually cook our lamb with back in Malaysia. The smell was horrible but the Chinese hosts seemed to enjoy them very much.
After finishing the afternoon session at the factory, the hosts took us over to an ancient town where we did a nice evening stroll along a street called Nanchang Street. I fell in love with the place almost instantly. I mean, it was the China that I had always dreamed of seeing and experiencing through. The township landscape was dominated by a beautiful canal with rows of beautiful old buildings on both sides.
I’d imagine they were probably houses in the past but have now been turned into beautiful shops, restaurants and cafes. The two sides of the canal are inter-connected by beautiful arch bridges at certain locations which reminded me so much of Venice. It was late winter, so the greyness of the buildings and the leaf-less-ness of the trees provided such a classical oriental landscape combination. The experience of walking along the street with all the ancient buildings was such a surreal experience.
After spending a couple of hours at the Nanchang Street, we wrapped up our day in Wuxi with a heavy set of Japanese foods at a Japanese food restaurant.
Being in Wuxi was quite an experience but I was looking forward more to our next few days in Shanghai – the modern cosmopolitan that defines China as a new modern nation.
I had always wanted to visit the Borobudur temple. I remember reading about it from somewhere, probably an in-flight magazine or a text book from my school years, and I remember how I got awed by the picture of mysterious stupas that sit timelessly atop a complex structure. It was exactly the reason why I flew into Jogja for.
So after spending half a day wandering off the temple complex of Prambanan, I returned to the hotel to pack up before ordering for a Grab that would take me right to the town of Borobudur. The Grab would cost me around IDR150,000 which was a fair price for a one and half hour’s ride. The excitement was growing as I headed towards the Magelang regency where the temple of Borobudur is located in.
Now came the interesting part. It was while on the Grab when I suddenly felt like checking out the entrance fee to Borobudur temple. I did hear about the revised new entrance fee but I had to reconfirm so that I could avoid being shocked in case it had really doubled up as I remembered it was if I had read it correctly. That was when I found out – while reading through one of the websites – that the temple complex doesn’t open its gate to visitors on Mondays!
It was way past 2 pm when I arrived at the hotel near Borobudur so I had to rush to the temple or I’d miss Borobudur entirely on this trip since my flight back to Malaysia would be morning Tuesday – the day after the next day!
Rushing to the entrance to Borobudur, I had to ask around before I managed to get to it and the existence of the massive market outside of the gate didn’t quite help. I rushed to the ticket counter and this time I didn’t pretend to be a local or anything – so the entrance fee was IDR450,000 (around RM136) which was not cheap for a single entry. It was a full tour though, meaning I could get up to the 9th tier of the 10 tiers there were while most of the visitors would only be allowed to roam around the temple without getting onto the tiers – unless of course they paid extra for it.
The tour had consisted of 6 foreigners – which I later found out was a couple from Germany and three buddies from China (or probably Taiwan, I didn’t get to ask since they stayed away from the tour group most of the time). We were led by a female tour guide, which was a Muslim wearing hijab. I was taken aback by how passionately she explained to us the history of Borobudur – from the time it was built, to the discovery and the recovery efforts, to the detailed stories behind the wall carvings. I mean, some Malaysians that I knew even told me how entering religious places of others than (those of) Islam was haram (forbidden) but of course different people have different ways of looking at things especially when it comes to religions.
I had to climb up a few tiers before I came upon the famous stupas of Borobudur. I was told that Borobudur had just been re-opened to public quite recently since it was closed due to the pandemic, with new admission fees and rules have been introduced. I was told how back then the visitors could roam freely all over the temple complex so it was always so crowded with estimated 35 thousand people came visiting every single day so it was easy to imagine how crowded it was. Now that they have put restriction to the entry to the tiers – unless you pay accordingly, like I did – the whole temple was almost deserted.
Deserted it might be – to an extent – but some of the visitors seemed to be all over, inter-framing photos and everything in between. A group of teenagers who were there for example wouldn’t bother to pave way for even a single clean photo without their stupid faces inter-framing, as if the temple belongs to their stupid grandmothers or something. They’d stay around for so long, taking all kind of stupid poses with stoned faces and wouldn’t even bother to consider any of our requests for a clean photo. Grrrr!
So we were there for a couple of hours or so, which was more than enough to cover the whole 9 tiers but one and I had to say that Borobudur is certainly an amazing place to be. It was not only the temple itself but the beauty of the surrounding that could only be enjoyed from the upper tiers of the massive temple. After taking tonnes of photos and exchanging goodbyes to the tour members especially the tour guide itself, I made my way to the exit while ignoring the resilient peddlers that came to me in hordes along the way.
The town of Borobudur seemed to come so much alive as dusk fell, with all the shops and restaurants and roadside hawkers opened in full force. After all, it was weekend so everybody seemed to come out of their shells to enjoy the day before coming back to whatever works that they have to do through the weekdays the next day. Indonesia might be a melting pot for a diversity of food, and yet I always find myself coming back to the same set of foods every time I travel to this country.
Not that I did not try this time, in fact I found myself going back and forth all over the small town of Borobudur trying to find something at least out of the ordinary to eat. And yet I could not find anything that suited the current demand of my tongue and stomach so in the end I settled for a bowl of hot Bakso – another ordinary food that I keep coming back to every time I travel to Indonesia. Later when I felt like eating again, I went to a Nasi Padang restaurant, which was probably one of only a few proper restaurants in the town of Borobudur. Needless to say, I would be returning to this restaurant a few times all throughout my stay in Borobudur.
In my effort to find something interesting to fill my last day in Indonesia the next day with, since I have already done the Borobudur a day earlier than it was originally planned, the guest house owner suggested that I went to see the sunrise from a place called Punthuk Setumbu. I was joined by a middle-age American who was on his solo mission to travel across the globe on a bicycle. The owner was very kind to take us to the entry gate for free, which was the starting point of a little bit of hike to the viewing point. I only wished I was going on my own, because I found the overly chatty American quiet distracting me from doing the hike in peace.
I was usually open to having a good conversation with a stranger especially when it involved something as interesting as cycling solo across the globe, but somehow I was not in the right mood to have one this time, or rather I did not want to be distracted. He told me how happy he was to have a conversation with me because he hasn’t had a conversation in English for quite some time. He told me how he had a good time cycling across the Malaysian Peninsula from Thailand all the way to Singapore – and how Malaysia has the best food, even better that Thailand where his expectation for food had fallen short. “May be because Malaysians prepare their food from their hearts, while the Thais prepare their food just for the sake of preparing them” he told me, whatever that had meant.
So after hiking up for about 15mins, we arrived at the viewing spot where a small crowd of people had already gathered up. It wasn’t long before the sun began to show itself up from behind the silhouettes of the mountain range, exposing two distinctive peaks which the American told me were Mount Merbabu and Mount Merapi. I’ve been to quiet a number of places for sunrise viewing but there was something about watching the sunrise over Borobudur that was magical and mesmerizing. The hues were distinctively red – or rather orange – sparkling and glorious. I only wished I could see the Borobudur temple from there but I don’t think I had seen it.
So coming back to the guest house later, I spent most of the day lounging around at the guest house, while trying to catch up with incoming emails and work stuff at the office back in Malaysia. There wasn’t much to do in the town of Borobudur anyway (I Googled), so taking a little bit of time to catch up with work while on vacation did not seem too bad of an idea to pass the time after all.
I spent the later half of my last day in Borobudur by doing a little bit of shopping, mostly tyring to get the best deal out of the pushy hawkers at the open market near the temple itself. I only realized I had bought too much when it was time to pack them all into my hand-carry suitcase. For a moment I got panicked, and even thinking of abandoning some of the clothes that I had bought, but later decided ‘what the heck? Let’s try to do the magic at the airport and see how far I can go. It was time to put all the experiences and skills from years of traveling to a good use’. Heh.
I spent the last evening in Borobudur sitting around on one of the public benches overlooking the main junction and watching the world go by. It was Monday so it wasn’t as busy as it was on the day before, and yet there was always something that I could pin my eyes onto before panning to another.
I knew there was an option of going to the Yogyakarta International Airport from Borobudur on a mini-bus called DAMRI but I did not like the idea of sharing my last ride in Indonesia with strangers so I decided to pay the driver guy who was attached to the guest house to take me to the airport on the same rate as a Grab driver would take. It was around IDR300,000 (RM90) for about an hour and a half ride across beautiful farming villages with paddy terraces etc. which made it all worthwhile.
Checking in through all the counters including the immigration and security checks at the Yogyakarta International Airport had gone so smoothly. Despite doing all I could to ensure that my luggage would be accepted in without any extra charges, I was both baffled and relieved when it went through so smoothly it was not even weighed like they usually do back in Kuala Lumpur. I returned to KL and later Sabah with a suitcase full of mostly cotton T-shirts in addition to the souvenirs that I knew would not even go out of the boxes when I arrived at home later.
So I went to Jogja recently, taking the opportunity off a task that I was assigned to do in Kuala Lumpur, meaning I could spare my money from having to buy the air ticket from Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Lumpur and back. Ever since the pandemic, direct flights from Kota Kinabalu to international destinations have been so rare making traveling from this current base of mine highly unaffordable.
So traveling into Jogja from Kuala Lumpur, the real journey began at the brand new Yogyakarta International Airport. I took the train, which was also new, right to the centre of Jogja, all for INR50000. It was a comfortable train ride, and the access to the train was far more convenient and easy compared to the larger-than-life KLIA Express back in Kuala Lumpur.
The train took me right to Yogyakarta Central Train Station in Malioboro which was like the most popular spot in Jogja. I purposely booked a hotel near to the train station so that I could just walk down to it, which was exactly what I did. It was late in the evening when I arrived at the train station and I was instantly overwhelmed by the night traffic of Jogja. Even crossing the road to the hotel had required quite a bit of my guts.
Hotel Kota turned out to be an old hotel – or rather the building was – but it definitely had the classical vibes of an old building that had probably seen and witnessed so much of Jogja through time. The hotel room was OK for the price that I paid it for, except for one thing that I immediately noticed – the wardrobe. The wardrobe was there but the hangers were missing! In the end I didn’t get to use the wardrobe at all and that was when the only chair in the room came in handy.
After cleaning myself a bit, I ventured into the streets of Malioboro to look for something that I could fill my empty stomach with. It was weekend so people seemed to be out on the streets in full force. The sight of Pece Lele on the menu of a restaurant had immediately caught my attention and interest so I went for it but the portion was unfortunately too small for my big appetite so I had to order another meal before I could call it a proper dinner.
Malioboro was certainly full of characters. People from all over the city and probably beyond come in hordes especially on a weekend during which I was there. This place was very much intended for the locals to hang around in – mostly for the cafes, food, shopping or just to socialize among themselves. I didn’t see any apparent tourist so I assumed tourists don’t really come to this part of town. Just like most other places in Indonesia that I’ve been to, they still provide horse-riding for leisure purposes, which was quiet a turn-off for me. I seriously wish all this leisurely horse-riding banned and stopped for good already.
I didn’t get to explore the city of Jogja, nor was I really interested to. It reminds me of the city of Surabaya, except for the obvious lack of tall buildings. There was nothing much to see and explore, even with the help of Google. People come to Jogja on their way to other destinations – mostly to Borobudur and probably Prambanan temples or on their way to climbing any of the volcanic mountains. I might be wrong though.
After a little bit of last minute planning, I decided to take a taxi to Prambanan which was only about 17km from Malioboro, but felt like forever to reach. It had cost me some IDR135000 including the entrance fee to the parking area. I really thought it was so stupid of the driver to get into the parking area when I could just walk and avoid paying for the unnecessary fee. He even had the audacity of giving me his number just in case I needed a ride back to Jogja and probably going to other destinations later. I deleted the contact number that he had given me as soon as I disembarked.
The best part came later afterward though when I paid for the local rate admission free, thanks to my Asian physical features and my ability to converse – although with some difficulty – in Indonesian. It would have cost me a few times over if I had to pay on the foreigner rate.
It was the beginning of a long school break so many schools seemed to take the opportunity to take their school children to places and Parambanan was obviously a favourite. The historical site was full of school kids so the whole place looked like a massive school playground, which I didn’t mind anyway. The temples had the features of those temples in Angkor Wat, only smaller in sizes. But the intricity of the stone carvings on the temples were just as amazing.
Being a UNESCO World Heritage site, it certainly has the fund to keep it so well-maintained. The massive park on the surrounding was beautiful and well-maintained too and the existence of the beautiful Mount Merapi that stands high in the distance makes the whole site so stunningly beautiful. I was there for a couple of hours before making my way out through the exit which felt like forever to reach on foot.
I ventured asking a policeman at the mini police station just outside of the gate and he told me I could catch a bus from a terminal bus which was about half a kilometre down the main road. After thanking him, I walked towards the direction that he told me to, and asking people for clarification along the way. It was obviously longer a distance than I had imagined but luckily there was a motorcyclist who was kind enough to take me to the mini bus station for free. I got instantly reminded how I loved Indonesian people so much!
Returning back to the hotel in Jogja, I rushed to pack up and checked out before mid-day so that I could avoid paying for any unnecessary late check-out charges. I had a simple lunch that the hotel had cooked for me before taking a Grab towards the Magelang regency where I was so set to come face to face with the world famous Borobudur – the biggest Buddhist temple in the world! All in the next blogpost of course.
So my job had required me to fly to India on the last week before Christmas, my very first travel trip out since the pandemic took the whole world by storm in the early year of 2020.
I took a flight from Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Lumpur at about 10pm on a Saturday night where I did a 5-hour transit before flying off to Chennai where I’d be spending another 5 hours before taking a domestic flight to Bangalore.
Things were uneventful, except for the transits that we had to endure through and I had never liked transits, although they are unavoidable at times especially when they involve some budgeting and lack of flight options. If there was something that is worth mentioning about, it’d be the brand new airports of Chennai and Bangalore whose structural and architectural features had had me in awe.
Airports in India that I noticed would not allow anybody to go back out once you have already entered the terminal building so you’ll just have to make sure you have already done everything that you wanted to do outside of the building before making your way in. We encountered a little bit of problem when we wanted to wrap up our luggage and they wouldn’t allow us to go back out to the wrapping service which we found out quite too late was located outside of the terminal building. It took us the best persuasive skills before we were allowed to – but seriously it was not easy. India has some of the most disciplined and systematic systems in the world so it was not at all surprising that they’d stick to them no matter what.
The first thing that instantly surprised me the moment I set foot in Bangalore was the weather. Bangalore is located on the Southern half of India so I expected a sizzling hot weather. How wrong I was. The temperature must be around 23 degree Celsius during the day and it’d dip to 18 degree Celsius at night. Walking out in the open felt like walking in a spring season in Europe or something. It was almost illogical geographically, but I found myself so pleasantly surprised.
After doing what we had to do in Bangalore, we travelled about 3 hours on a mostly newly upgraded expressways to the city of Mysore in the far South of the state of Karnataka. That was when the real essence of the trip began. It really felt like a real road trip adventure. I couldn’t help but playing the song Jai Ho in my head while wheezing past a diversity of landscapes, vast farms, beautiful small towns and villages along the way.
Checking in at a hotel called Lok Sagar, Mysore that I found out is a melting pot of different cultures and religions. There were beautiful temples everywhere, then you’d see a mosque here and there, then churches with impressive structures and architectures. I had actually never heard of Mysore before then, but the guy that I was sitting next to on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Chennai did mention about it as a place he recommended me to visit.
We went to a Hindu temple called Sri Chamundeshwarithat sits atop a hill from where we could see almost the whole stretch of the city. The temple was packed with pilgrims and devotees who came in hordes, probably from all over India. There were large groups of school kids in uniforms – and some of them would come and take pictures with us for the obvious reason – we were different and there was no way we could walk around without looking different. We did a little bit of hiking to a spot from where we could see the whole stretch of the Mysore city. Our guide promised to take us back to the place at night when the whole city went alight but it never got done unfortunately.
We also travelled around 25km to the South East, to a place called Brindavan Gardens which is located on the brink of a massive lake called Krishna Raja Sagara (KRS). Brindavan Gardens itself is a strip of beautiful gardens which is separated from the lake by a massive dam called KRS dam. The dam was intended to irrigate water to agricultural areas and as a source of drink water to several major cities including Mysore itself and Bangalore – the capital city of Karnataka.
Not quiet in the mood of walking under the sizzling sun (unlike in Bangalore where the weather was cold), we rented a buggy car to take us around the garden. Since the garden is a government property, they buggy drivers didn’t really like the idea of us renting a whole car, but of course with a little bit of price negotiation, they finally gave in.
The garden was certainly beautiful, but what impressed me most was the massive 20m wall of the dam that stretched for about 3KM. Unfortunately, we could only marvel at it from just down the wall, as anything beyond it was off-limits. We stayed there long enough to see the hordes of people who came by the thousands to watch the fountain display with the wall as the backdrop but we were too tired to join them despite the tour guide’s insistence (watching the fountain display required us to walk some distance away, on a bridge across the Kaveri River and judging from the continuous trickles of people that walked on the bridge – it was certainly a sardine-packed audience that we did not want to be a part of). I promised the guide that I’d go and join the audience if I were to go there again – if ever.
The highlight of the whole trip to Mysore was certainly our tour to the Mysore Palace – which granted Mysore the title of the City of Palaces. Joining the hordes of people who probably came from all over India, the palace certainly magnified the fact that India is certainly a place of architectural and monumental wonders. The construction of the palace was commissioned by a Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV to replace the old palace which was destroyed by fire during a wedding in 1896.
If the grandeur of Taj Mahal lies in the simplicity of its design and the macabre story behind the commissioning of its construction, the Mysore Palace’s certainly lies within the sophistication and intricacy of its architectural features and designs. I couldn’t help but noticing some European – probably a combination of Gothic and Roman influences in the architectural features – which came as a no surprise as I found out deeper in my Google search that the architect was a British. I wish the fire that destroyed the old palace never happened – or rather – the wedding during which it was caught in fire never took place so that the architectures would have been more Indian. Heh.
I could spend the whole day marvelling at the beautiful columns, the wall paintings and the carvings but of course we had to keep moving on. The trickles of people on the long lines wouldn’t permit us to stay around for too long – but of course there was always time to take photos. In fact, I remember taking dozens and dozens of them I don’t even know where they are now. LOL.
The first standing structures that immediately caught my eyes when I first arrived in Mysore had come from a church which – after a little bit of Googling – was apparently the St. Philomena’s Cathedral. Standing at 53m in height, there is no way one can avoid noticing the twin spires that jot out from the church even from a long distance way. Making my way into the church, it was surprisingly smaller that it looked from the outside.
They were obviously busy doing up the decoration for the upcoming Christmas and most of the space was cordoned off hence the brief entry. The church must have been repainted from its original colours, so it looked quite new with some Disney-looks which was different from most other churches that were built during the colonial times in other countries that I’ve been to where the original paints (or rather no paints) are kept intact to maintain their old and dilapidated looks.
But of course, of all the places that I’ve been to all throughout my visit to Mysore, the streets were certainly my favourites. After a long hiatus from travelling, it felt so good to be back in the dusty and noisy streets of India. They might not be as busy and noisy as those streets that I’ve been to in say- New Delhi or Varanasi, but they are still very much the kind of streets in India that I had really longed to be back to for quite some time. There was always something to see and watch and be mesmerized with somewhere around the corner.
There was this bazaar street called Dubai Center (not sure if that was the real name) that we kept coming back to several times all throughout our stay in Mysore. It was a street bazaar with shops selling arrays of clothes and garments including Sari, Silk-wears and Muslim attires.
Looking for good food was obviously not a problem at all. Mysore is populated with a significant number of Muslims so looking for Halal and no-vegetarian food was also not a problem. In fact, I ate more that I did in my previous trips to India so with the Christmas and New Year were very much just down the road, I had every reason to be worried about my diet and body weight. I noticed how Mysore lacked the street food that I’d see in abundance in New Delhi, Jaipur and Varanasi so it was safe to say that hawking street food doesn’t seem to be a culture in this part of India.
Returning to Malaysia was quiet a hassle, with a delay of the flight from Bangalore to Kuala Lumpur by at least 4 hours and we missed our connecting flight back to Kota Kinabalu. I had to stay overnight in Kuala Lumpur before I caught a flight back to KK where Christmas frenzy was waiting for me.
SO, it’s been more than a year since I moved to KK. It has been a mixture of likes and dislikes – but one thing for sure is that – I still miss my life back in KL. KK is nice, I gotta give that one to it, but I just think there is a lack of vibes that I really enjoyed back in KL. I’m not really a big fan of sea views and beaches, and I can easily count the number of times that I’ve come down to the beach with my 10 fingers. I am more of a mountain person, and yet I’ve only been to the mountainous Kundasang a couple of times all throughout the full year that I’ve been in Sabah thus far.
The neighbourhood..
The foods are OK, at least there are more choices than the last time I was based in KK about 15 or so years ago which was quite a bit of struggle for me. But then, I’m not really a foodie person, at least not one that really seeks for variety. I still keep going back to the same restaurants, ordering the same foods and be content with them. I still go to Old Town White Coffee A LOT, ordering between Nasi Lemak, Curry Mee, Pan Mee and toasted breads – and ALWAYS with Hazelnut Coffee. I was disappointed when the Old Town White Coffee franchise that I used to go to when I was staying at Taman Melawati back in KL was suddenly shut down for good, but was immensely delighted when I found out a new franchise had been opened just down the road from where I stay now – on the very day when I reported for work in KK.
Looking at the positivity that I gained from moving over to KK, things have been so damn convenient. For one I can always go back to my mom during weekends – an opportunity that I’d been deprived of for most of my life (was based in the Peninsula half my life!). I try to go back to my hometown every other weekend – because there are times when I just feel like staying around at my rental home in KK and do absolutely nothing. I mean, it’s always been my favourite activity – staying around and do nothing. Then to add something extra to the convenience, my office had recently been relocated to a location very close to my rental house. It is very much within a walking distance, although I still use my motorbike to go to work most of the days. I mean, the last time I had an office located within a walking distance from my house was about 12 years ago when I was based in Sandakan for about 4 years. After battling through the traffic jam on almost a daily basis back in KL, this feels almost surreal really.
KK as a whole is a very leisure city. It is flanked by the range of green hills to the East and South China Sea to the West. Staying in Likas area surely adds something extra to the convenience. I can always run to the hills right from home or go to the beach where there is plenty of jogging tracks with beautiful sea views. I definitely had all the beautiful hills right in the neighbourhood back in KL, but not the seaside jogging tracks. Cycling around – a hobby that I had just picked up so recently – is also very conveniently easy to do.
After spending so many years staying at a double-storey semi-detached bungalow house back in KL – which was complete with a compound that is large enough to do some farming – there is no way I could go back to staying at a non-landed house of residence. The average monthly rent here in KK is not cheap, in fact it is safe to say that it is higher than those in KL, so renting a landed house is definitely costing me a bomb. But then, as I age (ehem!), convenience has become the key-word of highest priority. Back in KL, it’d take me at least an hour to battle through the traffic before I reached the office. Here in KK, I can reach the office within a couple of minutes with my motorbike from home. So yeah, it really is a convenient life when it is seen from this one angle but working environment is definitely another angle that I’d rather spare for another post.
