Sojourn a journey through life

Kuala Lumpur

A few weeks ago, the three of us (Carly, Jeffery and I) headed to Kuala Lumpur for a weekend getaway. It’s about a 5 hour bus ride from Singapore to Malaysia’s capital, so we did it in style and took a first class coach. The main reason for going was that we needed to get Jeffery out of the country to get his Visa renewed since he was going to be staying with us a bit longer.

We got to KL around midnight and finally found a cabby who was willing to turn on his meter, and he took us to the hostel we were staying at. It was a cool little place called Red Palm with friendly staff, and comfy beds. What I would probably call “The Uber Laid Back”.

Across the street there was a place famous for beef noodles, and next door, Jeffery and I managed to enjoy some wicked awesome banana roti prata.

On Saturday during the day we headed over to the Petronas Twin Towers which I have to say, were unreal. At 452 meters, they are the 2nd tallest buildings in the world, next to the Taipei 101 in Taiwan.

Most of the rest of our Saturday was spent meandering around the city until we found some wicked-awesome Iranian food for dinner, and then headed off to Zouk for a night of tunes, beverages and dancing. Markus Schulz was there from the US that night, the music was great.

On Sunday, we attempted to walk to the old KL train station, but ended up walking half way across the city in the wrong direction. Not a bad experience, just bad directions. Eventually we jumped in a cab and made it to the station, and following that we spent a couple of hours in the Islamic Arts Museum.

Definitely a great place for a weekend getaway, yet another place in Asia where we can all say that one of the greatest highlights was the food.

Hawkers

Last night, the three of us (Daniel, Jeffery and myself) joined a Hawker tour put on by the CIS social committee. Hawkers are everywhere in Singapore and are basically a series of food stalls. The top ten uniquely Singapore dishes than one might find at these hawkers are:

1) Chilli Crab
2) Chicken Rice
3) Laksa
4) Satay
5) Fish Head Curry
6) Bah Kut Teh
7) Roti Prata
Rojak
9) Char Kway Teow
10) Fried Carrot Cake

When looking for a definition of Hawker a couple interesting ones appeared:
Hawker – from Low German höker, from Middle Low German hOker, from hOken to peddle
or Hawker – one who sells goods aggressively, especially by calling out

Yes, depending on the Hawker visited there certainly can be some “calling out” or harassement as it were Everyone wants you to come see their foods – they’ve got a deal for you!

At our first stop – Newton Food Center, we tried Rojak (an assortment that you select for frying, such as spring rolls, crab meat or sweet potato), Popiah (cabbage, sweet sauce, bean sprouts, etc. rolled up in a spring roll type pastry), Chicken Murtabak (roti prata with chicken, onion, carrot – yummy when dipped in curry sauce!), BBQ chicken wings, and some lime juice or sugar cane juice for cooling down those spicy dishes.

At our second stop – Telok Ayer Market (Lau Pa Sat) was once a wet market but now is a restored cast iron heritage site. Here we enjoyed a little indian food (dahl – lentil soup and naan – a baked flat bread), some chicken and beef satay with peanut sauce and some fresh juices (Daniel had watermelon, Carly had pineapple orange and Jeffery went for Mango). We were full!

Our last stop for the night was Glutton’s Bay! This was a beautiful location on the waterfront at the Esplanade. There was live music and a nice breeze. Daniel and I enjoyed a short stroll along the water and a small ice cream treat. That is all we could fit in our full tummies!

A great outing.