"Ok...", said my friend....
"You're not sighing?"
"Sigh," she said.
That protestation notwithstanding, we had quite a bit of fun picking out hotels via the website Agoda.com. We weren't really keen on more foam fights for the Countdown so we thought it would be better to go to KLCC (what could be lovelier than fireworks with the Petronas Towers in the background?). So we fine-tuned our search by clicking on KLCC and we saw this comparatively cheap hotel called Flamingo By The Lake and so booked it. More on that later, but if you asked me now why we had to go North for the New Year, I honestly do not know, for I knew then already that the Singapore Countdown would be fabulous. I guess I just wanted to get away.
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Very much like Christmas Eve, we headed to Johor Bahru to catch a coach to KL but this time, we did not dally around City Square but rushed straight to Larkin Bus Terminus and caught a bus which was leaving immediately. The result is that whereas on Christmas Eve we reached Bukit Jalil Bus Station at KL at 11:00pm, on New Years Eve, we reached there at 7:00pm. Strange how the small things you do at the beginning have a big impact on your life later on...
We took a train to KLCC and asked for directions. Let me just come straight to the point:- Flamingo Hotel, by which it is known there, is NOT close to KLCC. I do not know what possessed the site to say it was, but if Flamingo Hotel is in KLCC, then Hotel 81 in Geylang is close to Orchard Road.
The distance from the city centre and the lack of any nearby metro station aside, the hotel and facilities was quite ok...
After settling in, we took a cab to KLCC, where the atmosphere was palpable and where a crowd had already gathered outside to await Countdown. But why, oh why did they have to close the mall at 10:00pm? I would have thought that it would make great business sense, at least for the food and beverage outlets, to open all the way to the wee hours of the morning...
Either way, the direct impact it had on us was that there was no more food left at KLCC so we decided to pop over to Bukit Bintang to see what the crowd there was like... This was how the place looked like at 10:30pm...
At least we know the 'food street' near Changkat Bukit Bintang would never be found closed at that time of the night...
Proletarian fare for the night.... Fishball noodles, mixed fried noodles and small, fried See Hum. Prices ok by Singapore standards but a bit steep by Malaysian. Tasted very ordinary in my opinion.
We would have liked to stay at Bukit Bintang but we had already been there for Christmas and so returned to KLCC...
It was hell of a crowded as well, but somehow the atmosphere was different from that at Bukit Bintang... A bit more subdued?
But then again, we've never been ones to always follow the crowd. Look where everybody else was facing...
One good thing though was the giant clock overlooking the crowd, which ooh-ed every time we edged closer to 2011...
And when this happened....
These emerged in the sky....
The fireworks were of course beautiful and spectacular but nothing we hadn't seen before... Looking at the Petronas Towers gleaming in the night sky, on the other hand, was really something...
The fountains in the lake just outside were not too shabby either....
Speaking of lake, when we arrived back at the Flamingo Hotel later after an hour's walk, my friend, grumpy as she already was, asked, "If this is Flamingo by the Lake, where's the lake?"
"Err...", I said, just before we entered our room. "Turn around. There?"
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