Thursday, December 22, 2011

Liverpool Live In KL

I'm a Man United fan but what can one say. They haven't been around this region for some time. My Dad on the other hand is a Liverpool fan, having switched allegiance from Spurs, who he supported when I was a boy.

Anyhow, in July when the (boy do I love to say this) SECOND most successful team in English football history visited Malaysia, I jumped at the opportunity to let my Dad see them live.

We set off one day early in the wee hours in the morning and arrived in time to meet Jac, who was there for a business trip, for lunch at Mid-Valley.

And lo and behold, the Liverpool team was there for some shopping. And the fans had been lying in wait...



Indeed, all around the city, wherever we went, there were reminders of the EPL team that was in town. This was what we saw at Pavilion...





Our accommodation for the night was functional and spartan... One of the Comfort hotels at Bukit Bintang, if I recall correctly... Cheap though...



At least we got to sample some Naan made the traditional way at the coffee shop downstairs...






The Day Of The Match
--------------------
We travelled to Bukit Jalil out of the KL city centre via one of the MRT lines... Of course it was crowded... and red inside the train and train station...




By the time we reached there the place and the area immediately surrounding the stadium was already abuzz with activity...









Thinking that there would be some sort of system to protect the rights of people who wanted better and more expensive tickets, I had purchased RM108 tickets...



But alas, like so many other things in Malaysia, this was a case of every man for himself and the RM108 section was already filled twice over, the travesty caused probably by people who had tickets for cheaper seats but who shamelessly crossed over unimpeded for a free an illegal upgrade...




This is the view we would have had had we been able to sit where we were supposed to...



However, under the circumstances, we were forced to move up to sit at the RM58 area where, admittedly, the view wasn't half bad...








The final score was 4-3 to Liverpool, I think.... The Malaysians were quite happy with their national team's display.... Until they got dumped out of the World Cup qualifiers by Singapore. King Kenny was quite satisfied.... Until he discovered that his team remain shut out of the top 4 in England.

Enough of the philosphical pondering though... We left the stadium quite happy and headed for what was now a 5-star lodging in Putrajaya. But that is a story for another time...

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Weekend Jaunt To Subang KL

Was just clearing photos from my memory card yesterday when I found pictures of trips on which I went earlier in the year but never got to write about. I hope to write about them now. Apologies if photographs and narratives are sparse. A lot of the photos probably got erased by now and my memory of the trips may have dimmed. Anyhow, this is one of them...
______________________________________
Sometime in May I felt restless and so decided to go on a weekend trip to KL with my friend. As we knew central KL very well by then and as hotels there were expensive approaching the school holidays, we figured we had might as well see what the outskirts of the capital looked like.

And so as usual we set off on a Friday night, hoping to get Sleepers on a KTM train up North so we could arrive in KL refreshed. And, as always, we rushed across the Causeway to get cheaper tickets from Johor Bahru Station (as compared to Singapore - remember that the train still departed from Tanjong Pagar then). Alas, there were no 2nd Class Sleepers left and so a decision had to be made - we decided to travel First Class.



There were no regrets, for the extra premium we paid meant that we got to have a cabin all to ourselves. There was also an adjoining toilet replete with shower (with toiletries provided) hich pleased us to no end (now, all of you who have taken the more proletarian Classes know what the toilets look like so...). To boot, they also served supper and breakfast.

Apologies for this is the only photo I have left. I'll try to find better ones from my friend.



Another reason why we chose to trael by train was because it was easy to hit Subang. All we needed to do was debark from our train at KL Sentral and switch to the KL Kommuter.

Our hotel was the Holiday Villas Subang. It looked a little old from the outside, and it was clear the hotel had seen better days, but the interior showed itself to be well-kept and to be fair, the hotel was going through some renovations, presumably so that it could be restored to its former glories. No complaints about the service - it was impeccable. And the facilities - wow, they had an olympic-sized pool, squash courts, tennis courts, a well-equipped gym, a bowling alley, pool room and more...

The room was, as one would imagine, slightly old, with the paint fading. But it was huge and there was even free internet provided. For the price we paid, this was a steal!




This was the view from our room. I thought it wasn't bad at all...



And I forgot to mention that I was also very impressed that they gave us our room even though we arrived early at 10.00am.

After settling in, we made our way to Sunway Lagoon where we found an impressive array of rides and games. Now, I must once again apologise for not having pictures of the rides. One reason is, as mentioned, I have probably lost most of them. The other is that we didn't take that many in the first place, because after the first ride, which saw us being hung upside down for a bit, my fragile friend felt nauseous, leading to us taking a lengthy break at the food court (my friend with her head in her hands for an our so and me finishing five articles from The Economist).







This is me sarcastically doing an impression of her puking which had shortened our excursion...



On the way out, we noticed adverts for a 'musical extravaganza' which was taking place in the evening and we thought 'why not'? After all, for that kind of price (RM 70 was it?) it was worth giving it a try...




So after going back to the hotel to wash up and for dinner, we were back, this time first for some shopping at the Sunway Pyramid... (again apologies for lack of pictures. I think Jac's been there with her CCB and wrote an article about it - you can check her blog)



Before heading to Sunway Lagoon's open air amphitheatre. It was nice of them to provide us transport in trams once we reached the park...



We thought we were late but it turned out we still had to wait outside...



Just as well, for we were able to take pictures of an empty amphitheatre and stage area with all the glittering props. Sorry for the fuzziness of some of the pictures...






The show and the standard of dancing and singing was very decent. We thought that we would not be able to hear well in a semi open-air amphitheatre but the sound carried well. We thought we would be hot and sweaty on a balmy night but the ample giant fans installed kept us adequately comfortable. All in all, it was very enjoyable...





And that's all the photos I have, so that's that.....
____________________
Ten minutes later.....

Umm... Actually, I just found some more photos. I'm not about to rewrite the entire article so I'll just add on here...

These are the additional photos of the First Class Train Cabin...




And the complimentary stuff they gave...



This is the breakfast we ate at nearby Klang...



These are some shots of Sunway Lagoon taken before my friend was out for the count...






These are pictures of the animal enclosure within Sunway Lagoon where we spent a lot of time while my friend was incapacitated and unable to take any thrill rides...





















These were taken after my friend recovered sufficiently. This was some of the stuff we tried...







There. I hope these have given you a far better idea of what the trip was like. Till next time...