Amidst the many uninspiring vertical skyscrapers in Kuala Lumpur are some of the city's most artfully-designed buildings. The contemporary designs are definitely cool and refreshing and add to the city's verve and vitality. Here are some examples:

The SETIASKY Residence in Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz, off Jalan Tun Razak.

The Audi showroom in Jalan Imbi.

Kuala Lumpur's fashion street in Bukit Bintang where you'll find Prada, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, Christian Dior, and other international labels of high fashion and haute couture.

Moi at Musa

This is moi outside MUSA- Kuala Lumpur's latest fashion house located at Avenue K just across the KLCC Petronas Twin Towers. Looking at the pix, I can't blame you for thinking that I'm desecrating this chic "multi-brand" fashion house with my dowdy slacks and T-shirt. FYI, I was accompanying my daughter who has an art and fashion blog at http://berlin-fashionunplugged.blogspot.com. Since I was there I decided to also pop in to have a peek at the designer clothes:House of Holland, Peter Jensen,Cheap Monday; well, they mean nothing to a fashion dinosaur like me, unlike my daughter who went OOOHS and AAAHS over the clothes as well as the prices that are way beyond my shallow pocket. Besides designer clothes there are also accessories, watches and shoes. After trying out the clothes, you could adjourn to Musa's cafe which offers local favourites and selected dishes from around the world.

Walkabout in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown

A visit to Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown in Petaling Street is always worthwhile. The best way to explore the place is by walking. Here’s my record of the sights and sounds of Chinatown:



The thoroughfare along Petaling Street is a haven for bargain hunters who are looking for imitation branded bags, shoes, clothes, watches, and fashion accessories. The rule of the shopping game here is to haggle over the prices.




On the corner of Petaling Street and Jalan Sultan is Kwong Woh Tong, a chain store selling traditional Chinese herbal teas and the popular herbal jelly called Gui Ling Gao. The herbal teas come in two flavours, sweet and bitter. A bowl of the black Gui Ling Gao, which is made from a concoction of herbs and tortoise shell powder, costs between RM7.00 and RM8.00. It is usually served chilled with sugar syrup or honey to sweeten the taste. This black jelly is also reputed to be a detox and helps to relieve the body of its heat.




A stone’s throw from Kwong Woh Tong is the Purple Cane Tea Art Centre. This tea chain store sells mostly teas from China. The highest price tag is RM2,800 for a cake of ten-year-old Red Tea.. The store also sells teapots, reference books, tea drinking accessories, music, snacks, and hampers. If you want to learn the art of preparing and drinking Chinese tea, the store runs various training programs for adults and children. Purple Cane Tea Art Centre is at 11, Ground Floor, Jalan Sultan. (Tel: 603-20311877).


A short walk from the din of Petaling Street is the Old China Café, which occupies the premises of the seven-decade-old guild hall of the Selangor and Federal Territory Laundry Association. From the outside, you see the big bay windows of old.


Step inside, and you’ll be taken back to the past, with portraits of founding members and their descendants displayed on the walls. The shophouse still retains many of its original features such as the swing door and the back door with its wooden bolts.

The Cafe serves Nyonya food, a cuisine of the Peranakan or Straits Chinese, descendants of early Chinese-Malay intermarriages, whose culture is a fascinating hybrid of both traditions. Old China Café is at No.11 Jalan Balai Polis (Tel:603-20725015).

Catch the Putra LRT and get off at the Pasar Seni station.

Art Comes to Brickfields

Ask anyone, what comes to mind when they think of Kuala Lumpur’s Brickfields. For most, it would be the Little India along the main Jalan Tun Sambanthan; YMCA; or Buddhist Vihara. Those interested in the fine arts would tell you about the famous iconic Temple of Fine Arts. Now, hold your breath…

A new icon of the arts has come to Brickfields - Wei-Ling Gallery.

The gallery is located in a prewar building on the edge of Brickfields that looks like it is trapped in a ‘time warp’ making it stand out from the ugly commercialism that is taking place in the surrounding area. For many years the building has been the office of Jimmy Lim, Wei-Ling’s father, the internationally respected architect. In 2004, this building was gutted by a fire that the famous architect said ‘obliterated forty years of personal and professional history’.



As I stepped into the gallery building, I saw Jimmy Lim discussing some work with someone in the midst of the colonial era antiques that lined the walls. I realized the immensity of what the father and daughter (with Yohan) have done: creating this ‘time warp’ in Brickfields that’s preventing this street of prewar buildings from falling off the edge.



I walked up a narrow flight of stairs to the gallery that is laid out on three floors. Standing on the first floor Perspex flooring, I was bathed in natural light coming in through opaque glass walls. The whole gallery, with its wood floors and bridges, is airy and spacious. It engendered in me a feeling which resulted in an unhurried pace that made me spend about an hour in this gallery – soaking in the emotions of the artists’ artworks on display.



The gallery marked its opening on 17 September 2005 with its 18@8 exhibition. Since then, it has become an annual event showcasing the works of contemporary Malaysian artists and from the region. This year’s 18@8 features nine artists each producing two artworks in response to the theme of Vice and Virtue. The results are 18 pieces of artworks on display from 13 October 2008 to 13 November 2008.



Wei-Ling Gallery is located at No. 8, Jalan Scott, Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur.No. 8 Jalan Scott, Brickfields. Tel (0): 603-22601106/7

Cute Fish Spa at the Central Market

Sitting cross-legged for twenty minutes or more can cause numbness with needling sensations that makes you feel as if red ants are running all over your legs.

However, it wasn’t the needling sensations that I experienced when I visited the Cute Fish Spa at Kuala Lumpur’s Central Market. Several people were already sitting around two pools, dipping their legs in the water for what some might call fish reflexology or therapy: tiny spa fish, probably 5-7 cm long, nibbling at your legs, supposedly removing your dead skin cells.



I paid RM5.00 for a ten-minute treatment. First, I tried the pool where the fishes were tinier (When they become bigger, they are moved to the bigger pool). As my feet suffer from some numbness, I was not as sensitive as some other visitors who were tickled pink.

After close to 9 minutes, as if to warn me my time was up, I felt something like a teeny electric shock on my left foot. I stepped out of the pool to have a last minute encounter with the bigger fishes. The nibbling was harder and I was a tad anxious they might ‘bite’ off a little more than they could chew.



The operator would not tell me the name of the fish used at the spa except that they were spa fish from Taiwan. A handout claims the fishes are toothless, they help to remove only dead skin cells, micro-massage (nibble), and improve blood circulation.



As the fishes are toothless, like the famed Garra Rufa species from Turkey, they should be safe. A check on the Internet confirms that these are not the Chin Chin fish from China, which are often marketed as Doctor Fish, the moniker originally reserved for the more expensive Garra Rufa. Unlike the Chin Chin, which eat one another, the Garra Rufa are toothless and can only grow up to 6 cm long. The Garra Rufa have also been scientifically proven to have the ability to rejuvenate the body and there have been cases of people who have been cured of their dermatological disorders such as Psoriasis.



So, go to Central Market’s Cute Fish Spa, pay RM5.00 and have 10 minutes of leg-dipping-sole-tickling good, healthy fun.

Literary Beehive in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur

Here’s a little secret that’s slowly growing and breaking down the walls around it to go into the wider public domain. Tap this into your PDA. Better still, tattoo it on your arm where you won’t miss it.



I’m talking about a monthly reading group that’s called Readings@Seksan. A few months ago, I stumbled upon this wonderful literary beehive in Bangsar through Facebook, and soon I was invited by one of the organizers, Sharon Bakar, to attend. Since then, whenever I’m free, I’ll make a beeline to Seksan to join in the literary buzz.



Seksan may not even be a familiar name among most locals. Google the name, and you’ll find that it’s a professional landscape and architectural design house. However, on the last Saturday of each month, this design house in Bangsar is transformed into a micro-mini literary festival which gathers writers and book lovers for an afternoon of book readings, poetry recitals, music and wine. Yes, what’s a literary festival without music and a little spirit?!



Here there’s that casual, informal, sit-back-and-relax atmosphere where you really sit up close with the writers and poets of the day. You could either sit on wooden stools - yes, even these stools have a casual air about them - or curl yourself up on straw mats as you imbibe the outpourings of the writers, poets, and musicians.



Okay, just to give you an idea what you’ll get when you go to Readings@Seksan. I was at the October 08 session and three Malaysian writers, fresh from their readings at the Ubud Writers’ Festival, were on hand to read from their novels: Chiew- Siah Tei (Little Hut of Leaping Fishes); Preeta Samarasan (Evening is the Whole Day); and, Shamini Flint (The Seeds of Time). Fantasy writer Glenda Larke, author of The Isles of Glory trilogy, also graced the occasion with her presence.


If the readings get a mite serious or erudite, there’s always a singer or poets from Poetry Underground to perk you up. Last Saturday was no different : the Poetry Underground members emerged from their warrens to display their brand of performance poetry, while local singer-songwriter Reza Salleh put the audience in a romantic mood with three self-composed love songs.

So, have I got you interested? Go to Facebook and get an invitation from Sharon Bakar.

An Evening at the Central Market Annexe, Kuala Lumpur

5:30 P.M. I see an artist sitting cross-legged on his art shop floor dabbing paint on a canvas. He is making a copy of an original piece of abstract painting. Meet Abdul Ghani Ahmad who has been painting for over 20 years. His business card says: MALAYSIAN WATERCOLOUR ORGANISATION, ARTIST NATURE & ABSTRACT. His art shop, which is on the ground floor at the Central Market Annexe, is a showcase of his two-decade-old passion.



6:20 P.M. I step into the century-old wood-panelled lift that takes me to The Annexe Gallery to watch TIKAM-TIKAM: MERDEKA! MERDEKA. MERDEKA? This public event was part of the EMERGENCY FESTIVAL! celebration which the brochure describes as an 11-day ‘explosion of histories, images, narratives and sounds from the first Malaysian Emergency from 1948-1960’. Three speakers (economist Tricia Yeoh, law professor Azmi Sharom, and political scientist Dr Mavis Putucheary) get together in this chance-game of tikam-tikam , randomly reading their personal (his)stories about Malaysia with Merdeka as the starting point.



7:30 P.M. One-hour dinner break. I browse in another art shop, visit an art exhibition on Journey into the Mind, which displays artworks by mental patients of the University of Malaya Medical Centre, and have a light dinner at Bau Bau Café. I order a bowl of curry noodle and a glass of special lemon grass tea and settle myself on the balcony overlooking the Klang River. Then I notice café owner, social activist, writer, and film-maker Hishammuddin Rais sitting across my table. What do I do? Fish out my camera, of course, and have my photo taken with this prodigal son who returned from a self-imposed 20-year exile in 1994.



8:30 P.M. It’s back to the Annexe Gallery to watch a play : New Village People and Pineapple Rice. The play recounts how the ‘lives of two good friends change forever when they are forced by the British army to leave everything behind and start afresh in a New Village during the Malayan Emergency’.



What a delectable evening! I have chatted with an artist, visited an art exhibition, sipped lemon grass tea on a balcony café, rubbed shoulders with a famous personality, attended a reading, and watched a play – all that in four-and-a-half-hours! And, there’s more. But that will have to be another evening.

Skip the Annexe and you miss the ‘Art and Soul of Kuala Lumpur’.

The best way to get to the Central Market Annexe is to take the Putra LRT and get off at the Pasar Seni station.