Kuala Lumpur Things to Do Tips by o00o

< Kuala Lumpur Railway Station >

Located at Jalan Hishamuddin, this Moorish-style terminal was designed by architect A.B. Hubbock, who also designed the Masjid Jam. Built in 1910, it underwent extensive renovations in 1986. It is equipped with air-conditioned waiting halls, snack kiosks, money changing booths, souvenir shops, restaurants and a tourist information counter. Across the street is the Malayan Railway Administration Building, another fine example of the British colonial adaptation of Moorish architecture. It is linked to the station by an underground thoroughfare.

Leave a Comment

< Central Market >

Fifty years ago this site was occupied by a wet market. Today, the art-deco structure of the Central Market is a centre for the display and development of Malaysian culture, arts and crafts. There are many performances, demonstrations, and activities offered here, including batik painting, fortune telling, shadow puppet plays, glass blowing, dance classes, art classes, and many others.

Leave a Comment

Leave a Comment

Directions: < Masjid Jame >

Located in Jalan Tun Perak, this Moorish mosque rests on the confluence of the Klang and Gombak Rivers, the birth-place of Kuala Lumpur. This is the very spot where the first settler

< Twin Towers >

In the section of Jalan Ampang between Jalan Sultan Ismail and Jalan Tun Razak is a huge building site, from which a gleaming city of steel and glass is rising. At its centre is the Petronas Towers, the tallest building - for the time being - in the world. The entire site, built on the former Selangor Turf Club, is called the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) and is designed as a testament to Malaysia's booming economic power. The Petronas Towers will house the offices of the national petroleum company, and several other multinational companies. Critics already sneer that one of the towers is leaning, but the gleaming multifaceted facade of this twenty-first-century complex is undeniably impressive. The Podium at the base of the towers will include the Petronas Concert Hall, an interactive Petroscience education centre, an art gallery containing the largest private art collection in Malaysia and a public library. Beside several other skyscrapers, a luxury hotel and shopping centre, KLCC will also have a twenty-acre public park and garden at its heart and a new mosque, decorated with mosaics created by craftsmen from Uzbekistan.

Leave a Comment

< Chinatown >

Spreading out from Central Market is Chinatown, KL's commercial kernel dating from the arrival of the first traders in the 1860s. Bordered by Jalan Petaling to the east and Jalan Tun Perak to the north, the area had adopted its current borders by the late-nineteenth century, with southern-Chinese shophouses, coffee shops and temples springing up along narrow streets such as Jalan Tun H.S. Lee and Jalan Sultan. Little has changed: there are still traditional apothecaries displaying medicines on the street corners, though other shops are as likely to stock computers and sound systems as tools and pots and pans, and what remains of the early architecture is dwarfed by the surrounding skyscrapers. For the moment, family businesses still predominate, but the few remaining genuinely old sites, like the wet market between Jalan Petaling and Jalan Tun H.S. Lee, may well soon be cleared for development. In the meantime, a stroll down Chinatown's narrow lanes still reveals dilapidated shops and Chinese pharmacies, and large baskets of cured and dried meats alternate with the street-vendors' ranks of brightly coloured sweet drinks, soya milk and cigarette lighters.
In the early years of this century, Jalan Petaling was home to brothels and gambling dens. Nowadays, dozens of colourful umbrellas shield the street vendors from the fierce sun, and tourists spend their time bartering for mock Gucci watches, bric-a-brac and clothes. At numbers 86, 90 and 96 you can buy beads, stones, necklaces, masks, sculptures and conches. After 6pm the street is closed to vehicles and the entire area is transformed into a pasar malam (night market), where food stalls offer loong kee (rectangular slices of pork) and deep-fried bananas and expert hagglers can pick up bags, sunglasses, clothes and crafts at bargain prices.

Leave a Comment

< Merdeka Square >

At the southern end of Merdeka Square, Lebuh Pasar Besar runs over KL's busiest bridge, connecting the Colonial District with the commercial sector. Just north of here, on a promontory at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers, stands KL's most attractive devotional building, the Jame Mosque. It's a site replete with significance, since it was here - on a section of dry land carved out from the enveloping forest - that the pioneers from Klang searching for tin in the 1850s, established a base that soon turned into a boom town. The mosque itself formed part of the second great period of expansion in KL, completed in 1909 by the British architect A.B. Hubbock, and incorporating features he had copied from Moghul mosques in North India - pink brick walls and arched colonnades, topped by oval cupolas and squat minarets. There's an intimacy at work here that isn't obvious at the much larger national mosque (which replaced the Jame as the centre of Muslim faith in KL), and the grounds, bordered by palms, are a pleasant place to sit and rest. The main entrance is on Jalan Tun Perak.

Leave a Comment

Directions: Head south down Jalan Benteng, over the junction with Lebuh Pasar Besar, and you reach the Art-Deco Central Market (daily 9am-10pm). Backing onto Sungei Klang, this large pastel-coloured brick hangar

< Sultan Abdul Samat >

The gleaming copper domes and 130-meter clock tower of the Sultan Abdul Samad Building are by far the most impressive architectural feature of the Dataran Merdeka. This elaborate edifice is a fantastic blend of Moghul, Moorish, Arab, and British neoclassical architecture, a style far more expressive of the British colonial imagination than of Malay culture.

Leave a Comment

A must visit, the world tallest twin towers of KLCC, located in the middle of KL city.

Leave a Comment