Old Kuala Lumpur

During my December trip to Kuala Lumpur, I intended to take some photographs that would show the various aspects of the city. Unfortunately, much to Bilbo's disappointment, I only managed to show some of the bustling yet boring scenes of the shopping malls.

Since December, I've been to K.L. twice more and each time, I've had my camera out and ready to capture some of the local spirit. This was much harder than I thought it would be. Both were short trips, the first to meet Richard and the second was a stopover on our way home to Palembang. This meant that we stayed in the most convenient place: a city hotel by the malls. While we zoomed past the historical train station, high court, state mosque and Pudu jail on our way there, I couldn't get any good pictures and didn't have time to return to those locations.

I walked around the hotel area looking for something that looked distinctly Kuala Lumpur but the scene was always the same: mega buildings, foreign hotel chains, malls and restaurants. Well, these days THAT is what K.L. is about. This must be what tourists would see of the city. I guess they would have some sort of handbook that would lead them to each of the historic sites and another handbook detailing the best shopping in town.

Don't get me wrong, there are still many old parts to K.L. but it does take some looking around for them. Especially if you're a tourist and don't have friends in the city.

So, back to my photos, I've decided to share some from my delicious breakfast at an old style coffee shop. This place is within the city but not within the Golden Triangle mall area so most tourists would probably miss it. This place is typical of many coffee shops in Malaysia with the 'anchor store' being the drinks vendor and the tenants being the main attractions with their different foods.


I had the Low Shu Fun with the meatballs. Low Shu Fun is a type of short, round and pointy noodle and the meatballs aren't really balls but a roundish rectangular shape. This meal is delicious and anybody visiting K.L. needs to find this store to try it. I ordered a second round and ate at this place both times that we were in K.L. In fact, I had this three out of the four breakfasts I had in K.L. (over the two trips).

Here, the man is cooking the noodles and meat-rectangles in his boiling cauldren of tasty soup.


And here it is. The bowl of dark noodles is mine because I couldn't wait to mix it up and have a bite...even before I took the photo. The other, untouched bowl, is Richard's and is what it looks like when served. The meat-rectangles are in the soup.