2 posts tagged “kuala lumpur”

Mariza was great -- very theatrical, very overly emotive -- sort of like a young Portuguese Liza Minelli. The hall was sold out, and the crowd was very appreciative. Her backing band of string trio, Portuguese guitar, classical guitar, acoustic fretted bass, and percussion was great -- the portuguese guitar player, in particular, was both very skilled and very aware of his skill.

I have declared today Not Sweating Profusely Day, thus setting it apart from all of my other days in Southeast Asia. I'm more or less done with everything I wanted to do in KL, I have one more night in the awfully nice Eight Guesthouse, and I've got some internetting to catch up on. Then it's on to a chamber music concert at the KL Philharmonic, same place as last night. There will be none of the usual hoofing around interesting neighborhoods or hunting out great street-vendor food or careering between cultural sites. Just chilling out, celebrating Not Sweating Profusely Day. In apparent recognition of this holiday, the guesthouse has moved me to a nicer room -- it has a bigger bed and windows and a TV.

The short version of yesterday: Fun adventure, then it started raining, and I spent the rest of the day in the hostel, which is quite pleasant.

On to today.

Today was an immensely frustrating day as a pedestrian. It turns out that, first, KL is not designed to be walked through. Very frequently, there are major arterial roadways with no way to cross them other than playing Frogger or walking half a mile to the nearest pedestrian overpass. Worse, some roads don't even have the overpasses, and are fenced off. At one point, I simply couldn't find a way around one of the roads and gave up, deciding to go the other direction instead. All of this is a bit more unpleasant when it's 90 degrees and humid.

So then I got on at the nearest light rail station, after Froggering it across eight lanes of fast-moving traffic (with many other pedestrians). I was hot and sweaty, the cure for which was obviously air conditioning. I knew the KLCC (a/k/a the Petronas Twin Towers complex) was on the light rail, so I hopped on, going the proper direction. From the map, it looked like I had a transfer, from the green line to the red line. No problem.

I got to the transfer station for the green line, got off, and looked for the red line. It turns out it was across the street, was run by a different company, and required a different ticket. And, of course, there was no overpass or crosswalk.

But I made it across, along with a small throng making the same transfer, and made it to KLCC. I went to Kinokuniya bookstore to pick up a New Yorker, and ended up getting that, the new Economist, the new Terry Pratchett novel, and the Barefoot Guide to Malaysia.

 

I'm finally fed up with the Lonely Planet from 2003 -- it doesn't even have the monorail system on the map, and that's the closest public transport to my hotel. So, after checking on the superiority of the Barefoot Guide for all the places I'm going in Malaysia, I ditched the Lonely Planet with a little "Free" sign on a bench. Besides, the Barefoot Guide's written by someone named Dinah -- an obvious mark of quality.

I spent much of the afternoon in Petrosaens Discovery Center, a science museum run by Petronas, the big oil company for whom the twin towers are named. It's a really great science museum -- all the classic exhibits (created in the 60s and 70s at the Exploratorium, mostly, by the way) are represented, and all sorts of subject areas are covered.

Of course, it's all about oil. Physics exhibits? Great! Kinetic energy is one of the things you can get from oil! Economics? Sure! There was, among other things, a great exhibit where you could move levers that affected the supply and demand for oil and watch the price change. Geography, Geology and Chemistry are obvious. And there were lots of oil-specific exhibits, like an oil platform and a helicopter simulator to get you to there. The museum was filled with energetc and inquisitive Muslim kids (judging from the girls' clothing) in what looked like a school group. There was a "Dark ride" intro and conclusion -- standard intoned corporate fare about how Petronas is leading us into the future, but delivered in a really slick and well-thought-out manner. They were really creative with their use of front and rear projection, and with their sync between the video content and the motion of the ride vehicle. It was neat.

Now, I'm off to a performance in the KLCC's concert hall, home of the KL Philharmonic. It's a singer named Mariza, who I know basically nothing about, and whose music I've never heard. (I mostly just want to see the hall, and if she turns out to be great, that's a bonus.) I was informed at the box office that, due to the hall's strictly enforced dress code, my attire would be fine, but I'd have to wear black socks with my sandals. In San Francisco, I suspect I'd be more likely to be thrown out of a place for wearing black socks with sandals.

UPDATE: Here's the (quite lengthy) Wikipedia article about Mariza, and here's the article on fado, the style in which she sings. Thank you, Wikipedia, for telling me what I'm going to be hearing upstairs in a few hours.