The Ducksoup Blogs

After finally getting a refreshing sleep, I was ready for a new day.

We had a great breakfast in the hotel and then caught a cab to see one of the “Must See” locales in KL… the Batu Caves. The limestone pipe that contains the caves is said to be 400 million years old. The caves that developed in it have been inhabited for a very long time. In the late 1800’s, the caves were promoted as a Hindu place of worship.

Our cabbie dropped us off at the Batu Caves entrance and we walked through the gates and up to the foot of the stairs.

The impressive limestone cliffs hang over the park area below the main caves.

The very large golden statue of Lord Murugan shows the way to the shrines in the caves.

The camera angle really doesn’t give you the true steepness of the 272 steps up the caves. At least there were level bits every so often.

Easily jogging up the 272 steps, we nevertheless, did stop a few times to admire the views. The following interlude, while we gasp for breath, is especially for little Ben, who wanted to know “…if I’d seen any monkeys yet?”. Yes, Ben, there are a lot of macaque monkeys hanging around the steps hoping for bananas.

Nearing the top of the stairs, the expanse of the limestone cliffs and cave entrance started to really show itself!

At the top of the 272 stairs, we turned and looked back upon the city. At this point, I reflected upon those immortal words uttered by the intrepid explorer, Dora, who always says “We did it! We did it! We really, really did it!”.

As you walk through the mouth of the cave, it opens up and deepens and you can see the bright open area at the far end where it’s open to the sky.

The way the limestone has been carved over the years is really awesome to see.

After making the walk to the other end and looking at the various shrines inside, we made our way back to the cave entrance and down the 272 steps.

As we neared the bottom of the steps, it looked like the whole clan came out to wish us well and ask us to… “Y’all come back now, ya hear?”

There was a very quiet and reflective spot a little way away from all the hustle and bustle of the main attraction. Looked very nice and calming.

Another of the several temples around the main entrance to the caves. This shows another view of the marvelous limestone cliffs.

This rather imposing statue is of one of the favourite Hindu gods, Hanuman.

After visiting him, we headed back to the main entrance.

We grabbed a cab, after a bit of haggling, and went over to the KL Tower. At 421M tall, no where near as tall as the 553M tall CN Tower, it does, however, give great vistas over the city.

In this view, we could pick out the Sentral station and our hotel, marked with the arrow.

Somehow, the twin Petronas towers looked bigger from this vantage point than they did when were standing at the base of them.

We caught a cab from the KL Tower, rather than walking back, like we did yesterday. But we were so tired from the 272 steps, we were forced to retire to poolside and have a light lunch and iced tea.

That’s it for the day… we’re expecting Andrew to arrive from Singapore around dinner time, so we’ll catch something to eat with him. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we’ll be with clients and another small ‘event’, so the likelyhood of further pics is rather slim.

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Missing you all very much! Two weeks is too long away from home.

But, cheers to all!

Saturday morning we checked out of the Marina Bay Sands and caught a cab out to Chiangi Airport. The wait for our 11AM flight was very comfortable… this airport is one of the nicest I’ve ever been in. There’s actually quiet areas where you can lay out on comfortable lounge chairs if you’d like.

After the short 45 minute flight on Air Malaysia, we landed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We took the KLIA Express train into the Kuala Lumpur Sentral station, seen here.

We’re staying at the Hilton, which is right across the street from the Sentral station, so it made it very easy to get in from the airport.

My hotel window looks out over some of the more picturesque views available. It’s amazing to see all the green space still maintained in the midst of such a large city.

This is part of the Perdana Botanical Gardens.

After a bite of lunch in the hotel, we took the LRT from the Sentral station past four stops with very different names, Pasar Seni, Masjit Jamek, Dang Wang and Kampung Baru, til we arrived at KLCC which has one of the largest shopping malls in Malaysia. It’s also the location of the Petronas Twin Towers… remember Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible-Ghost Protocol? We wanted to take the trip up to the cross over between the towers, but all the day’s allotment of tickets had already been sold.

Behind the towers is another area of green space reserved for a quiet park with paths and ponds.

Tim had suggested that we go visit the Central Market area, so we took the LRT back to the Masjit Jamek stop, named for the mosque seen here, and started walking through the neighbourhood to get there.

Many of the older building are brightly coloured and have a very interesting architecture.

The Central Market is the oldest market buildings still standing in KL. Inside is 2 stories of stalls selling local crafts, foods and ‘stuff’. It was interesting to walk through, but nothing I really thought was worth bringing home. There’s Rob standing in front of the main entrance… as you can see, he was empty handed too!

This is an example of the kinds of stalls found in the Central Market.

We did stop at the Old Town Kopitiam for a tea and a lime juice. Kopi is the local coffee beverage.

The Kasturi Walk runs between the Central Market and the shops on the other side of the street. Note the KFC sign about half way down the street!

Again, you can see examples of the old buildings evident above the street level shops.

Once we left the Central Market, we basically followed the streets, keeping close to the river.

On the way, we passed this building which we took to be some religious structure… but it turned out to be the Kuala Lumpur Railway station!

After some interesting quick hops across busy streets, we finally made our way back to the Hilton. We had a beverage and some light food in the poolside restaurant and called it a night.

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That’s all for Saturday in Kuala Lumpur!

Cheers!

Tuesday was a busy day prepping for the Healthcare IT Singapore Symposium, which ran Wednesday and Thursday. I delivered my ‘keynote’ session entitled “Transforming patient care through user-centric mobility initiatives” on Wednesday morning… believe me, I didn’t pick the title! Today we met with a couple of hospital CEO/CIO’s before wrapping up our day.

One of the teams we met were working out of a marvelous old building while their new hospital is being built. The locals call this style of building a ‘shop house’ because people used to run a shop out of the ground floor and live above it.

For dinner, Rob and I went to the Newton Circus Hawker Centre where we met up another of our Healthcare team, Tim van der Werff from NZ.

There were probably 50 or more stalls like the ones shown here. Rob and Tim ordered Garlic Prawns and Rice from this stall, along with some Tiger Beer… a local favourite.

The individual stall owners (hawkers) try to entice you to take their menus to a table to ‘mark’ you as theirs so others won’t try to lure you to a different stall. Once you’re used to what’s going on, it’s not intrusive… just adds character.

Their stall was mostly fishy… yeck… so I went to the Beef Noodle stall. They also served Rojak… a ‘tasty local infused salad consisting of fruits, fried dough fritters, turnips, bean sprouts, cucumbers topped off with prawn paste and crushed peanuts. The gravy has a unique flavour that will entice one’s appetite for more‘. I did not partake!

I had Black Pepper Beef with steamed rice and it was better food than the very expensive dinner at the the Chinese Restaurant last night.

Two hard working HP Healthcare dudes… me and my cohort Rob!

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Well… that’s it from Singapore… we leave for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia tomorrow morning.

Missing you all!

Very short blog entry today…

After a very bad night’s sleep, worked all day at the HP Office planning for tomorrow’s session, planning for Kuala Lumpur and Perth and meeting some key folks in our office.

We went to dinner a good Italian restaurant in the Marina Bay Sands Shoppes, where it was proven that people can do strange things with their disposible income!

Apparently, you can buy a Ferrari… or at least some Ferrari kit…

… or you can go to the Kenko Reflexology and Fish Spa… where you can sit with your feet in the water and let the little fishes eat the dead skin off your feet… at lease I HOPE it’s just the dead skin! Ewwwwwww!

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That’s it for today…

Cheers!

I didn’t think this would happen again, but I’m back in Singapore… part of a 2 week trip to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Perth. Much too long away from home, so I thought I’d do another blog… helps me feel connected to you all back home.

Early, and I do mean early, Saturday morning, I drove to London and caught the short flight to Toronto. Great fortune was bestowed upon me as I was upgraded to Executive Class for the 15.5 hour flight to Hong Kong. I managed to get some sleep, but was definitely more comfortable than what I had expected.

I had a couple of hour layover in Hong Kong, but couldn’t really see much as it was very cloudy and misty so the hills and mountains around the hotel were shrouded.

Four hours later (strange, but that feels like a short hop now) and I arrived in Singapore around 10:30 PM Sunday night. To bad my luggage didn’t enjoy the trip with me… some git didn’t put my bag onto the Toronto-Hong Kong flight.

My cohort, Rob, and I booked into the Marina Bay Sands Hotel as it was equally as expensive as any of the others and it looks like a neat place right at Marina Bay.

This is the Atrium inside Tower 1, where my room is… there are two more towers and countless rooms.

At the top of the hotel is the Sands Skypark… part restaurants, part viewing platforms and part infinity pool overlooking the Marina and the downtown. This view is looking out to sea with another major development under construction and hundreds of cargo ships at anchor.

To combat jet lag, I did several long walks through the Marina District and stopped at the famous Raffles hotel for a 1/2 pint of Tiger Beer… Raffles is the originator of the Singapore Sling.

Some night photos…

Across from the hotel is the Marina Bay Sands Shoppes, a large collection of many, many stores the likes of Cartier, Chanel, Dior, Gucci… well you get the ideal! There’s even a Ferrari store, with a Formula 1 race car in the window.

There’s also a Skating Rink, next to the rather upscale ‘Hawker Centre’… but it’s not an ice skating rink… just some kind of plastic floor that people try to skate on. No Liz Manley or Elvis Stojko in sight!

I had some Beef with Singapore Noodles for supper there… S$8 or about CDN$6 and was very good. If you had the same thing in one of the posh restaurants it would be easily 10x the price.

Well that’s all for today… probably not much more til I get to Kuala Lumpur on the Weekend.

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Missing you all!