So it was the Malaysia Day public holiday a couple weeks back. I reckon Malaysia is the only country in the world that you get to celebrate the formation of your country twice; yes you read right TWICE! Not complaining, it only adds on to the ridiculous amount of public holidays this country has. I think it can be noted down as a tourist attraction. I can visualize it on TripAdvisor 'Malaysia: Land of countless public holidays'.
Public holiday's aside; it gave the opportunity for me, darling and a couple of university mates to travel up north to Kampar for Andrew's wedding. It was a pretty good time of catching up since I've not met some of them for a couple of years now since before I left for London.
Kampar has definitely changes a tiny bit since the last time I visited a few years back. For starters there has been a sudden outburst of Taiwanese-styled dessert shops and a 24 hours Mc Donald's!
I tried to take better shots with the limited zoom-ing ability with my current lenses. This surprisingly was rather 'alright'. Taken with a 50mm prime at F1.8 with a 1/125 exposure. I think I was about 20-25 feet away from the bride and groom? I think it's about time I invested in a more versatile lens; but that'll be after the wedding next year.
After the wedding we embarked on a 45 minute drive up north to Ipoh. I think my perception on Ipoh cuisine has changed after this trip. All this while I've held the impression that no other town in Malaysia can come close to Penang cuisine. Well Ipoh's cuisines aren't too shabby. Not up to Penang's standard's but still pleasurable none the less. I know I'm gonna get a backlash from all you readers from Ipoh; but sorry gotta side with my roots. Penang still wins. BUT Ipoh is catching up; slowly...
We had Pork Satay or more crudely known as Satay Babi. I seriously need to find a stall that sells them here in KL. The succulent pork marinated with turmeric then slowly flame grilled over a charcoal fire to perfection; makes it a must try for this coffee shop some where in old town Ipoh. I can't exactly remember where it is though.
The shredded chicken noodle soup with bean sprouts or locally known as 'nga choi kai' is quite delectable as well.
Jason; an Ipoh native later took us down this alley that was nicknamed 'Mistress Alley' . Story has it that during the pre-independence era, wealthy businessmen or noble men would come down this alley to elope with their mistresses.
It was kinda cool too be able to walk through the pre-colonial buildings. You can't find much of these around anymore. Probably in the smaller towns of Peninsular Malaysia, Malacca or Penang. In KL; the only thing they're good at is smashing up old buildings and building boring glass ones.
Take lessons from the Europeans for goodness sake; OLD IS GOLD!.
Skyscrapers after skyscrapers make KL a boring city. It's loosing it's old world charm day by day.
This alley totally was a cool place to have a photo shoot. Albeit being in disarray and abandoned, it still had a lot of artistic value in them.
Off to Bangkok on Thursday for another adventure...
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