After my rather unexpected encounter with the Malaysian Custom, my next challenge was to locate “PJ Hilton”. I had no clue how exactly to get there. It’s been donkey years since I worked in Petaling Jaya and how the whole place has changed! There are new flyovers, streets turned one-way, new shops spawned from nowhere, and already humongous shipping malls duplicate into twice the size. This interesting satellite city of Kuala Lumpur has officially gained a city status just two years ago.
Photo captions from left to right: (1) A slice of Petaling Jaya, (2) PJ Hilton, (3) View from the hotel room
Truly a weird feeling not sure if some of you could relate, pieces of memory of the street layout that I was once so confident in negotiating from one street to another seems to have vanished in thin air. I have zero recollection on where is where in PJ. OK, I do have a vague idea that PJ Hilton is along the Federal Highway but how to get to the highway?
Photo captions from left to right: (1) New Paris Restaurant at SS2, a must try! (2) interesting dish with champagne braised chicken that has a sour taste served with balls of water melon! Say what?! (3) Finally, “The Curve” signboard after a 2 hours drive … the return trip was barely a half-an-hour trip.
Fortunately, what we humanly not possible to accomplish – in my case, the revival of my faded memory – technology made possible. Nokia Map is a great tool, though I must say the screen size of my N95 is a tad too small. It is pretty much like a computer game to me. There is an icon marked as my destination. And there is this blinking cursor telling me where I am via the global positioning system established between my tiny phone and the far away satellites above me. All I need to do is keep driving till the blinking cursor coincide with the target icon – in theory.
Photo captions from left to right: (1) “The Curve” is a new shopping mall with little stores along the middle of the street, (2) TGI Friday! I wonder if they will return to Singapore one day, (3) There is … Cineleisure at “The Curve”!
And because I do remember and know some of the landmarks and eating spots in PJ, finding them in my phone is relatively easy. Getting there, took time. At one point, after going round and round in circle and Cynthia and I were excited to see that our car was finally heading directly to the new shopping mall “The Curve” only to realize that it was a dead end blocked by another highway.
Also unexpectedly, I have decided to call up my good old friend Catherine and her husband whom I met back when I was working in Mauritius. Their daughters are so cute! And they have grown up so much. Amazingly adorable they are.
11 replies on “Photos From My Petaling Jaya Road Trip – Of PJ Hilton, The Curve, And More”
I couldn’t find The Curve when I was in KL last trip. hahaha….. I dare not take cab lah because I’m a beautiful Singaporean lady! *cough cough cough*
Traffic conditions quite bad in Kl, right?
Oh… the dragon kiln is constructed to fire pottery many years ago. It was shut down when the demand for pottery dropped. But Singapore Tourism Board reconstructed it to retain it cultural and heritage purpose. It is still usable but it requires a huge amount of pottery to fire to be economical.
ECL – Ha ha ha … sure sure. Must consider wearing a head scarf to cover yourself a bit next time you are in Malaysia.
Traffic condition is OK in PJ. Must be the additional number of highways and flyovers. We didn’t drive to KL during this trip.
The Dragon Kiln thingie is certainly very interesting. I can’t even visualize how ancient that could be …
Been to KL many years ago and the traffic was very bad. Luckily we had a friend there who drove us around. So, when in Malaysia, we need friends to bring us around 😛
Tigerfish – Absolutely. When I worked in PJ, I used to have this group of wonderful Malaysian friends who show us around. There are many interesting spots in Malaysia indeed and we do need friends to bring us around.
This post made me homesick… You went to NEW PARIS???!!! I can’t believe this! I grew up all my life in SS2 before I had to leave for UK… 🙂
JoV – Oh wow … two years have passed!
Yes. New Paris’s food is delicious. When we worked there, we were used to visit the old site, Paris Restaurant I think.
Speaking as such, time for me to visit KL+ PJ again … need me to courier anything to you? Like … food?! 🙂
As much as I want to take you up for the offer, I wouldn’t put you through so much trouble!! 😀 Scare you get caught at the Johor / Signapore custom again for bringing something smelly like Durian or salted fish!! ha ha ha
I’m trying to picture where you used to work that is close to SS2..IBM? You have been to the OLD PARIS?? Are you kidding me? The old Paris is just a run-down hut in the middle of a waste land and they laid this red plastic as table cover. and when you finish eating, they wrap all your plates and waste in the top layer of the red plastic and haul everything on the table in a split of seconds!! NEXT customer please! ha ha 😀
From Old Paris, to New Paris to the Paris in France! Man you are versatile!! 😀
JoV – Oh, my site was at Amcorp Mall, PJ. I lived in PJ for quite some time. Made some great friends whom we still keep in touch today (that’s one of the reasons why I often drive up to Malaysia). PJ is near to SS2, Damansara, Bangsar, and etc. And our team loved to explore near places for dinner.
Yes, yes. Old Paris was super efficient with the red plastic tablecloth (if you can call that so). New Paris is the same. Ha ha ha.
My memory failed me. You are right, the NEW Paris is the same, they used the Red plastic. As Chinese says, old habit die hard! ha ha…
Well Malaysians are nice people (hint, hint), so not surprise you still keep in touch with such great people!
JoV – Well, it is a very good “habit”. The table for the next group of customers is always clean. And the process is super fast!
Oh, I think South East Asians are nice people. That is the main reason why I migrate here 🙂