2 posts from July 2009

After hearing and seeing the no-longer-existent cenfad, I've been getting nostalgic on the route I used to take twice a week back in the years 2005-2006, for my inconveniently-late drafting class at 6 pm. Starting from my house at 4.30 p.m., it took a brisk 9-minute walk to the LRT station. I spotted at least 4 people in the cabin with white Apple earphones, like mine. An improvement.

Taman Jaya looks quite the same like before. The house at the end of the area, the one which had a nice-looking swimming pool, is no longer visible due to the noise shield [installed quite some time ago].

Many of the squatters in the Pantai Dalam area were burnt / demolished to make way for this new development called 'Bangsar South'. A new, ugly-looking building complex can be seen from the Federal Highway.

10 stations later I reached KLCC. The platform was abnormally warm, even though there weren't many people yet. I surfaced to the concourse level, seeing Rotiboy still baking aromatic bread, and the news stand where I used to buy my monthly dose of ELLEgirl. Before heading to the underpass to the convention centre, I dropped by the news stand at Cold Storage. Now, it has a nice shelf displaying niche fashion magazines, although the shop still makes one move around like a crab.

In the tunnel, the advertisements have obviously changed. I used to walk past Samsung/Chelsea ads, LG air-conditioner ads, but today, it has an iPhone ad in English and Malay.

The ascending escalator took me to the park level, where I would walk past ticketing counters and exhibition halls. This time, there were considerably more passer-bys, chiefly Arab tourists and expo people in suits.

This corridor is directly connected to Traders Hotel, which still has the same-looking lobby.

Out of the hotel and on to Jalan Kia Peng, there were several more familiar sights, like this RapidKL bus parked by the roadside, where its driver would take time to clean their bus and sleep.

I was a little odded out to find a house belonging to the ambassador of Germany. I could have sworn it was Belgium's.

Right after the cross-junction, a new firm has taken over the old house next to cenfad. It's Design Development Centre [DDEC], owned by MARA.

I took a look at this house where I used to by my lunch at the grilled fish stalls behind it. I realised that its architecture and layout greatly resembles that of cenfad's.

At the courtyard, I saw two men playing a game of badminton. I asked them what this place was, and what happened to cenfad next door. Very friendly people. They advised me to check with the receptionist to know more, before continuing their game.

At the reception, I was greeted with a man who was trying to conceal his Kelantanese accent. He allowed me to look at the company's works after I asked him some questions, like is there a connection between DDEC and cenfad [there isn't]. What would describe DDEC best is a design consultancy firm.

I noticed there were people still working, like the CEO, who, even though is not a Mac user [based on his display, anyway], is quite a looker. I particularly enjoyed the see-through floor at the reception area.

For comparison purposes, here are two pictures of the gate, taken from the same location four years apart. The first picture includes some of my former classmates running in the rain, back to class after a lunch of grilled fish. The second picture is the current view.

If anyone's curious on how cenfad's interior design studio looks like now, it's on its way to become a jungle.

Here is the same cross-junction [Jalan Kia Peng x Jalan Stonor], about three years apart.

I walked towards KLCC park, passing by new luxury condominiums, which all look uncreatively-alike, except for The Troika, but only for hanging on to Foster+Partners' design, which is designed so that each unit has a KLCC view.

Actually, the view from the site is more of the KLCC park rather than the twin towers. Other new high-rise homes in the area include The Oval, Suria Stonor, Dua Residency, Stonor Park and an unidentified condominium beside The Binjai's showhouse.

Upon entering the park, I asked the DBKL enforcers hanging about near the under-renovation Masjid Asy-Syakirin if bicycles are allowed in the park [in case I happen to bring mine in for fun]. They told me that you can't ride it, push it, nor carry it. Crepes! But walking along the jogging path is fun enough. Fun to sight-see.

Away from the humidity of the water fountain, I headed to Kinokuniya to read some Bauhaus and Swiss design-related books for about an hour. I went back to the LRT station after some dinner and reached my starting point 5 hours after I left it.

I was walking in a quiet neighbourhood somewhere in the outskirts of KL, where security guards patrol on bicycles, one late afternoon on a weekday. I was walking very, very slow, and noticed a girl lurking about on the sidewalk across the street. She openly sneaked up to me, with a cup of corn flakes in hand. Sentences in italics are spoken by me.

"I've been spying on you,"

First thing I noticed about her is the lack of shoes.

"I prefer to go barefoot. It feels so free..."

In my mind, I thought, "Yes, and maybe one day you'll start to get into nudism,"

"When I am not barefooted, I usually wear my crocs,"
"Every household seems to have them, I notice,"
"The only thing I don't like when not wearing shoes is when I step into sticky floors that are covered in syrup at school,"

"My name is Nisaa' - double 'a' with an apostrophe,"
"No 'Nurul' or 'Nor' or 'Siti' at the beginning?"
"My full name starts with 'Siti', and sometimes my friends mistakenly call me 'Siti Nurhaliza' because our names sound alike in full,"

"I like peanut butter with jam but sometimes I just scoop the peanut butter from the jar and then eat then my mouth will get sticky,"
"And then, will you brush your teeth?"
"No. There's no toothpaste [in my bathroom],"

We passed by some shop houses where all the grocers and cafés were, and received some odd looks from other people, but both of us know we are cooler than them. I decided to take off my shoes when we reached the pavement at the main road.

 "Where is your school?"
"Just next to my house. I am famous for that. My teachers often refer me as the girl who lives right across school,"
"So, that means, if you forget to bring something to school, you can just rush back to your house to get it?"
"No, we're not allowed to leave school while in session,"
"Which school are you going to for your secondary education?"
"Next year we'll be moving to France [pronounced the American way],"
"France? You mean France [pronounced in the British way]?"
"Yup, my dad's company is sending him there. They've got branches all over the world,"
"And what about your mother?"
"She works nearby. Her job is related to construction, and she's always a busy woman,"

We reached Nisaa''s house, which is really just 10 metres away from the school gate. Inside, her siblings, all below the age of ten, are busy playing chess and Risk. This is too ridiculous. I don't even know how to play chess!

Nisaa' brought me to her room which she shares with her younger sister. Here's how she reacted after I gave her some drugs...

No, no drugs were involved. That is just how kids her age act when they are being recorded. She will end her childhood very soon, and will enter teenagehood, and lose all her kiddie wisdom and  perhaps, start wearing shoes. No, I don't want that to happen.

I also taught her how to draw the dojob man.

But she really did read to me the entire book [in a localised American accent (the kind you'd hear from an upper-middle class teenager with a quilted Chanel purse look-alike who enjoys a Mocha Frappuccino on weekends at Pavilion)]!

After all that story-telling, we headed to the dining table, where we waited for Nisaa''s father [referred to as 'Dada']. He burst through the door with plastic bags full of groceries from Mercato. "Come, let's eat. Have you taken your shower, all of you?" he asked his little kiddies.

While eating, Dada asked me the question I do not like to answer - "What are you doing now?". After a few sentences, he start to go on about the goodness of imaging software, and commented, "Even Ansel Adams uses Aperture to make his blacks blacker! You should try it one day,"

After a dinner of rice with black pepper beef, omelette and broccoli, Dada summoned me. "Aina, come and take a look at my comics; I've got some titles you might like," as Dada took me to his bookshelves. He handed me about 5 kg of books. Unfortunately, Dada doesn't read Tintin. But he has mad love for Bone. "Read it. I did, and I literally laughed out loud!". Hm, that explains all the comics I saw at Nisaa''s room.

It was close to nine at night, and Dada got busy in the kitchen with his Jamie Oliver cook book [another trait of an upper-middle class household, or should I say, yuppie], caramelising onions for his spring chicken dish.

"Er, sir, I think I should leave now. My bed time is in thirty minutes,"
"Oh, OK. Which books are you borrowing?"