Malaysia Shopping Trip 6 Mar - 7 Mar 2010

Petronas Twin Towers Malaysia

Taking the weekend off, we decided to make a trip up to Kuala Lumpur for some Malaysia shopping. This was a very last minute decision, as we needed to purchase some items from a pharmacy in Kuala Lumpur urgently. Since we were going to be traveling more than 300 km to Kuala Lumpur it only made sense for us to spend the night there before embarking on our journey back to Singapore. When we were searching online to book our Kuala Lumpur accommodation yesterday, we came across a few Kuala Lumpur hotels that were fully booked. We finally gave our friend Selva, assistant sales manager of Citrus Hotel, a call and asked him to help us book a room. As the Club Room which we stayed in before was fully booked, we managed to get a standard room at RM130 (USD40.50) nett including 2 breakfasts.

Leaving our house just after 0630 hrs in the morning, we hit the petrol station to top up petrol and dropped off some items at Mother’s house before we reached Tuas Checkpoint at 0720 hrs. We cleared both Singapore and Malaysia customs and immigrations at 0730 hrs and were on our way to Kuala Lumpur soon after via the North South Highway.

In between Tuas Checkpoint in Singapore and Sultan Abu Bakar Complex in Malaysia

Halfway through the journey, we made a brief stop at Restoran Jejantas (Overhead Bridge) Ayer Keroh. We took the opportunity to top up our Touch ‘n Go Card, a stored value card which we use at the toll booths and certain car parks in Malaysia.

Some of the toll booths you will pass along the North South Highway

Fork in the road where you decide to either go up north to Malacca and Kuala Lumpur or return south to Johor and Singapore

Distance to Malacca and Kuala Lumpur

Restoran Jejantas Ayer Keroh

The shop where you can top up your Touch n Go card

Or you can also top up your Touch n Go card where you see the Touch n Go sign


With not many vehicles on the North South highway and no slow moving traffic, we reached the Kuala Lumpur Sungei Besi toll at 1040 hrs which was very good timing. With the help of our Garmin global positioning system, we made our way to Sri Petaling area.

Getting into Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

When we arrived at our destination, we parked at the roadside where you are required to pay via a parking meter. However when we tried using the parking meter, we were stumped and did not know how to cancel the wrong data that was input. LOL… We finally drove to Sri Petaling Hotel less than 100 m away and parked in the hotel car park. Parking charges start from RM2 (USD0.60) for the first hour and RM1 (USD0.30) every subsequent hour.

We headed for AA Pharmacy in Sri Petaling to get our specially ordered items. At the same time, we were browsing through the shelves and were pleasantly surprised by the knowledge of the staff. We finally ended up buying some other supplements as well.

AA Pharmacy in Sri Petaling

As we explored the Sri Petaling area of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, we could get a very strong and fragrant smell of bak kut teh (pork ribs soup) coming from one of the shops. However they only start operations from 1700 hrs. Instead, the lady who entertained us invited us to try her dim sum food (small portions of a variety of fried and steamed dishes) next door.

We decided to take her advice and give it a try. We found the dim sum food to be quite tasty. In addition, we managed to try a few varieties of dim sum such as lotus paste bao (bun), chicken feet (yes, we actually love this dish), chee cheong fun (rice noodle roll) and century egg porridge amongst others. It was a pleasant and tasty lunch. The total cost for the dim sum meal was RM25.60 (USD8.00). Here are some pictures of the various dim sum food that we ordered for lunch.

Century egg porridge

Lotus paste bao

Other varieties of dim sum, with the chicken feet at top left

Chee cheong fun

The many varieties of dim sum food that you can choose from

The place where we had our dim sum lunch

Hotel Citrus, Kuala Lumpur

Next we went back to Sri Petaling Hotel’s car park, retrieved the car and made our way to our Kuala Lumpur accommodation for the night, Citrus Hotel. This time we did not lose our way, as we knew exactly where the hotel was with the assistance of our Garmin global positioning system plus the fact that this was our second time staying in this hotel. By the time we arrived at the hotel and checked in, it was already after 1400 hrs, the official check-in time.

Clean, bright and simple bedroom

View of the pool from our room

The room from another angle

After leaving our luggage in the room and freshening up, we walked to the Chow Kit area across the road. This is the wholesale area and you can find lots of wholesalers in the area. We spent our afternoon shopping in this area. Whilst making our way across the road to the wholesale area, we could see the majestic architectural splendour, the Petronas twin towers.

Petronas twin towers

You can find a variety of items at wholesale prices including fashion accessories, timepieces, clothing, bags, haberdashery, etc…

Here you can find lots of candies, snacks and drinks

Some of the wholesalers in the area



We had a fun time at the Suanson as well as Bake with Yen shops where we found lots of items that the avid baker would go ‘gaga’ over. If you are like me who can spend hours in such shops, I recommend that you go early as most of the shops in this area close at 1700 hrs.

Bake with Yen

Suanson

Lovely boxes

And more baking supplies

As we left the area, we could see the stall holders for the Chow Kit night market starting to set up shop.

Stall holders setting up shop for the night market

After we finished shopping, we walked back to our accommodation and left our shopping goodies in the room. We took a short ten minutes rest before going out for dinner. To our surprise, the roads were wet. It must have been a passing shower that we had narrowly missed.

We walked around the corner and came across Restoran Ong Lai. This establishment operates from 1730 hrs – 0130 hrs. For dinner, we ordered sambal kangkung, sweet and sour pork, fried hokkien mee as well as fried glass noodle. We couldn’t wait to try the Malaysian food. In addition, we ordered two glasses of lime juice as well as a glass of coca-cola. Total bill after including RM1 (USD0.30) for 2 wet towels came up to RM42.60 (USD13.30).

Restoran Ong Lai

Thirst quenching lime juice

Quite a good crowd at an early hour

Fried hokkien mee

Fried glass noodle

Sweet and sour pork

Sambal kang kung

We have to admit that the food here was of restaurant standard. You will enjoy the tasty and delicious food. At the same time, the pricing is of restaurant standard as well! This place seems to be quite popular as there were quite a number of people dining here as well. You can get some great tasting Malaysian food here.

Chefs at work along the roadside

After dinner, we walked around the area for a short while before making our way back to our Kuala Lumpur accommodation for the night. As we were tired from all the Malaysia shopping as well as being totally satisfied with the wonderfully simple, yet delicious, Malaysian and dim sum food that we had tasted, we decided to call it an early night.



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