耗资3千万全面翻新 金河广场年杪展新貌

耗资3千万全面翻新 金河广场年杪展新貌



金河广场正全面翻新工程， 图为竣工后的模型图。

吉隆坡历史最悠久和最知名的商场之一———金河广场，耗资3000万令吉进行全面翻新工程，并且将在年尾展现其新面貌。

从2012年11月22日开始的翻新工程，包括了更换全新的天花板和地板瓷砖、重新粉刷外观、升级升降机门廊、改善广场指示牌以及在中庭的新栏杆和照明灯。

此外，金河广场正在兴建有盖人行道。该人行道将一路沿至位于苏丹伊斯迈路（Jalan Sultan Ismail）的商场前方。 兴建有盖人行道

完成后，它将与由吉隆坡市政局建造的有盖人行道形成一个无缝的链接，让消费者在任何天气都能够舒适的来往武吉免登（Bukit Bintang）之间的购物中心。

广场经理邓福强说，让金河广场36年来屹立不倒，深受欢迎的秘诀，就是金河广场拥有不断重塑自身的能力，同时和消费者一起紧追潮流。

“此次的翻新工程非常符合这项惯例并将会带给消费者更佳更现代化的购物体验。”

他说，虽然工程仍在进行中，但消费者可以继续享受购物的乐趣，因为所有工程会在商场打烊后既晚上10时才开始进行，所以并不会影响租户的生意。

捷运运作长期受惠

金河广场的翻新工程，同时也响应了武吉免登—吉隆坡城中城购物商圈旅游协会1（BBKLCC Tourism Association）旨在改善吉隆坡武吉免登—吉隆坡城中城成为世界级的购物热点。

金河广场也预计成为捷运（MRT）工程的长期受惠单位之一。

一旦捷运投入运作，预计每个小时会有2万5000名乘客。

武吉免登捷运站位于金河广场附近，预计在2017年开始操作。

这是金河广场自1977年开业以来，第二次的翻新工程。

在1992年，金河广场致力于营造更方便、舒适的购物环境而进行大型的翻新工程。

～以上新闻转载自南洋商报～

城市德士机场载客反应佳

城市德士机场载客反应佳‧陆交会促勿漫天开价

陆路公共交通委员会主席丹斯里赛哈密指出，政府开放让城市德士到吉隆坡国际机场载客的制度获得德士司机的良好反应。

他今日向星洲日报透露，大部份城市德士对这项新制度都感到满意，积极到吉隆坡国际机场载客。

“陆路公共交通委员会从新制度落实的第一天，就开始在机场监督载客情况，收取德士司机和乘客的反馈，以不断改善城市德士在机场载客的服务。

载客前应先打理座位和外观

“我们鼓励城市德士司机在到机场载客前，先打理好德士座位和外观。机场有不少的外国游客量，如果城市德士的服务欠佳，將有损我国的国际形象。有鑑於此，所有欲在机场载客的德士都必须先通过执法组的检验。”

他披露，陆路公共交通委员会也有开放推特让德士乘客发表意见，该委员会接获的投诉包括德士司机刻意绕远路的问题。他希望德士司机遵守职业操守，不乘机漫天开价，因为违反纪律的行为將破坏大马德士司机的形象。

许力文：应交代检验德士標准

雪隆德士僱主司机公会总务许力文不反对当局“过滤”德士的策略，但是他希望陆路公共交通委员会可以清楚交代执法组检验德士时，所採取的標准。

“这样可以方便有意到机场载客的司机，先把德士整理或维修得符合有关標准，避免在机场接受检验后遭到过滤，而无终而返。”

另外，许力文表示，曾经集结雪隆地区的德士联合会已经长期陷入不活跃状態。他说，目前各个小分会是在有需要时，联手向陆路公共交通委员会反映他们面对的困难，以及提出相关要求。

“我希望我们以后能与陆路公共交通委员会有更好的沟通，协助司机瞭解各种政策的细节。”

（星洲日报／大都会）

东禪寺25日花车游行

邀各乡团参与同庆卫塞节‧东禪寺后日花车游行



美伦美奐的佛祖花车，在信徒的赶工佈置下，已准备就绪，准备在卫塞节晚出游。（图：星洲日报）

马来西亚佛光山东禪寺，为庆祝卫塞节“释迦牟尼佛诞纪念日”，迎接佛陀的喜悦，將於5月25日（星期六）晚上7时，在仁嘉隆盛大举行“佛祖出巡”花车游行，主礼嘉宾为州议员拿督邓章钦，佛祖花车將途经仁嘉隆大街及主要道路，欢迎沿途商店及住宅设香案恭迎，届时，佛光將普照仁嘉隆。

东禪寺法师將跟隨“佛祖出巡”花车，沿途洒净，为公眾献上祝福。此外，仁嘉隆八大姓氏宗亲会，各乡团及民间志愿团体等，都受邀参与游行，预料將吸引数以千计的信徒及公眾参与游戏队伍。

佛光会会长梁谢强、拿督黄世交、林玉、雪州州议员欧阳捍华、拿督邓章钦、地方党团领袖等，都受邀参与庆典。

24及25日办园游义卖会

东禪寺卫塞节庆典从5月24至25日，上午9时至下午3时，举行“园游义卖会”，“浴佛法会”，“毓麟祝福”等活动，欢迎信徒蒞临占香礼佛，希望以浴佛祈福法会增强大眾的信心，並兼具宗教仪式，素食及义卖，益智竞赛及系列生活趣味的多元化游戏，提供心灵之需，从而，推广人间佛教。

5月24日上午10时，佛光缘美术馆也特別举行”相遇VS悉达多太子“2013佛诞特展开幕典礼及美术馆佛画写生比赛──“我心中的佛陀”。5月25日上午10时，举行2013年悉达多太子走秀比赛。

现场呈献儿童戏剧

配合卫塞节庆典，东禪寺特別邀请爱说故事的洪姐姐工作室及绿精灵儿童剧团，在5月24日早上11时至下午2时，现场为小朋友说“天使棒不见了”故事及呈献儿童戏剧。

此外，Stylling Pavillion Academy造型设计师Pierre The与陶艺家刘育瑞与谢百风，现场为大眾主持“手部艺术彩绘”，玩玩新创意。

任何询问，可联络东禪寺，电话：03-31911533或03-31914304。

（星洲日报／大都会）

Heritage-rich road

Heritage-rich road still lures lovers of authentic Chinese food



Old-timer: Chan tending to a customer at his outdoor barber corner in Jalan Sultan. He took over the stall from his father more than 40 years ago.

The barber’s corner run by Chan Hong in Jalan Sultan is a piece of history in motion. He has been offering a snip or a shave from here for more than 40 years. Many also come from afar to get Chan to attend to their ear-related problems with traditional medicine.

The 69-year-old loves showing customers his “family heirloom” — a 90-year-old plaque penned by his father and two 70-year-old barber chairs cemented to the ground. The tools he uses are mostly antiques, too.

This corner has attracted so much attention that Chan puts up a small request: ‘RM5 for a photo’.

“I learnt these skills from my father. He went to America from China, but he came here because his English was not good. I have been here all my life; my children are engineers working overseas but I still want to run this business or else I will be so bored at home,” said the chatty man.

Chan said he was there when Jalan Sultan was still crammed with zinc-roofed houses. The site of Kota Raya shopping centre was occupied by the Sultan Street railway station, next to it was the ‘Sky-Pointing Street’ where prices of goods were sky-high but could be slashed by half with some haggling.

“The ZhongHua Lane, where the Lee Lam Thye Market is now, was called the ‘Lane of Truths’ as it was where people converged for their daily dose of tales. The storyteller would collect a round of money whenever the joss stick burnt to its end, else he would not reveal ‘the next episode’!” recalled Chan.

According to the author of The Disappearing Kuala Lumpur, architect and heritage conservationist Teoh Chee Keong, Jalan Sultan got its name before 1889.



Insightful: Teoh, who wrote a book titled ‘The Disappearing Kuala Lumpur’ has done exte nsive research on the Old Kuala Lumpur.

It was the proposed location for Sultan Abdul Samad’s palace in conjunction with his visit to Kuala Lumpur after the Klang railway was completed. The proposal did not materialise.

Jalan Sultan was first developed as a spill-over effect from the then centre of Kuala Lumpur — now Medan Pasar where the two rivers meet.

In 1857, Raja Abdullah brought some 200 Chinese tin miners to explore the tin-rich area blanketed with jungle, where a small Malay community had settled.

“The centre of a typical city in Malaysia is usually a palace, a mosque or like in this case, a market for tin trading. Other trades existed to meet the needs, so you would have shops selling sundries and dried seafood on the fringe of the market that sold perishables.

“Further away, you could find tailors, goldsmiths, restaurants, stationery shops and so on. Lastly, you would need to have coffin shops, set up in the relatively quiet Jalan Sultan situated across a river that later become Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock,” Teoh said.



Long-time resident: Lai has been selling claypot chicken rice in Jalan Sultan since 1983

The funeral parlour ‘Chik Sin Thong’ (which means The Merit-Accumulating Hall in Cantonese) was a landmark.

Although demolished in 2005, the building has left a vivid impression among KL folks.

“Old and poor miners spent their last days on the upper floor of Chik Sin Thong, and when it was time, they were sent downstairs for the funeral,” Teoh said.

Gone with it was the Hong Tou Guesthouse, said to be Kuala Lumpur’s first hotel that brought the street to its heyday in early 1960s.

The Yan Keng Benevolent Dramatic Association is the grandest building left to play the role of a ‘big brother’, defending the dusty past together with rows of smaller shophouses.

Some old trades can still be found in Jalan Sultan, such as mole-removing, fortune-telling and denture customisation. The best thing is, good food is still aplenty, in the same good old flavours apparently.

“I miss the Ding-Ding Candy and the pickled mangoes sold from shoulder poles,” reminisced Poon Foong Kwan who runs a cigarette wholesale business there.

Growing up in Jalan Sultan, she witnessed how shops selling textiles, coals and coffins made way for backpacker hostels and restaurants. “Strangely, as kids, we were never afraid of the coffin shops,” she added.

She also bid adieu to many old friends whom she lived with on the upper floor of the shophouses; they left in year 2000 when rental soared following the repeal of the Rent Control Act.



Good old flavours: The ‘appetising’ side of Jalan Sultan appears when night falls.

The shophouses used to be home for up to 60 tenants but was later limited to 20 to control the spread of illness. Now, they are mostly for storage or inhabited by foreign workers.

Jalan Sultan is always a picture of hustle and bustle even though traders lament that business has dropped. Lai Chai Chin, 60, who has been selling claypot chicken rice since 1983 said things had not been the same ever since Rex Cinema closed down.

“The cinema was one of the most popular hangouts in the 1980s. We (hawkers in the area) would walk over for midnight shows after we closed for the day,” he said.

The Rex building still stands but is now a hostel while the Popular Bookstore, another iconic landmark here, is now a convenience store. The street is marked by chain outlets — Watsons, Guardian and Nando’s — on one end, while the Klang Bus Stand and Uda Ocean on the other have been demolished for the MyRapid Transit project.

The strong smell of cooked food wafting from Jalan Sultan always attracts those who have left, but one wonders how long the attraction will last as the traders’ children move on to other ventures.

“Some of our regulars have been with us for three generations,” Foo Yong Cheong, 63, said proudly. With his wife, he has been running a famous stall selling groundnut and pork trotter soup for more than 30 years now.

“This street is not as busy as Petaling Street but people come here for food. I would say this is still the place to taste the most authentic flavours, though some really good stuffs are no longer here, like Nanyang coffee,” Foo said.

~News courtesy of The Star~

Lush greenery in Semenyih

Lush greenery in Semenyih

Semenyih is home to many tourist attractions such as the Sungai Tekala Recreational Forest, Semenyih Hot Spring, Rabbit Fun Land and Ostrich Wonderland Show Farm.

There are several rivers located in Semenyih, such as Sungai Rinching, Sungai Broga, Sungai Tekala, Sungai Pening, Sungai Batang Si, Sungai Lalang and Sungai Purun.

Roads leading to the Semenyih Nirvana Memorial Park are congested during the Qing Ming Festival period every year as people make their way there to pay homage to ancestors and the deceased.

The Chinese Calligraphy Stone Gallery, launched on Oct 28, 2012, is also located in the memorial park. It features over 150 calligraphic tablets.

The gallery is open to the public and admission is free.

Also in Semenyih is the University of Nottingham Malaysia campus, established in 2005, leading to an increase of foreign students living near the campus.

Another place of interest is the Rabbit Fun Land, which is located in Kampung Rinching Ulu, approximately 3km away from the campus.

A scenic hilltop temple in Broga also attracts visitors and tourists. Chinese New Year music videos were also filmed here.

Broga is located between Semenyih, Selangor and Negri Sembilan.

Recently, it was announced that a new access road would be built for motorists to get to the Kajang-Seremban Highway (Lekas) from Kampung Rinching Hulu, without having to pass through Semenyih town.

~News courtesy of The Star~

Putrajaya’s hot air balloon fiesta

Putrajaya’s hot air balloon fiesta back with more exciting activities

COME March 28, look up at the skies and you may see a monkey, cat, Smurf or a clown flying over Putrajaya as the annual Putrajaya International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta is back.

Organised for the fifth time, the hot air balloon festival will be held from March 28 to 31 at the Millen-nium Monument in Precinct 2, Putrajaya.

It is organised by AKA Balloon Sdn Bhd, Putrajaya Corporation (PPj) and the Malaysian Sports Aviation Federation (MSAF).

This time around, there will be three female pilots and nine new pilots.

Twenty-four balloons from France, the US, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Switzerland, Vietnam, the Nether-lands, New Zealand, Thailand, India and, of course, Malaysia will be participating. It is the first time that Poland, Spain and Australia are taking part.

There will be six special balloons that will take to the skies, including Buzzy and a Tune Talk balloon.


State colours : Mohammad Sobri will be piloting the “Kedah” balloon.

“We are delighted to have been given this opportunity to, once again, put Malaysia on the map of ballooning.

“Since the inception of the first Putrajaya Hot Air Balloon Fiesta back in 2009, Malaysia has grown to become one of the more popular Asian destinations for the ballooning community,” said Putrajaya Inter-national Hot Air Balloon Fiesta chairman Mohammad Sobri Saad.

For four days, every morning from 7am to 9am, balloonists will participate in a ballooning competition, vying for Rudy’s Trophy — a trophy named after the late fiesta chairman and co-founder Khairuddin Abd Rani.

For the competition, one pre-determined balloon, known as the “hare” will first take off. The other participating balloons, known as “hounds”, will launch at pre-determined intervals after the “hare”.

The “hare” then lands at a suitable site and lays out a large piece of fabric, forming the letter ‘X’, marking this as the target.

The “hounds” then attempt to drop their markers as close to the ‘X’ as possible. The closest marker will garner the highest score.

In the evenings, the balloonists will again take to the skies for a balloon show at 6pm.

One of the highlights is the “night glow” event on March 30, where the balloons will light up in a synchronised manner to the sounds of music, culminating in a fireworks display.

Visitors can also look forward to a myriad of activities such as model hot air balloon demonstrations and meet-and-greet sessions with the balloonists.

Adventurous visitors can visit the Mountain Dew Extreme Zone to try zorbing, car simulators, hamster roll, paintball and more .

Helicopter joy rides will be available on March 30 and 31.

Members of the public can go for the tethered hot-air balloon rides from 7.30am to 10.30am and 7pm to 10pm daily for RM20 per person.

The ride will be hoisted 60 feet off the ground.

“The fiesta offers lots of exciting activities that will keep the young ones occupied — from colouring competitions and stage performances by cartoon characters to carnival games and rides,” said event director Izzati Khairudin.

Admission to the fiesta is free.

Visitors are encouraged to use the KLIA Transit to Putrajaya as KLIA Transit will be offering a 30% discount on ticket rates during the four days.

From the Putrajaya station, the public can take the Nadi Putra buses which will ferry them directly to fiesta grounds.

Alternatively, visitors can also choose to drive to any of Putrajaya’s ‘Park & Ride’ points and take the Nadi Putra buses.

For details, visit www.myballoonfiesta.com, follow the Putrajaya International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta official Facebook page, @myballoonfiesta on Twitter, and @myballoonfiesta and #myballoonfiesta Instagram account.

~News courtesy of The Star~

Explore KL on rented bicycles

Tourists can now explore KL on rented bicycles

It’s official: Ahmad Phesal (left) officially launching the ‘Kuala Lumpur By Cycle’ programme.

Looking on is Mirza (right) and Tunku Iskandar (second from right). HERE’S an interesting way to discover Kuala Lumpur — ride a bicycle!

Tourists can now rent up to 20 city bicycles to explore KL’s attractions within a designated cycle zone with the introduction of the ‘Kuala Lumpur By Cycle’ programme.

Kuala Lumpur mayor Datuk Seri Ahmad Phesal Talib officially launched the programme at Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad, Jalan Tun Perak recently.

This is the latest tourism programme developed by Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) under its Visit KL initiative.

Also present was Tourism Malaysia director-general Datuk Mirza Mohammad Taiyab and Kuala Lumpur Tourism Development Council co-chairman Tunku Datuk Seri Iskandar Tunku Abdullah.

Ahmad Phesal said the programme was aimed at offering an eco-friendly way to explore and appreciate KL while promoting cycling as a viable transportation alternative.

“If we provide the access, tourists will cycle, and with the success of the Nature Route, we will identify and develop other safe and suitable cycle routes, hopefully within this year,” he added.

The ‘Nature Route’ (the first designated route) is made up of two zones; the Heritage Zone and the Park Zone.

The Heritage Zone encompasses attractions such as the Sultan Abdul Samad building, the National Textile Museum, the Victorian Fountain, Royal Selangor Club, Cathedral of St Mary and the City Theatre, better known as Panggung Bandaraya.

The second, the Park Zone, takes tourists through the Tun Abdul Razak Heritage Park, with stops covering Perdana Botanical Gardens, KL Bird Park, KL Butterfly Park, Deer Park, KL Hibiscus and Orchid Gardens, National Planetarium, Tun Abdul Razak Memorial, Islamic Arts Museum and the National Mosque.

Currently, there are two packages that tourists can opt for; the Free & Easy Cycle, which is a self-guided bicycle tour or the Guided Cycle Tour, the first-of-its-kind in the country, where riders are provided with a set of headphones that will allow them to hear a running commentary given by a tour guide.

During the launch, Ahmad Phesal also flagged off a group of tourists who opted for the Guided Cycle Tour.

One of the participants was Italian tourist, Ricardo Loschi, 28, who looked forward to seeing the city’s sights and attractions.

“It will be fun to explore the city by bicycle as it’s quite unusual. We can take our time and stop to take lots of pictures.

“The best part is we won’t be caught in any traffic jam,” he said.

Riders will also be provided with a safety helmet and safety vest as well as a route map for reference.

Rental fees are priced at RM30 for the first four hours with RM5 for every subsequent hour (The Free & Easy Cycle) and RM45 for the Guided Cycle Tour.

Bicycles can be collected at the Kuala Lumpur By Cycle centre located at the KL City Gallery, Jalan Raja and a refundable deposit of RM250 is payable when collecting them.

~News courtesy of The Star~