K-Lites
Oct 22, 2008
Its easy to see why I love KL!
Posted bySandeep Sekharamantri at 5:16 PM 0 comments
Pulau Pangkor
Sep 14, 2008
I finally went off the beaten track here in Malaysia. After 40 days amongst buildings, buildings and more buildings, I decided I have had enough of concrete.
And thus I set off on a journey to Pulau Pangkor. I took a bus costing just 18ringgets to Lumut, the place where jetties leave for Pangkor regularly. the journey through Selangor and Perak by bus took more than 4hrs as the driver was not breaking even on his investment with only one passenger going to Lumut. He stopped at every damn bus stop to pick up people for short rides! I didn't complain though. I was mesmerized by the occasional waterfall, and some really HUGE cave temples on the way to Ipoh, the capital of Perak.
I finally reached Lumut in the afternoon. Lumut is a nice small town with a beautiful water front and chinese temples and a clark quayish beach road with KFC, pizza huts and numerous pubs. I walked from the bus stand to the main dock and booked a return ticket to Pangkor on a small boat. The boat ride was for about 30minutes with a stop in between at Sungai Pinang Basil, the fishing village on Pangkor island. I got of the Pangkor town jetty and was instantly surrounded by the taxi drivers. And the taxis were infact minivans, painted PINK!
Posted bySandeep Sekharamantri at 10:34 AM 0 comments
A thing of beauty is joy forever
Sep 5, 2008
Posted bySandeep Sekharamantri at 9:24 PM 0 comments
Remember 126
Aug 18, 2008
This weekend was really thrilling, and enlightening. Thrilling because we went to Genting, the city of entertainment in Malaysia. And enlightening as we spent a nice and quiet evening with an elderly malay-chinese.
Thrill
The theme park in Genting led me to do some of the things I have always dreamt of. Falling freely and feeling the power of gravity on the space shot, corkscrwed and going through loops of a roller coaster and what not! Some things are best said in pictures. Check my flickr stream for more.
Enlightenment
Sean-Lok was the chinese colleague who drove us to Genting in his car. We met his father, a 40yr veteran of Exxon. The evening spent with them in the "126 restaurant" was great.It was my first real interaction with a chinese family. I had authentic chinese food, not the Indian chinese, but chinese chinese! Rice and prawns with soya sauce and chillies washed down with a cup full of chinese tea.
During the course of our conversation, I realised vegetarianism was an alien concept to Malaysia. Sean's dad was surprised to see "healthy" Indians (my friends) who were veggies. He always believed veggies are lean and skinny and very frail. They were further surprised to realise that my friends family had been veggies from times immemorial. A tradition, a lineage of veggies! That was simply incomprehensible. He felt impressed and inspired by them and decided to learn cooking pure veggie food.
By the way, 126 in chinese means "no less, no more"
Posted bySandeep Sekharamantri at 6:25 PM 0 comments
Batumalai Sri Subramaniar Swamy Devasthanam
Aug 12, 2008
Posted bySandeep Sekharamantri at 7:21 PM 0 comments
Skybridge Walk
Aug 9, 2008
Posted bySandeep Sekharamantri at 8:56 AM 0 comments
08:08:08 08/08/08
Aug 8, 2008
And it has finally happened! The moment the whole world was waiting for the past four years atleast! LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!!
I am back in my hotel witnessing the live coverage of the inauguration ceremony with Chinese commentary.
A pretty eventful day today. An early morning walk to the office with a bunch of Malaysian kids is a complete stress buster. I realised that today. Most of the office day, as usual, was spent indulging in the pursuit of excellence in furnace design! Sigh! Mid way during the day Su Be came up to me and asked what date it was. And then I realised, it was the day whole of Malaysia was looking forward to. For a country that has won a sum total of three medals in all the Olympics it has taken part in the past, that is quite unique. It reinforces the Dutch proverb that says " Wining is great, but its the spirit of participation that counts!" Brilliant. 
Evening arrived, and with it awoke the epicurean in me. I decided to indulge myself by treating myself to a 7* meal. I walked into Hotel Nikko and went straight to the buffet table. HUGE is a small word to describe the length of the buffet! I counted 18 different animals in the food, and I was still half way through the line! 90++ ringgits for a a dinner made me feel slightly jittery. I finally decided against it and walked out. On my way out I bumped into a pack of photographers running helter skelter trying to get the picture of a Malay celeb. I decided to join in and ran along with them! A Silver-Grey Bentley slowly made its way through the crowd towards the entrance. The nameplate read "SUPERSTAR" and I half expected Rajini to walk out. Heavy expectations! Out popped an obese lady. The locals were shouting out something strange and a few shook hands with her as she briskly made her way into the hotel. I still do not know who she is!
After this slight detour, I walked into Shin Nichin on Jln Ampang. Cuisine for today: JAPANESE!
I walked in very gingerly. The hostess, who understood that it was my first time in a traditional Japanese restaurant, walked up to me and wished me. She escorted me to a nice spot in the middle of the room and offered me some snails which she informed were appetisers. She then served me some mango juice and a green colour fluid that was supposed to be a substitute for water in a Japanese meal.
I found a fancy name on the menu and pointed it to her. She smiled and was back in a jiffy with a small pot with white jelly like material in it. I hesitated to ask her the contents and fiddled with the spoon. She walked over to me, mumbled something that sounded like "stem ekk" and at the same time pointing towards my spoon and mouth. I fished out some of the jelly from the pot and dumped it into my mouth. EGG EGG EGG!!! It was steamed egg in some weird translucent sauce. Tasted as much weird.
Finally my main course came in and the look of it was worth the wait. Some Japanese soup that I drank straight out of the bowl and another weird sauce. Grilled chicken on a side plate that was marvelous, just the correct smell, the correct colour and the perfect taste!Beside it were two huge prawns, golden fried, dipped in another white sauce that resembled mayonnaise. And finally some fruits to finish it off. Japanese food was a revelation. It had rice, it was spicy, and it was mouth watering (except for the snails part)
On my return to the hotel I found a Malaysian Government vehicle waiting with 20 police bikers as a convoy. I rushed in and found an important Malay minister (whose name I forgot!!Damn!) escort his old mother into the car. I was too late to get his picture :(
I could get the royal car.
I pretty tiring day. Lots of running across the roads involved! An hours swimming with a bunch of kids from Kuwait! Japanese food! Chinese Celeb! and a Malay minister!
Tomorrow is my first weekend in KL and I hope to take complete advantage of it.
Posted bySandeep Sekharamantri at 6:06 PM 0 comments
Labels: cuisine, japanese, kualalumpur, malaysia
