Blog 6: 19th April 2014. Think of the children!

Think of the children!

This was to be our last full day in KL, and it all seemed to have gone so fast! We could have done with a few more days in the city, to really appreciate it and explore the things we never got to do, such as other main tourist attractions like the butterfly park, and visit the Mosque (wearing appropriate clothing), and venture further out to the acclaimed settlement of Putrajaya just outside the city limits, to the south, on the way to the airport. Putrajaya being the administrative capital of KL; its neighbouring town, Cyberjaya, being the ICT focus of the country. I wondered if this would house similar places as General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) that we have in Gloucester.

The day started with our typical melon, fruit, tea and roti canai, this time served outside owing to the restaurant being full. Nabila today was somehow squeezing us in amidst family errands and overseeing the setup of a stall for her company in a suburb of KL just outside its administrative limits, in the neighbouring state of Selangor. She arrived in her timely manner, calm as a cucumber yet surely a million and one things to tick off the to-do list that day! We drove the same way that Carolyn had taken us a couple of nights ago, toward Petaling Jaya (affectionately known as PJ), taking us up a dual carriageway leading over a hill to the east of the city, near Bukit Damansara where the new palace was.

Our first stop in PJ was a camera shop, in a shopping mall dedicated solely to selling technology - a type of mall we don't have in the UK, otherwise I'd be there all the time! After a while of searching around the shop however, and fervently urging on my mobile Internet connection to load Amazon.co.uk, I concluded that the price of camera items in Malaysia for my DSLR were actually more expensive than back home! So, we left the shop with only a couple of batteries to show for our efforts. Back in the grey 4x4, we battled the mid-morning PJ traffic toward our next destination, a facility whose basic concept I had certainly never heard of back home, and Emma was unsure even as to its viability in the UK. The destination was Jaya One, a shopping mall with a difference.

Nabila and her sister run a company called Robotics Learning (website). Its role is selling robotic products manufactured by the American corporation Vex, to schools, in the name of getting kids into programming, product design, development, and machinery. The company already employs several graduate staff, from programmers to website designers and assistants. The aim is to educate children by letting them design their own robot, be it a simple robotic grasping arm, or a fully fledged remote-controlled vehicle.

The School at Jaya One; Malaysia's first enrichment mall, for educating the people of tomorrow. The owner of The School is a philanthropist who has created this project from scratch.

Model of the Jaya One concept, including car park below and main facilities above.

Nabila and Emma with the Robotics Learning company logo, one of many enterprises given a place to retail and educate within Jaya One. The logo incidentally designed by the American penfriend of Nabila's sister Ilylia, and is entitled Roboticist. 

Where the Jaya One centre came in, was that this was an "Enrichment" Centre (which Nabila informs me meant furthering one's knowledge). It wasn't simply a shopping mall. Jaya One, also called "The School" is a huge complex, complete with car-park, situated at the heart of Petaling Jaya; when we were there many outlets were still under construction, but the ones which did exist included enterprises like the Yamaha music store, selling musical instruments but also providing musical tuition to children. The day we visited was an open-day, a promotional day, for the centre; there was loud music coming from a PA system installed on the second floor above where we'd come in, complete with hundreds of balloons displaying the centre's logo; a reception desk requiring visitors to fill out their details and email addresses to get in, in return for two vouchers (for candy floss and a drink), and a balloon on a stick. Some clever balloon artist had manufactured some giant balloon rabbits, complete with grass and flowers around them, which we posed against!

The giant balloon rabbits!

Before entering the main floor, we went to Nabila's shop, still under construction. She took us through the back door, and introduced us to her staff as we walked through. We entered the unit, a workman hammering together strips of tongue-and-groove laminate flooring. The room was a normal size for a shopping mall unit, over 10m long by 5m wide; cables hang from holes where electricity points would finally rest, and the front exit was still boarded up for final installation. A flight of stairs led up to a mezzanine level on the right from where we stood; Nabila informed us that parents would be able to sit up here, watching their children using computers below the mezzanine and programming their USB-compatible robots. We left the soon-to-be store, leaving the builders to do their work, and Nabila said thanks to them and greeted a colleague who was in charge of overseeing the construction.

We signed in, at reception, and received our vouchers, which we each took advantage of by having a huge ball of candyfloss each! Within the exhibition itself were numerous stalls selling and demonstrating their business, including craft workshops, a petting zoo with many rabbits of all different breeds running around, and of course Robotics Learning's stall, toward the left of the area. Nabila introduced us to a couple of her staff, wearing the company logo on promotional t-shirts, and showed us the products, robots and remote-controlled vehicles, all built from scratch, formed out of a metal frame similar to Meccano. Children of about 4-10 years old were milling around, holding the remote controllers in their hands and driving the footlong machines around our feet.

One of the robots, being operated by the children standing nearby!

We then went to a large area to the left of the exhibition floor, we were informed was dedicated to small marketeer startups, stalls selling all sorts from clothes to crafts to food, but run by people who wanted to make a start in the world of selling. We were introduced to Nabila's uncle running one such stall, and chatted a bit before going on to meet the rest of her family who were sitting in a coffee bar upstairs! A delicious cup of iced caramel coffee was slowly consumed whilst talking to Nabila's parents, her mum and her dad in his baseball cap, a successful businessman who played a big part in the Robotics Learning concept. Coffee finished, and in the middle of a tremendous thunderstorm outside, we left the centre, along with Ilylia, Nabila's sister, with the aim of dropping Emma and me at the KL Sentral train station as it was by now far beyond the time we had originally planned to get to the Concorde Inn KLIA for our second of three visits there.

Once in the car, however, the storm still raging outside the multistorey carpark, we decided to have a quick look at KL Central Marketplace, because we hadn't been there yet, and Emma fancied having a look around and seeing some of the clothes for sale there, particularly sarongs and batik items. The Central Marketplace has been open since 1888, according to the sign on its door, meaning its existence since the British ruled Malaya; it is a couple of minutes' walk from Jalan Petaling, i.e. the Chinatown district, and is a two-floor building, completely covered market. Its blue exterior houses a brightly coloured, sensory explosion of cultural diversity; on entering, we were greeted with an Indian-themed street to the left, selling traditional Indian clothing; straight ahead a central corridor had fruit and sweet stalls, and branching off this further eateries and outlets for fashion, materials, craft, jewellery, and anything you can imagine. We took a flight of dark wooden stairs up to the next level, and Emma browsed the scarves and sarongs of the various stalls, being gently questioned by Nabila and Ilylia - "which one do you like best?". Emma, after what I concluded was about an aeon of browsing, chose some form of garment which my limited knowledge of clothing identified as "clothing, potentially green", and to her delight, the two sisters purchased it for her!

Photobombed by a man holding up the doorway; Emma and me outside the entrance to KL Central Market, established 1888.

Downstairs now, in the marketplace, amidst the smells of the sweets and foods on sale, passing by several seating areas for cafes, the sisters suggested to us that we try durian sweets from a store covered wall-to-wall with a huge selection of sweets and snack food. Yes, DURIAN SWEETS! With trepidation, I went ahead; Emma refrained. To my surprise it was a lovely taste! It appears that durians get everywhere, and even in sweets and crisps. I'm not sure if there are durian flavoured drinks, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were. Leaving the marketplace, and getting back into the car, Emma remarked how delightful it was to now share a car with three people having had durian sweets, to her, smelling as if we'd all sat there and munched on a few onions!

The next and final stop for the four of us, well, two of us really, was the sprawling KL Sentral station complex, a few minutes drive away from the marketplace. On the way Nabila mentioned that she had to be at a wedding of a friend early the next day, not as late as she'd hoped but instead something like 9am! She was a responsible member of the wedding party, and her friend needed her presence! No rest this weekend for her.

After making a complete lap of the station to find the entrance, Emma and I said a very hearty and grateful farewell, sad to leave Nabila, her sister and a lovely city. We headed for the KLIA Ekspres train gates, and after boarding the train which eventually arrived, with about 30 others on the platform, we watched the lights and buildings of KL disappearing into the night behind us, and waited patiently, the familiar dramatic drumbeat of the videoscreen adverts playing in the background over the sound of the electric motors driving the train forwards to the south, past Putrajaya and the hills which we knew were there but couldn't be seen in the dark, and onwards toward the island of light that was KL International Airport. Inserting our purple chipcards into the gates at the end, we ascended to the 1st floor and descended the other side of the concourse to await the white Concorde Inn KLIA minibus at Door 3 in the covered vehicle drop off area of the main terminal building. Final day in KL over, we had a small snack at the bar after checking in, and headed off to bed after a single game of pool!