Stories of Places, People and Photography in the Philippines and Beyond
The visit to the Studthuys, St Paul Church and A Formosa was just part of what Malacca has in terms of heritage sites. We had an authentic Nyonya Cuisine lunch at Seroni Restaurant to take a break from the tours. Once satisfied, we moved on for some walking tours at a couple of popular streets in Malacca, the Jalan Tokong and Jonker Walk.
We found ourselves up hill continuing our walk from the Studthuys Square. We could feel the sea breeze coming in as we walk the hill. It was refreshing as it dampens the humidity a bit. From the hill we could see the parts of Malacca heading to the sea. I remember Marie telling us that most of the lands here were reclaimed. Originally, the sea shore reached up to the main road near the hill.
We originally had a different itinerary for the day. But with help from Martin’s persistence to his higher ups, we were granted our request to go to Malacca (Melaka as how the locals call it) instead. Being one of the recent awardees by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site last July 2008, I’m equally excited to see the place and to add to the list of UNESCO sites I’ve been to. We left Kuala Lumpur past 10am then took an hour’s drive to Malacca.
The day before was packed with a visit to Petronas Skybridge, Aquaria, Istana Negara, Tugu Negara, and Sunway lagoon. It’s a good thing that this day we were allowed an option to sleep over a little and regain some needed zest for this day. While it’s pretty packed as well considering the main event this afternoon it’s a lot relaxed. Our day started with the chocolate factory at Beryl’s Chocolate Kingdom, Malaysia’s best chocolate brand.
Coming in late at night the day before gave us only a limited amount of sleep. So by afternoon we were already loosing energy. Our drive to Petaling Jaya, Selangor for the Sunway Lagoon Resort from the Tugu Negara rendered most of us snatching some sleep. It was a 30 minutes drive. Good thing roads in Malaysia are smooth and wide. We arrived at Sunway Pyramid Mall where we had our lunch then an hour later we went down to Malaysia’s Premiere theme park, the Sunway Lagoon.
Emerging fresh from the underwater world of Aquaria KLCC we were brought to a couple of Malaysia’s significant national sites – the Istana Negara and Tugu Negara. The word “Negara” actually means “nation”, hence the former is the National Palace also known as the King’s Palace and the later is the National Monument.
Coming from the Petronas Skybridge we went down the basement level of KLCC Suriya Mall and headed to a long pedestrian tunnel going to the Concourse level of Kuala Lumpur Convention Center to visit the Aquaria KLCC. I’m excited to see this and see how different it is from our very own Manila Ocean Park.
