New Year's Eve 2013/2014 in Cyberjaya/Putrajaya

Happy New Year Cyberjaya

You might imagine that either or both of these cities would be pretty quiet - not to say desolate - spots in which to ring in the New Year.   But you would be quite wrong.  Alright, not too wrong about Cyberjaya. But Putrajaya?  Quite wrong.

In fact Putrajaya throws quite the party to mark the year end.  Big Malaysian Bank are sponsoring a (to me at least) staggeringly large concert running from 8.30pm to 1.00am.  Dato' M. Nasir, Soo Wincci and Dato' Jamal Abdillah will all be performing (amongst others), but I'm afraid I'm just not down with the kids these days so can't tell you much about them.

Nightlife in Cyberjaya!

Ireland, Not Cyberjaya

In recent years a new Yuletide tradition has emerged in Ireland, known as The 12 Pubs of Christmas.  This (frankly ill-advised) ritual involves a group of pilgrims donning ironically garish Christmas jumpers and drinking their way through the aforementioned twelve pubs.  This tends to cause much angst among bartenders towards the end of the night, as ever more drunken knitwear-wearers slop & stumble in through the doors.

So one can only imagine the effect were the same to catch on in Cyberjaya.  In truth it would be a thankless affair for all involved, as drunk and heavily perspiring participants grimly trudged back and forth between the only* three drinking establishments in town.  The owners initial delight would slowly turn from bafflement to disgust, as the ever more belligerently inebriated group of over-heated idiots lurched through the doors for a third and fourth time.

Bus J04 No More

You know, I don't think that Cyberjaya's major problem is it's over-abundance of public transport.  In fact I am going to make the crazy suggestion that in fact the opposite may be true.

If you are trying to create a real city - as in a place where people live and do stuff - then you don't want to turn it into a series of buildings people only get to and from by car.  Because then you have blank, empty streets.  Then you don't bump into people by accident (unless it's at the mall) and you don't foster the sense of the city as a living organism - there is no centre and no heart.

How's the Weather?

The average monthly temperatures in Kuala Lumpur range from an icy +27°C (81°F) in January all the way up to a sweltering +28°C (82°F) in June.

So what I'm saying is that it's hot all the time.  Just different varieties of hot.

So right about now (October to January, more or less) is the Monsoon season, which is hot and wet.  Expect regular downpours and cloudy days.  But still hot.

Whereas the rest of the time it's just hot, hot.  Blue skies and not so much of the torrential rain.  But still some torrential rain, it just clears up quicker.  Even when it's not raining, much of the time it can feel like you are walking around in warm soup. 

Singapore! (I'm not crazy about it).

Reader: This blog is supposed to be about Cyberjaya - and at a push Kuala Lumpur.  So how do you justify shoe-horning in an article about Singapore, which is a completely different country, last time I checked.  Well?  Explain yourself!
Me: Singapore is right beside Malaysia.  
Reader: Thank you for explaining! Gosh, I feel silly for having asked.
Me:  No, no, that's fine, no problem.  Just please don't question me again.  NEVER. NEVER. QUESTION. ME!  

Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up.  And to be fair Singapore was once a part of Malaysia, albeit only for 2 years back in the sixties, after which time it was generally agreed to split up again and just stay friends*. 

Either way it is just a short plane trip (or rather less short train journey) away from Kuala Lumpur.  

So what do you get from a visit to this tiny city state?  Well you've got museums, temples, shrines, a big wheel, food, bars, Chinatown and a Little India.  Quite a lot, all told.  So I should probably like it rather more than I do.  It certainly has it's charms, and a couple of days isn't enough time to fairly pass judgement on a country.  I can only say that from the tourists point of views there are more appealing destinations on the planet.  

Dining in the Dark Restaurant (Kuala Lumpur)

Outside the dining room

If you are like me, and many more of our fellow humans, then you probably check in with Tripadvisor once in a while to see how a particular hotel, attraction or restaurant is rated.  Well if you look for the most highly rated restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, 'Dining in the Dark' will show up on top of the heap (at time of writing at least).

So we reckoned we would give it a try, being as it's not your everyday dining experience.  Well you toddle along to Bukit Bintang  - having booked your spot in advance, naturally - and lounge about over a cocktail in a perfectly well-lit lounging area.  The friendly staff (and the staff were absolutely great when we were there) will try to prepare you for the sensory deprivation by sticking a blindfold on your head and getting you to try and pick small objects from a bowl of rice.  Which I found to be many times more difficult than I had expected.

When everyone is ready to go, you are led into the darkness by one of the blind waiters employed by the restaurant, hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you.  You are talked into your chair, like an air stewardess being guided through landing a 757, until you are comfortably in place.

There were about four courses, all served in small bowls or cups so as to minimise the spillage.  I won't introduce any spoilers by telling you what we had, as half the fun is in the guessing.  When you come out after the meal you are given a menu with photographs, where you discover that those olives you found a bit chewy were actually sheep's eyeballs.

History of Cyberjaya

Cyberjaya used to look something like this.

If you came out in this direction back in the mid-nineties, you would have found yourself standing in the middle of a palm oil plantation in what is now known as Cyberjaya.  Malaysia had plenty of palm oil plantations at that time, but what they did not have was a city specifically designed to facilitate the IT and hi-tech industry.  So from 1997 the transformation began in earnest as modern Cyberjaya started to emerge from the jungle.  Kind of appropriate really, as the whole enterprise was founded in the attempt to move the Malaysian economy away from agriculture and towards manufacturing and tech industries.