Coffee and Shopping in KL and onto Hong Kong

By Julie Wilson

After a late Saturday night, on Sunday morning we finished off our Horse Deals and writing work before heading out to investigate the new Pavillion Shopping Complex. In KL there is an enormous range of shopping experiences, all within walking distance of each other. They range from street vendors in the markets, through to the most lavish shopping complexes you will find anywhere. However, it often hard to distinguish between the designer label copies in the markets and the real thing in the up market international shops.

The Pavillion is the latest edition to the KL shopping smorgasbord. Described as “vibrant, dynamic, energizing, inspiring your every sense with its fashion, food and urban choices”, with 450 shops representing some of the leading brand names from around the World and spread over 1.3 million square feet, it is amazing. However, the lower level food hall kept us the most interested. You could find any food you could imagine, from American pears to dried caterpillars, or if you wanted something cooked you could select from traditional foods from around the World. It was interesting that the new JCO Donut and Coffee cafe was the most popular with the locals, who queued to get hold of the American freshly cooked treats.

Like so many countries Malaysia is going through a coffee revolution. With limited supply of milk and the hot climate you would not think coffee to be all that popular, however, the international coffee chains are moving into KL. You can find all the leading brands, Starbucks, The San Francisco Coffee House, Ilys and our own Gloria Jeans. They all use good coffee but the milk often drastically alters the taste we are use to, nevertheless to get around this problem we went for an afogato (a double shot espresso over ice cream) at Illy’s, which was fantastic.

Just before lunch we headed to the show for the main class of the weekend, the KL 5* Grand Prix. With virtually a full house of enthusiastic spectators, mainly children, the good jumping was made even more exciting with all the cheering. After the class was finished and all the photos were done, we headed back to for a return dinner at Sao Nam. Once again the food was excellent and worth a trip to Malaysia.

Monday morning we had a 5am start to catch the 9am flight to Hong Kong. After going through all the tedious immigration and baggage collection we were picked up and taken to our hotel. The Hong Kong Government has invited Anna Sharpley and me, along with ten other international journalists, for an orientation of the city and the Olympic facilities.

Heading into the city you quickly get the idea that everything here travels vertically due to the lack of space. Huge blocks of apartments looking like kid’s lego buildings line the freeway Once in town, traveling down the narrow streets with the office buildings towering above, you are met with the double deeker buses and trams; even most of the people are tall and thin.. The first thing we had to work out on arriving was the money and at the moment one Australian dollar equals 6.5 HK dollars, it takes a bit of calculating. The next thing to work out was the high tech loo in our hotel room, with a adjustable heated seat and various buttons for spraying water about the place at different temperatures With instructions in Chinese, it did keep us entertained for a while.

After a short break we went to a lecture by the Hong Kong Tourism Board, outlining their plans for next year, which do sound exciting. We then headed back to the hotel through the slow moving traffic, I am sure it would have been quicker to walk. Anna and I then went out for a stroll around the local food stalls. There was huge amounts of fish being sold both filleted and still alive plus meat, fruit and lots of Asian greens. Very few of the stallholders spoke any English so finding out what some thing were was impossible.

For dinner we were all taken to the night club area of town but just one street back there was a tiny group of Asian traditional restaurants, we all sat outside and had a wonderful and interesting meal. A drink at the Foreign Press Club followed this and then it was off to bed. We were told one very valuable lesson along the way, when ever you go out always carry a card with you that includes your hotels address in Chinese or other wise you will not be able to catch a taxi home.