How KL looks from 170 metres in the air....

One and a half floors per second..... that's how fast we went up in the lift.... much faster than the lifts that I take when i'm in my office.... half a floor faster than the lift used in the KLCC twin towers.....

I'm talking about the lift that took us up to the 41st floor of the Twin Towers, to the Skybridge..... My colleague had come to work early, to wait in line for tickets.... you get a ticket for a pre-determined time to go up to the Skybridge.... Our allocated time was 1.00pm, so we chose to have an early lunch, and were told to be there by 12.45pm.....

While waiting, they had various exhibits on the KLCC Twin Towers and some simple games amongst other things on show.... At 1pm, we were ushered into a mini theatre, where we were shown a short screening of the history behind Petronas and their exploits, and climaxing with the construction and completion of the Twin Towers....

We were then made to wait, while the other half of the hall went up the Bridge.... Left standing in front of the X-Ray machine, we were reminded by a recording of the do's and don'ts..... At around 1.40pm, we were finally allowed to scan our belongings and selves through the machines before being ushered through into the lift...... which brought us up to the 41st floor in under half a minute....

The Bridge itself was quite a structure, suspended 170 metres in the air, exposed to winds of up to 60 km/hr, the engineers had allowed the Bridge to move 10 inches either way..... Unlike the Canopy Walk in Taman Negara, this Bridge felt more secure.... the view was so-so, as it was limited by the 2 KLCC towers themselves....

A mere 5 minutes on the Bridge was all we were allowed before being instructed to go back down..... By the time we reached solid ground, it was nearly 2pm..... and time to return to the daily grind of work.....

Well, at least now I can say I've gone up the KLCC Bridge :)

Surprise Surprise!!!!

In my line of work, I dont stay in one location for very long.... Usually, within 3 weeks, I'll be off to my next client..... Its good in a sense that boredom never sets in, but bad in a sense that as I'm always on the move, I never really settle in anywhere.....

Even in my own office, I rarely stay in any longer than a week, usually for report writing purposes.... I have my own cubicle now, yet there are probably others who occupy it for far longer durations that I do..... Hence the reason I've not really taken the effort to "personalise" it.... although it is stocked with all sorts of stationary..... I've not bothered putting in much food, as it may spoil as I'm hardly in the office anyway.....

Right now, I'm based in KLCC, in Tower 2 of the Twin Towers to be precise..... Now I always hate having clients based in the heart of KL, simply because the traffic getting in and out of the place is absolutely horrendous..... One can spend hours on the road, and when it rains, you may as well cancel all after work plans as you'd be 2 hours late, if you're lucky that is..... And to top it all off, I'm assigned to this for about 6 weeks..... far longer than my usual 3.....

Doing a pros and cons study on the benefits of driving versus commuting via LRT, the results were mixed..... I enjoy driving my manual geared Accord, but in the snarling jams of KL, I dont think the poor girl could really handle 6 weeks of madness on the roads.... On the other hand, she provides me the comfort which I would not be able to get in the LRT..... Well, I'm thinking of my space of privacy in particular.....

So I decided to take the LRT to see how it would go, and what I've learnt is that surprises are always pop up when you least expect it..... No, the trains are still jam packed with people, in the morning especially as I make my way to work..... but I was amazed by how people actually queuee to enter the trains!!! This phenomenon was previously observed only in KL Sentral (by my very own eyes anyway), and from what I heard, in Taman Bahagia.....or was it Kelana Jaya..... But now, it happens in ALL the train stations that I pass by on the way to work..... Even in hugely crowded stations such as KLCC, we somehow line up obediently......

And the next big surprise towards this curious new development is...... that we do it willingly, and without supervision...... I have seen station staff equipped with bull horns, telling people to line up and to allow passengers to get off the train before we board them ourselves.... but again, I've only seen this in KL Sentral, and on the rare occasion, in KLCC during peak hours.....

I cant say I know how this came about, neither can I think of how this was actually done..... As a mere 3 months ago when I did take the train, I saw no lines getting into the train, it was still a free-for-all situation for gaining access to the trains.... Its an amazing development nevertheless, and regardless of how we speak of Ugly Malaysians who roadhog, misbehave in cinemas, take more food than they need, displaying their kiasuness in almost everything that they do in their daily lives, I'm extremely happy about the fact that LRT users have learnt how to line up!!!

And for that reason alone, I'm willing to continue braving the crowd and packed trains to go to work..... Oh, and doing my part in maintaining a more greener environment for everyone!!!