Kuala Lumpur
Do you know where you can cruise inside a shopping mall?
It is The Mines Shopping Fair and is the only shopping mall you can cruise via their water taxis. You can get from one point of the Lake to the other. Our partner, Zaki suggested that we go to the Mines Shopping Fair for lunch - it was interesting to have a small 'man-made' river in the middle of the shopping mall.
Nando's Chicken - was the restaurant we had lunch and it's a spanish restaurant - the food is good and tasty.
Nando's Chicken - was the restaurant we had lunch and it's a spanish restaurant - the food is good and tasty.
Looking from our table beside the river, we were surprised to find a large number of fishes within it. The restaurant uses the fishes as their 'automatic food disposal' - the waiter chuck everything off the completed diner's plate into the river - chicken bones, rice, potatoes - everything and the fishes just gobbled them up. It is no wonder they are so fat and huge.
After the lunch - Zaki surprised me by booking a cruise around the Mines Resort - it was a cruise that I really enjoyed. There are 2 Lakes - the bigger North Lake and South Lake.
Phill, Zaki and me
It was called Hong Fatt tin mind - the story started a hundred yeas ago when a Chinese immigrant Chan Wing came to Malaya and discovered tin ore ina site abandoned by Europeans earlier. This became the largest tine mine in the world. Mining in the area left a gaping hope 2 kilometres long a kilometer wide, and 200 metres deep. Gradually rain water began to fill the crevice and thus was the humble beginings of the two great lakes - North Lake and South Lake.
In 1988, Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew built Mines Resort City with the seven wonders of Malaysia which I took the water taxi to view this wonder.
The wonder of this cruise is experiencing the "Water Lock". The reason was that the two main lakes in the Mines Resort City are of different height levels (7m) - so the water lock was used to link the two lakes together. Both lakes are connected via a 1054 meter canal - the entire system took 1 1/2 years to build at a cost of RM15m.
The cruise cost RM25 took 1 hour and starts from Mines Shopping Fair moving towards to the North Lake. Since it is lower by 7 meters, the water lock will discharge the water in just 7 minutes (this system is similar to the Panama canal but on a much smaller scale) - 61,600 gallons of water is the amount of water in the water lock to be discharged or refilled.
While crossing the North Lake I passed by the Fatty Crab restaurant that I had dinner with Donny the last time. Not far away, the cruise captain stopped for a short while for us to look at the monitor lizard - there are so many breeding there.
It was a breather to a hectic business schedule..... thank you, Zaki.
