Honey4Boyz

We revisited Concubine Lane and my oh my, what a change! If the change can preserve some of these buildings, then perhaps it's not bad. Hopefully, it will not commercialise the living & working town until it becomes a mere tourist attraction.  Inside one of the shops, which has been converted to a souvenir shop with a display gallery. Others  are turned to cafes, snack shops and homestays. But they're not the same. Unlike the nearby Kong Heng and Thean Chun coffee shops which have survived the war and changing times. Remains of an old 1902 newspapers on the wall, now framed up and part of the wall decor. We're fortunate to visit the Hakka Miners' Club at Jalan Bijeh Timah, which is just across the road after Concubine Lane.  It's one of the prominent heritage buildings in the old Ipoh town, and was so exclusive it used to be only opened to its club members, which were mainly the rich Hakka miners and towkays (men only).  Built in ...

It's not common here to meet a paleontologist, and Prof. Dr Masatoshi Sone was the first one. We're so glad there was a public talk at the National Museum following the discovery of two dinosaur fossils in Pahang. We've only a superficial knowledge of dinosaur and paleontology before. What's surprising is that our neighbour, Thailand is 40 years ahead of Malaysia in paleontology study. It also has a big dinosaur museum in Kalasin. Peninsular M'sia also shared similar ancient sediments like those in Thailand.   But  the study here is still at its infancy, and explorations have only started since 2012. So, with the discovery of two fossils within a year in Pahang, there's hope for more research in this area. That's good news to us, it means we have more opportunities to meet these experts and share their findings in this field. First dinosaur fossil found in Pahang in Feb, 2014. Exact specie not identified yet but it belonged to a carnivorous dinosa...

Pit Stop at the Perak royal town, Kuala Kangsar. The 1st rubber tree in Malaysia was planted in this town. That's about all I knew about this place. Labu Sayong or water pitcher from Sayong village, known for its health value to help migraine, lower blood pressure etc due to the special properties inherent in the local clay. Before this, we didn't know much of labu sayong.  We didn't go to the village or plan this visit. Out of curiousity, we bumped into this unassuming workshop at No. 3, Kg Setia, Enggor, run by Mohd bin Harun.  Pakcik was very open and gave us a tour of his workshop and how he makes labu sayong. His warm, friendly welcoming people made a lasting impression on all of us - a trait that we've lost in the big cities. The traditional way of making labu sayong uses hands to mould the clay into the shape of a 'labu' (gourd-like vase) but this is too slow. Now, the clay mixture is poured into standard mould blocks. It's ...

 A 3-month exhibition, ie "A Tin Mining Family" at an iconic heritage building in the Falim town, Ipoh. The story of Falim House, built in the 1920s, was the residence of tin mining tycoon, Foo family until the late 1990s. In the adjacent land to the Falim House, the Tin City Ipoh development project is transforming this sleepy town to a vibrant commercial centre. The developer, at least, promised to preserve this heritage building. The Towkay Foo was, at that time, looked upon as the richest overseas Chinaman in the world! An intriguing object - nobody knew what it was, so it was called " Whatsamacallit ". Perhaps the Chinese overheard the British curious about what you might call it, and thus the name sticked since then. Inside Falim House Different sections in the tin gallery covering the towkay's lifestyle, mining hall, old hawkers of Malaya and the "Silver Screen" (the mining towkays owned the cinema hall...

Ever heard of the International Museum Day? It's our first time visiting the KL National Museum during an event like this. Free entrance to the museum between 17-19 May 2013 and there're other participating museums throughout Malaysia too. Some programmes were lined up during this time but there was little publicity about it. We joined the free English guided tour that's run by volunteers. A pity not many visitors were even aware of the free tours in different languages and we've '3' guides for our family alone! The guides were passionate and patient, even with young kids. It's more fun learning history this way - listening and looking at the exhibits instead of reading from some text books.  This was the highlight - the ORIGINAL "Perak Man" that was excavated in the Lenggong region. We didn't expect this find, and thought all the while the original was in the Lenggong museum in Perak! We're even planning a visit to Lenggong...