28 Mar 2010

Shasha's apartment

We've been slowly renovating Shasha's apartment in Klang Lama. Now the kitchen cabinets are complete - its an ivory sort of colour or off white, with soft closing drawers (they close themselves) and quite simple really, which was what she wanted. The light fixtures too have all been installed. Yesterday we put in the oven and bought her washing machine. Next on the list are the bathrooms. I will be going to the Home and Living Exhibition next week to check out the bathroom fittings - she wanted white cabinets too for the bathroom. I don't understand why our housing developers always build really tiny bathrooms - I sure wouldn't mind losing a little bit of space from the rooms just so we could have a bigger bathroom. And the places they put the toilets - actually according to Steven the contractor who is renovating our apartment, if they build the toilets seats properly they could have more space in the bathroom. As it is now it's so difficult to put in the shower stall.

I like the view of this apartment - it faces the river so there's a lot of green opposite. Ours at Melati has the Petronas Twin Tower view which is good too, especially on Merdeka Day (Malaysia's Independence day) when we can see the fireworks displays on all sides. Sometimes at night if the air quality is good we can see the Twin towers very clearly - all bright and sparkly like a pair of diamonds, shining in the dark. The lights from the other buildings beside it complement the Twin Towers' - most of them use coloured lights - bluish green, red, yellow and so on so it makes a beautiful panaroma - the city from a distance. Since our apartment is on the 12th floor we can get a fairly good view of the surrounding areas.

But the best view of all is from our old Desa View apartment - the hills of Melawati in the distance, with the craggy limestone hills that ring the eastern side of Kuala Lumpur. Every time I see it, I feel this tug in my heart - its that beautiful. Lush green vegetation spreads all over the lower part of the hills and then the whitish grey limestone escarpment rises over the vast jungles below them.  The limestone cliffs sometimes reminds me of that place we went to in King's Canyon, California  - Half Dome. Like that mountain, these cliffs look like they've been halved too. Its a pity that developers are so greedy and uncaring - if they left the hills alone, none of the natural disasters that occur here during the rainy season would happen (landslides for one) and nature enthusiasts like me could have a wonderful time admiring God's green earth.

Talking of God's green Earth, last night was Earth Hour - from 8.30 pm to 9.30pm local time. Did you switch off your lights?

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