Ministries Presint, Putrajaya

In fact, Ministries Presint (precinct in English) here refers to the Presint 2, 3, 4, including the Prime Minister Department and Putrajaya International Convention Centre. We have being there for many times, and we would like to share some photos we took during our recent "revisit" few days ago.

Left: Putra Mosque- a mosque that can accomodate more than 10,000 people. There are dinning and souvenir shops at underground floor besides Putra Mosque (can be accessed through escalators). Right: Our photos with Prime Minister Department (upper) and Putrajaya International Convention Centre (lower).

Putrajaya is the Centre of administration for our country. Most ministries buildings have their own identity, and believe me, together with unique street light for each road, they are simply symbolic. In case you never being there yet, here are some advices for you about the food. Most of the ministries have their own cafeteria within the building, but most of them are off operation outside governmental working hours. So, if you visit the place during public holidays or off working hours, the most popular places that we can go for our meals are Alamanda (various choices) and the food court beside Putra Mosque (underground floor) facing the Royal Selangor Palace.

The mosque is simply magnificent! It can accomodate more than 10,000 people in a single time, and yes, it is open to all, with proper attires. For ladies, not too sexy, and the scarves are provided FOC at the entrance; for man, smart casual and no shorts allowed.

Front view of Ministry of Finance.

Left: Nicely landscaped ministry buildings. Right: Ministry buildings.

If you planned to take a walk around the place, we would like to advice that either you make it in the morning, or late evening. If you wish to enjoy the night scene of the place, then, late evening might be a better choice. Parking along the roadside will be ok for most of the places around Putrajaya except Alamanda (don't park illegally and shop). So, feel free to stop and hop from your car to take photo, any time, any place you like. A little bit of add on information: the lakes, or water bodies in Putrajaya are man made, 100%, serve as water reserves and filters for downstream.

A well designed bridge besides PICC.

Alamanda is a name for shopping centre at Putrajaya. It's not big, but give us a lot of sense of leisure. We can get various types of food here, from local delicacies, fast food like (KFC, McD, Burger King), Japanese, Thai, Western cuisine to South African Peri-peri meal. Parkson Grand, Carrefour, and Cold Storage are available too.

For more information about Putrajaya, you can visit Official Website of Putrajaya (hope it's useful), Wikipedia, or Putrajaya area guides.

You are most wecomed to visit our blog on other places in Putrajaya, such as Agriculture Heritage Park, Floria 2010 and Botanical Garden.


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Floria 2009

Putrajaya is a hot spot for both locals and foreigners. We visit Putrajaya quite often for two main reasons- nice place, nice distance. Nice place because of the unique contemporary buildings, which gave us "not-in-Malaysia" feeling. Nice distance as it is about 15 minutes away from our house.

Anyway, we are not going to talk a lot about Putrajaya here. We just like to share our venture into the land of flora in Putrajaya- Floria 09 @ Putrajaya. There were more than 400,000 flowers, sponsored by more than 14 bodies (both private and government), gathered and blossomed together in Putrajaya.

Of course, the magnitude of surprise was not as big as we thought (as we had seen a lot of beautiful seas of flowers in media), but still unforgettable memories carved. Well, we would like to share with you, some of the photos we took in the carnival.

Photo @ Orchid Garden

Floria 2009 was a carnival combining flowers and landscaping designs and displays. Some of the attractive landscapes and flowers designs are shown below. An enlargement of a part of the photo above, flowers in the barrow ^^

Photos taken with Ling Shing's sister @ Flowers' Walkway, which filled with tens of thousands of flowers.

View of Floria 2009 and Putrajaya at night (around 7-8 pm). Floria 09 was opened for day and night session. We can get a bright and vivid colour of flowers at day session, and for the night, soft and mysterious.

Hot balloons joined the grande of the carnival, in front of the Treasury Ministry, and some close-ups of the flowers.

For more information about Putrajaya, or Floria 2009, just open our Google or Yahoo and launch a search. Or you can get some background and photos at Wikipedia about Putrajaya(quite interesting) and the Floria 09 Official Site (We don't know how long will this website last as the official might close down the site at anytime after the event).

Back to All Our Destinations. Or for more photos, visit our Floria 2010 blog.

Singapore 2

Orchard Road will never missed its place from our list when we talk about shopping in Singapore. From Orchard Rd. to Dhoby Ghaut MRT stations, there was a belt of continuous shopping centres with their own identities. We chose a few of them, walked around, and took some nice food there. There was a nationwide shopping fair during our visit. We managed to grab a few clothes with good bargain there, although we are not good in shopping at all (or should said not so interested in shopping).

On the right: Photo showing Betty on the walkway of Orchard Road. The rest showed the shopping centres- from antique to contemporary.

Vivo City, the largest shopping mall in Singapore, was a place that shopaholics should not miss. We went to Vivo City on our way to Sentosa Island and enjoyed a wonderful meal there.

The historical trails, which stretched from City Hall to Raffles Place MRT stations, promised a different view. The historical buildings were well maintained there, backgrounded by the skyscrapers with international brands. From City Hall Station, we walked towards seaside with great view of Cathedral of St. Andrew, crossed over Padang to War Memorial Park, took a great view of City Hall and Supreme Court, Victoria Theatre, Parliament House, Arts House, Asian Civilization Museum, and last but not least, the statue of Merlion at Merlion Park. That was the trip that we enjoyed the most, as we journeyed back to the historical part of Singapore (exclude the Merlion).

Clockwise from left: Merlion; City Hall and Supreme Court of Singapore, Victoria Theatre, The Arts House, and War Memorial.

Singapore really looks like our home country in culture and lifestyle. For us, we never feel alone there, as we could communicate easily with English and Mandarin, even with Bahasa Melayu there (Most Singaporean can communicate with English). Even the food there tasted almost the same with our food here. With assistance from my uncle and some of our friends, we were able to hunt some of the nice food around.

Wherever we go, we will not hold back with local delicacies. Clockwise from left: taking breakfast at Boon Keng Market (just a few steps away from boon Keng MRT Station) with local "kueh-muih"; view at one of the hawker centre; dim-sum and famous Singapore Chicken Rice at Food Republic.

There are some changes in Singapore - More Chinese speaks Mandarin now, rather than English, compared to my last visit. Besides, there are more motorbikes and bicycles on the road than the old days. I wish to share a scene that is not easy to catch in Malaysia - old folks from different races sat together at the food court, talking and laughing to each others in English. That scene really touched my heart!

Clockwise from top: MRT networks which look like shopping centre; advertisement in the station; bicycles were widely used across the residential area.

Going places in Singapore was easy with MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) network webbing across the island. So, an advice from us, stay near to the MRT station, then almost all tourist spots will become nearer to you. For more information about Singapore, well, there is a good map at Singapore Streetdirectory, MRT directory, tourist information at official site for Singapore Tourism Board and Sentosa Island. Of course, you can always visit Tripadvisor for latest ranking of hotels in Singapore.

Lastly, we wish to foward a big THANK YOU to Uncle Gregory, Peter and Magdalene for all the hospitality and warm assistance, nice to have you all in our way.

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