Tourism

Questions from Katy
1. What would be the most popular tourist spot in Jakarta?
2. What was the most popular tourist spot in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia?


ANSWER: I would say one of the most popular tourist spots in Jakarta would have to be the Sunda Kelapa Harbor (see photo). It is located at the mouth of the Ciliwung River in N. Jakarta and was formerly the harbor town of Sunda Kelapa where the Portuguese traded with the Hindu Kingdom of Perjajaran in the early 16th century. Don't let the foreign words scare you, it's very easy to pronounce Perjajaran: Purr-jah-jah-run. Dutch domination of Jakarta and the rest of Indonesia began in this area. An old fort and trading post of the Dutch East Indies trading company can still be seen there.

Sunda Kelapa Harbor is better known as Pasar Ikan (pah-sar eek-on which means fish market)and is at present a fisherman's wharf and inter-island port and serves as a port of call for perahu pinisi (purr-ah-who pen-in-see) which are shipping cargo vessels and they transport raw materials from Sumatra (sue-mah-tra), Kalimantan (kah-lee-mahn-tahn) and Sulawesi (sue-lah-weh-see). Tall masted schooners from S. Sulawesi belong to one of the last fleets of sailboats in the world and sometimes if you talk to the sailors and workers at the harbor they will offer you a ride on their boat. The streets leading up to Sunda Kelapa harbor are lined with shops selling all sorts of shells, dehydrated turtles, lobster and mostly anything a sailor might need.

It's best to visit the harbor early in the morning which is when a lot of the activity occurs from workers loading and unloading the ships.

The most popular tourist spot in Kuala Lumpur was probably the Petronas Towers (see photo) which used to be the tallest building in the world between 1998-2004 before the Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan and the current tallest building the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It is still the tallest twin towers in the world with a total height of 1,482.6 feet. The building features a skybridge between the two towers on the 41st and 42nd floors. This bridge also holds the record for the highest 2-story bridge in the world at 558 above the ground.

The design of the building is set in Islamic architecture since Malaysia is a Muslim country and it's brightly lit at night, I used to call it Oz since we could see it from our house in Kuala Lumpur. It's named after the owners and builders, Petronas, which is a Malaysian owned oil and gas company. Outside is the KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Center) park and below the twin towers is Suria KlCC, one of Malaysia's largest shopping malls.

The towers have been filmed in many movies and featured on many tv shows. In the very first episode of the tv show 24 starring Keifer Sutherland, the towers are the first shot at 4pm, the towers are also featured in the video game Hitman 2: Silent Assasin where the player travels on the skybridge and also on the PS2 game Burnout Dominator.

It really is a fun place to hang out, shop, and eat. I could spend hours there just wandering around