OK, I did not keep my promise.

For today, I will not blog about food. I, err, promise that this is the last of non-food blog for this series. This blog is about the new administrative capital of Malaysia, Putrajaya.

I had never been to Putrajaya before and when Terence and Choon Neo showed me around the capital, I must say that it was a jaw-dropping experience for me. The entire city was planned and built from the ground up.

Driving to the the city, it was apparent that every aspect of the city was designed to the minutest detail. The overhead bridge were ornate and the lamp posts were uniquely designed all over the city.

Every great city is centered around waters. So, when the city was built, the government actually built a large artificial lake around the city! The lake were filled by two rivers which were rerouted to it. I was amazed with the design of all the bridges. They were modern and grand.

The Seri Gemilang bridge below is the only “ceremonial” bridge — built with distinctive towers.

All government offices were relocated from KL to Putrajaya. The building below is the Palace of Justice, no less. It’s one of the grandest buildings, perhaps intended as a way to tell the world of the justice administered in the land.

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The highest floor that is opened to the public on the Petronas Twin Towers is at the 41st floor where the Skybridge is. The Petronas Twin Towers has a total of 88 floors. The Skybridge is a double deck connector between the two towers at 41st and 42nd floor.

Not many people, I reckon, know that the skybridge is opened to the public. It took me quite a while to find the reception to the Skybridge visit. It is tucked down a narrow escalator with a small sign pointing the way.

I got to the counter at about 11:30am and they were then issuing tickets for 3pm. That works out fine by me because I had planned to hang around the KLCC, do some shopping and check out the restaurants there. BTW, the tickets were free of charge.

I returned to the reception and waited to be called in. There is a room with interactive exhibits about the towers. Most of the exhibits were pretty tacky.

We were then issued with coloured tags. They guide each group by the colours issued at a time. We started off spending about 15 minutes watching a video of the towers. It was very informative and speaks to the genesis to the eventual completion of the buildings.

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The Petronas Twin Towers was the tallest building in the world for a brief time until they were surpassed by the Taipei 101 in 2004. When the Twin Towers were nearing completion in 1996, there were some controversy over the height of the building.

At that time, the world’s tallest building was the Sears Tower in Chicago. However, when the Twin Towers were built, the total height of the building included the spire which extends just over 9m higher than the Sears Tower. The spire itself represents almost 10% of the entire height. Of course, there were protest around this. The Malaysian government argued that in previous classifications of tall buildings, the total height of buildings includes spires (case in point, the Empire State Building).

So, in response Sears Towers put up an antenna that protrudes higher than the Twin Towers. However, the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (the people who bestows rankings for tall buildings) ruled that the antenna on the Sears Towers were not an integral part of the design of the building and hence does not count toward the height. In fairness, the Council split the tall building categories into four distinct categories soon after.

The Twin Towers were built over three years. During those times, we saw how the building took shape and marvelled at how high the towers grew day after day. At its peak, they put up a floor every 5 days. The two buildings were built by two different companies (one Korean and the other Japanese), competing with each other to top up faster.

I remember then there were so much rumours about the towers. For one, there were rumours that the pilings were lost into a huge cavity underneath the site of the original location for the tower, resulting in the Towers being located at the fringe of the KLCC next to a very busy intersection. For sure, we know that the road next to the Towers developed huge sink holes during the construction. There was even a bungalow about 150m away that just collapsed in 30 minutes upon developing cracks then.

Oh yeah, the locals used to call that building “jagungs” which is Malay for corns.

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No visitor to Kuala Lumpur will be able to miss the imposing Petronas Twin Towers and inevitably the Kuala Lumpur City Centre on which the Twin Towers are located. When Malaysia wanted to build the tallest building in the world, there were only one parcel of land in the city centre huge enough to hold the infrastructure required for the project. That piece of land was the old Selangor Turf Club which was relocated to the outskirt of KL in the 1990s.

The masterplan calls for a masterpiece of landscaped park surrounded by various high-rise buildings, the highest of which is the Twin Towers.

Suanne used to work about 3 minutes drive from the Twin Towers and I used to pick her up from her office after work. Because of the rush-hour jam, we used to spend time at the KLCC while waiting for the traffic to ease off before heading home. You see, the KLCC is also located smack in the middle of the Golden Triangle which is basically the downtown business core. Although there were many high-rise buildings, the roads were not built to cater for the volume of traffic.

The KLCC has this tranquility that is so odd when you think that you’re right in the middle of the busiest section of KL. At the centre of the KLCC is the Symphony Lake where the musical fountain plays at regular interval. I wanted to take shots of the musical fountain but apparently the fountain was under maintenance on the day.

ch as possible where they once stood. So, as one walked in the park, you will see quite a lot of such trees below. This is a rarity in Malaysia where in many other parts of the country there are wanton destruction of nature.

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