Category Archives: Royal Selangor Pewter

4

The Root of the Matter

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The weather in Genting Highlands reminded me a lot of Haarlem during summer. Except, it’s a tad more humid. The best part of sleeping at night over there is the fact that I don’t need the fan or air conditioner to keep me cool. All I need to do is open the windows and let the cool breeze breathe in my hotel room. Something I often do back in my house when the temperature goes down. Maybe that’s why I felt a lot like home in First World’s hotel room. Or it’s just a combination of everything. I will probably never know.

But what I know is that, every trip I make, I’ll always discover something new about myself. Every time I walk out of an experience, I bring with me a new theory.

I never quite explained how Wanderlust Theories came about. And I think the above sentence pretty much explains it. Theories in life are meant to build our character, hopefully strengthen our principles and eventually nurture a deeper faith between you, life and God.

So spending my first ever night in First World (usually I’ll stay in Awana because my dad loves to golf), awaken the kid in me – to simply be me, enjoy whatever comes and ultimately have simpler beliefs.

Waking up to this view was unbelievable to say the least.

To have breakfast with this view every morning is even more incredible! But that was exactly what we did the morning after. We were treated to World Club Lounge breakfast which I was told is where the very special people are invited to eat.

Well, what was it that I usually say..? Live the moment? Yeah might as well live it while we were given the chance.

This was the lounge we had our breakfast and I had experimented with the Panoramic settings in  Optio P80. There is something unusual about the photo but I shall not reveal what it is 😛 Anyway this setting captures three parts of the view you have in mind and then it will stitch all 3 into one picture in less than 30 seconds. A handy tool I might add, if you don’t feel like doing it manually 🙂

I suppose if you have all this modern techs to help you out, might as well use it. Depending on it is a different story.

Oh look who woke up as early as we did just to see off? A certain french speaking mime. I think Charles is from Cayman Island. One of the islands in the french colony. Also, Kak Zara has a secret crush on him 😛 Haha just kidding Kak Zara.

With that, another page flipped over regarding Genting Highlands for this trip. It was really thoughtful of Resorts World Genting representatives like Mr. Philip to send us off as well. Of course, we’re not bidding adieu just yet (since we still haven’t spend our points)..so we’ll make a return. Possibly a whole group of us again, who knows?

Mr. Philip and Dato’ Anthony Yeo had recommended us to visit Chan Swee Caves Temple. We were told by Dato’ Anthony Yeo when he was giving out his speech the day before that this particular temple was build on a very difficult platform, therefore back in the days men could not use any machines to help build the temple. So they had to do it manually.

Why did the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong chose this spot to build something on a difficult terrain? Apparently this is the area most strategic to view Genting Highlands. There you go!

Yeah, see how fun the MySelangorStory bunch are? 🙂 I really love this shot at the entrance to the temple. They either had really strong coffee, slept really well or running on reserve energy tank. Whatever it was, I love them all the same 🙂

 
Visiting this temple again finally put the curious cat in my mind to rest. Why? All this while, I’ve been having this image in my mind about standing at a chinese temple somewhere high up but I couldn’t remember where this place was. Imagine how annoying it was to recall a memory half rendered for more than a decade! Then it hit me, I had visited this temple when it first opened back in 24 March 1994 with my family who then brought a foreign friend along. This was that place I’ve been trying hard to recall.
A major “AAAAAHHHHH” moment right there you bet.
There were many beautiful statues standing tall around the area; unfortunately we didn’t have much time to explore every part of this place. It’s really huge. You could even walk up along the pathway to the top if you have enough stamina 😉 A must see place in anyone’s itinerary.
I’m sure there are some of you who wondered why were we in Genting when our tour is about Selangor. Well, Genting Highlands is divided into two between Pahang and Selangor. So there is one part of Genting which belongs to Selangor. One trip to Genting Highlands from my place behind the zoo takes less than 45 minutes (ok, depending on how fast a person drives), that’s how close it has become since the old days.
You don’t get THIS in any other place, because many of us have forgotten about Mother Nature 😦 We have to go to places like this to be reminded what we have lost or is about to lose. So sad.
Now that we have finally put a full stop in our Genting pit stop, we went to sleep (well most of us; some took this opportunity to take pictures of those sleeping) for the next 1.5 hours to Rawang. What is there in Rawang?
This.
Hutan Lipur Kanching. 
They might as well renamed this very day’s itinerary to “Bonding Session with Mother Nature” 🙂 There are 7 levels to this waterfall, it’s so high up, you’ll be proud to conquer the top without feeling like your knees are melting. Ehem, we only went as high as level 3 and most of us (including moi) were obviously not in shape to go all the way. Nonetheless, the view was breathtaking. The water was refreshing and cold.  It’s all you need when you see a waterfall.
Because this is Tourism Selangor territory, Mr. Fazly briefed us the do’s and don’ts while being here.
He’s been working hard to make sure we are good in our space. So the only other thing he reminded us not to do was not to feed the monkeys. For the obvious reason of course.
I guess one of us couldn’t help but did it anyway 😉 Hafiz oh Hafiz. Good thing it didn’t follow you home.

We ate at the campsite where the tents were. Happily eating our chicken from KFC, then came these rascals trying to take the food away from us. What the monkeys didn’t know (we didn’t either) was that, in Nicole’s past life, she was a monkey slayer. So she pretty much saved the day for us. Swatting the monkeys with a rolled newspaper, kung fu-ing the monkeys. Amazingly, it worked!

One thing you should also know is that, these monkeys love drinking Coke too. If only they know how to hold the can right side up… erm, if there’s a colony of ants roaming around the grass at Kanching, you’ll know who caused it. *Looks at Hafiz*
Apart from that, if you do plan to come to Hutan Lipur Kanching, do remember to wear proper footwear. It would be a bit ma fan(tedious in English) to take your shoes and socks off and then put it on again.
Ok, that’s the end of Day 3 Part 1. Part 2 will see us embracing our roots. Happy Saturday people 🙂
And don’t forget, if you like this post enough to vote, just go to MySelangorStory/The Root of the Matter website and browse through the days. Arigato gozaimas!

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17

Certified Knockers.

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Life is like a work in progress book. Days are turned into chapters, people we know are the characters playing their roles and moments are written as plots for the stories in our lives.

Now MySelangorStory is being written in my book, a whole chapter with many new characters appearing in it. And I’ll look back to this event as one of the awesome-st story ever written at this point of time in my life. 🙂

Right. Let’s get on with Day 2 where we departed from Carlton Holiday Hotel in Shah Alam to Setapak where Royal Selangor Pewter is situated. The journey took about an hour and in a way I find it funny because it’s so close to where I live.

Despite the fact that I live nearby to Royal Selangor Pewter, this trip was my first visit there. I guess we tend to take something for granted when it’s closer to you huh? Nonetheless, this visit might not be the last from me. There were so many other parts of RSP that we couldn’t cover which had caught my interest during the visit.

So what does that mean? Round 2 visit 😉

We were divided into 2 groups hence why we needed two tour guides to bring us around 🙂 They were pretty cool. I mean c’mon, look at the photo above and you can tell they are a fun bunch in RSP.

Like I said earlier, there were so many parts of RSP that screamed out storytelling worthy and we only covered (possibly?) 40% of the area. I really love the steel plate hand prints pasted all over the walls in the RSP building. These hand prints are RSP employees hand prints who have worked more than 5 years. I dare you to count the number of steel plates because I lost count!

Royal Selangor Pewter turns 125 years old this year. That’s a century older than me! It was founded by Yong Koon. This is truly one of Malaysia’s remarkable icon. You can’t find any other tea pot with a story like the Melon Teapot. Even I was on the edge of my seat when I was told by their very special, very own storyteller whom I’ll reveal towards the end of this post.

Fact of the day – Pewter = Tin + Copper + Antimony.


We were then brought to the second part of the building where the real work is being done. Watching everyone walking on single file reminded me of the old days when we would go for school trips. As we observed how flat material were transformed into amazing artwork, we became more aware how difficult it is to master this skill.

Yes like kids, we were at awe watching them knocking, polishing and carving.
*Insert oohs and aahs here*

And boy, it takes years to master this skill. Once you’ve got it – you’re able to turn nothing into something in a blink of an eye. Ok I lied. A few blinks really. Still, I admire their attention to detail. Something I should be applying in everything I do..

On a cool note, we were able to drink 100 plus from their pewter mugs. I think there was a difference drinking from pewter and glass but I can’t place my finger on it. Maybe it has something to do with retaining the temperature. That and it feels a lot “crispier” when drinking it. I told you, I can’t figure out what made it different. Heh.

By the way,  aunty in the photo above has worked for more than 30 years for RSP. That means her hand print is definitely on the wall. Bravo!

We then moved to the furthest part of the building. The entire workshop was embracing us and it really was one heck of an experience indeed! Definitely an eye opener. I won’t look at RSP’s packaging the same way again after this, that’s for sure. Oh, and I used the wide angle setting from Pentax P80 which stitches two parts of pictures together in case you were wondering what the middle section of the photo was. 😉

Ah, the things cameras these days can do I tell ya.

To think that was the coolest thing to happen. Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas everyone because RSP planned to blow our mind even more as we explore deeper in this mysterious building.

Look what we got ourselves into..

That’s right folks, we’ll be doing some hard knocking ourselves too. Never again will we ever take anything for granted after this. This school requires a lot of energy and focus, I kid you not. Just to spell 4 letters of my name was already tricky enough. I can’t imagine what it takes to make the entire mug. -_-

In the end we all graduated from the School of Hard Knocks. Bravo MSS kids 🙂 We are certified knockers!


While knocking the bowl like nobody’s business, I found out that Sharmaine from RSP was my senior in Convent Bukit Nenas. The whole time we were there, I kept thinking she was so familiar but I don’t know why. Then I nonchalantly blurted it out while she helped package our gift and she simply asked which school I was from. Bingo!

 
Like any other students, we have our own graduation ceremony too 🙂

What I love most about this part of the building is it’s design that feels very homely. Maybe it’s the english setting but I love it. Also, like many other trips we made, we’re never short of food. Blessing indeed but really, wherever we go, it’s always food food food fooooooooood. If my tummy could talk, it would probably be screaming throughout the 6D5N journey. Really.
I mentioned that RSP has it’s own storyteller right? 
Yup, it’s none other Datin Paduka Chen Mun Kuen. She came all the way to meet us and tell us of this enchanting story about the Melon Teapot. Who would’ve thought that something like that could save a man’s life? And it so happened to be Datin’s own grandfather’s piece of work. 
Life, don’t you just love to surprise people? 🙂
If you want to know what it’s about, click on the link or better yet make your way to RSP. In case you are curious, RSP opens 365 days a year from 9AM to 5PM. Here we are complaining when we can’t get a holiday, they pretty much work everyday. Salute!
And thank you to Hanin for pointing out from her comment – this tour is free for everyone 🙂 So, no excuse not to visit and have a knocking time at RSP! 
Also thank you to a certain Anonymous for directing me to the right path – School of Hard Knocks is a group activity you need to book in advance; minimum 5 participants and maximum 50. The fee is RM50 per person (I learned something new!). Just dial (6)03 4145 6000 or head over to Royal Selangor.
It was certainly a treat to meet her and RSP really made sure this trip was a memorable one. So special, I’d get myself one of the Melon Teapots too the next time. Kudos Royal Selangor Pewter. You’re definitely a gem!
I’m sure many of us know this but in case you don’t .. we have the largest mug in the world at RSP 🙂 Tadah!
Before I forget (besides voting for me at this page), let me introduce to you to my very faithful friend…Sheepy 🙂
Oh yes, this lil’ fella has gone to India, KK and wherever I happened to throw myself to. 
So that’s Day 2 Part 1. Next up, I’ll be writing about our journey to the top of the world!