Shadow in the Evening

I was driving to dinner in the evening. The sun set wasn't awesome but I like the shadow of trees and buildings. This is the scene where we see the outline of a subject and sometimes it looked even nicer than seeing it in detail.

Miss the Mercedes Benz Logo

Ipoh's southern gateway passes right beside this limestone hill which houses one of the popular cave temples in the city. It simply looked like an ordinary limestone hill around Kinta Valley. However, about half a century ago, there were many rich tin miners in Ipoh making it a rich town that was also known as "The Millionaire City". And it became a best selling town for luxury car Mercedes Benz. As to show the popularity of the brand in Ipoh, Mercedes Benz put up a giant logo on this hill at the southern main entrance to Ipoh and it became one of the famous landmarks. Anyway, after the economy crisis in 1986, Ipoh's economy was badly hit and things turned down quickly in the city. The giant logo was also abandoned and finally demolished several years after that. I still remember the lightened up Benz logo which was beautiful and pride of Ipoh citizens. I did come across an idea to install the mighty "IPOH" sign on this hill just like it did on Gunung Lang at Ipoh's northern gateway (as shared in 15-Feb-2009). However, the sign is finally appear beside the North-South Expressway (refer post of 23-Apr-2009) and this hilltop remains empty. I am editting this photo to simulate how it looked like in the past when the Benz logo was standing on the hill :-)
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Tea Leaf Shop

This shop selling tea leaf appeared to be unchanged for many years. From the Chinese characters of the front white shelf, it seems to be doing wholesale & retail businesses. Therefore I find there is a big green weighing scale behind the white shelf and two smaller weighing scales on the counter. It makes me feel like time froozen in this shop and I am glad to see this shop still operating in good shape.

Famous Seafood Restaurant

Bukit Tambun Seafood Restaurant is one of the famous places for seafood in Ipoh. Bukit Tambun is actually a town in Seberang Perai, Penang state which is well known of its seafood. I believe the restaurant is named after this town is either the onwer originated from Bukit Tambun or to emphasis the tasty seafood is as good as in Bukit Tambun. Anyway, the food is really nice & tasty that able to attract customers around Ipoh & also from other towns.

New Update of the 1921 Shops

This is the building in Old Town Market Street posted in this blog on 3-Sep-2009. The shop at left was under poor condition while the shop at right was occupied. One year later on today, I am so glad to see the poor shop has been renovated in good way that maintain the beautiful design of this building. It even synchronizes with its neighbour to make the window as similar as possible. Somehow the neighbour seems like already moved out and the shop is suppose vacant now. The ideal case is to have one owner for these shops so it can be utilized as one unit that matches the design. Therefore, I wish the cafe to have good business so it can extend to the next shop :-)

Tower Cranes

To many other cities, high rise building construction is just very common & tower cranes are normally seen here & there. As in Ipoh, high rise building is not a trend of development. We don't always see tower crane in the city. However, we have recently 5 tower cranes appear at the same time for 3 construction projects (Kinta Riverfront, MH Tower, Medical college at Greentown). I think this has not happened before as I remember the most we have is only 3 cranes at a time. This may not be a measurement on the growth of Ipoh but just to share my taughts where I believe someone may not realize.

A Unique Piece in Greentown

Ipoh's buildings are normally designed conservatively & simple to suit the convenience for construction. Therefore we hardly find buildings, especially those constructed in the past few decades, to be attractive and marvellous. Anyway, today I find this at a corner of Greentown, which normally doesn't catch people's eye, at the junction between Dato' Ahmad Said Road & Ashby Road (Hospital Road). This is an extended building of an existing tiles selling shop located just next to it. Although this new building is geometrically simple, but brilliant ideas have been put onto the surface finishing to make it more attractive. This may not be the best design in town but certainly a unique piece. Hopefully there will be more creative & outstanding designs appear in Ipoh. It may helps to eliminate the unseemly nickname of Ipoh called "desert of culture".

Finally It Rains

Although it was not downpour that would wash away all dust & heat accumulated in those warm days, the dark clouds did bring us rain and slightly cool the atmosphere.

Resurrected In Original Design

It was a post dated 14-May-2010 showing the photo of old shops torn down at Theater Street. The construction of rebuild the building is fast and it reach the roofing stage now. Anyway, to my surprise, it remains quite similar to the original design, although not exactly but at least it is more harmony to the other shop houses at its surrounding. I check in more detail of the photo taken in 14-May, it seems like the few pillars are retained in this building. This is a good example of redeveloping old buildings in downtown. Nevertheless, to correspond the effort of heritage building preservation, it would be greater & more meaningful if the whole building is preserved (may be reinforcement is needed) instead of reconstructed.

Shaded Under The Tree

It cannot be denied that trees is the best shade to avoid from hot sun & cooling the temperature of earth. The layers of leaves are filtering or even absorbing the heat. However, we are cutting trees without proper control to give way for development. Therefore we have to suffer the climates change that brings warmer and distorted weather condition. I hope we will replant more trees & implement more green factors in all future developments.

Illegal Rubbish Dump Burning

A bad habit of Malaysian is littering. When economic growth surpasses humanity advancement, we will encounter social corruptions & environmental damages. People over consuming resources & putting a large portion of it for unnecessary purposes, or in other word is just wasting. Many things, especially packaging materials, are just become rubbish after being used only once. And that's why we find so many illegal rubbish dumps appear in the city nowadays. The worst scenario is seen in this photo where rubbish dump is burning openly causing serious air pollution & releasing harmful gas to the environment. The worrying fact is not only the failure of local authorities & government to clear the rubbish, but the neglectful attitude & low awareness of people on environment & resources preservation.

Busy Evening Traffic

Although Malaysia is located near to the equator, we still observe change of season from the trajectory of sun and sun rise-sun set time. The sky is getting dark earlier than few months ago. Cars are running with lights on on their way home around 6pm~7pm. It used to be still bright sky during the off work hours somewhere in August. Although only limited sunlight remains, the clouds delays the darkness for minutes by refraction and leaves the final shining lines in the sky.

Warm and Dry Days

The warm weather has continued for more than a week. The past sunny days have dried up the earth & plants, especially weeds. It is not surprise to see burning grass day and night at everywhere that makes the fire brigade busy. Furthermore, the extreme weather also make many people sick. Hopefully the warm days will end soon; I miss the cool and refreshing atmosphere.

Town Hall is "Dewan Bandaran Ipoh"

For so many years, we used to call this heritage building in Old Town as Ipoh Town Hall but there were confusions where some call it "City Hall" which may be misunderstood as the city council. The confusion also happen in Bahasa Malaysia where some people call it "Dewan Bandaraya Ipoh", but this name, again may refers to the city council (in official, the city council is called Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh). I think the city council realizes this phenomena and it has taken some actions to put up the official name on the relevant buildings. Earlier the city council administrative center in Greentown is fixed with the wording sign "Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh" on its roof (as published in 8-March-2010). Today when I drive through Town Hall, I find it is also fixed with its official name "Dewan Bandaran Ipoh". Hopefully it will eliminate the confusions & guiding Ipoh citizens to use the correct name of these buildings.