Remembering Angel Supermarket

This four and a half storey building at the crossing of Anderson Road & Clare Street is now occupied by Kamdar, the nationwide well-known textile store. However, for Ipoh citizen above 30's of age, they should know this is originally a popular supermarket in early 1980's, so called Angel (安琪儿). That was the time Ipoh had few supermarkets like Beauty, Crescendo, Perak Emporium, Dayi & Kwong Fatt which were all operating in almost similar scale. When Angel came up, it was one of the largest among all & if I not mistaken, the first escalator in Ipoh is inside this building. During the time when I was a kid, we were so eager to go Angel to ride the escalator & also having ice-cream, which was not available in other supermarkets. For some years, Angel became a most welcomed name in Ipoh. However, the glorious did not last long. When Super Kinta rose with brand new shopping concept & facilities, Angel and other traditional supermarkets were badly hit and eventually sank. It has been so long from the closure of Angel and many thing about it has faded away in memory. Those I can remember clearly are the escalator, ice cream & my first watch that bought from Angel. Anyway, I lost it in a drain in front of school about a year later and the incident claimed so much of my tears.

Islamic Bank In A Beautiful Sunny Day

This morning was sunny. Buildings appeared to be sharper than normal under the brilliant shunshine. The Islamic Bank Building at Douglas Road looked prominent under the blue sky. It aged about 20 years, originally white in color & recently re-coated in beige. The building is quite unique with the mixture of Islamic & modern architecture.

"Duck Lamp" Traditional Herbal Tea

Herbal tea is one of the Chinese traditions that still commonly seen in Ipoh nowadays. It is said to help discharge body toxic and enhance immunity. During the early days of Ipoh's establishment, there was not any proper medication services & facilities. Chinese that migrated here mainly for tin mining had to work in tropical climate and often fell sick under this unusual environment. They believed human body accumulated "inner heat" in this warm & humid atmosphere and herbal tea should be a way to tackle it. At present, diluted herbal tea is very common in coffee shops & restaurants served as normal drink with insignificant medication effect. Nevertheless, specialized herbal tea stalls are also available in town. They are offering medication herbal tea and have been operating for generations. This stall is occupying a small portion at the rear part of shophouse. It used to be a little stall on Osbourne Street selling medical herbal tea at night with a small lamp called "duck lamp" (鸭仔灯). After it moved in to the shop, it still carry the name of "Duck Lamp Herbal Tea". My parents were staying inside this shop when they were young (well, they gotta know each other here :-) .......). Perhaps for ths reason, during my childhood time, we used to come here for food & I still remember people called the herbal tea stall owner "four-eye-boy" (boy wearing spectacles, 四眼仔). An antique "duck lamp" is still kept in the stall and the present owner (probably 2nd generation) is also wearing spectacles :-)

Smallest Roundabout in Ipoh

I remember a friend of mine from Seremban commented that Ipoh has many traffic roundabouts. I did not realize until she told me such. I started to count the number of roundabouts and compared with few other cities. Then I found out the statement is quite true, although we are not the champion. The number would be greater if to include few that had been removed and converted into cross road with traffic light system (such as roundabout at Maxwell Road-Anthony Road, Tiger Lane-Tasek Road, Pasir Puteh Road-Yang Kalsom Road, etc.). Anyway, this one in Greentown is apparently the smallest in Ipoh. During rush hours, traffic from Brewster Road & Clarke Street would be always congested. Despite the little effect to smoothen traffic in this area, it does serve as a good reference point when give direction to visitors whom do not familiar with Ipoh's road.

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Remain of Super Kinta Signboard

Super Kinta Departmental Stores, a name that almost none of Ipoh citizen do not know. People normally call it Super Kinta or in Cantonese "Kan Ta" (近打) by only mention the word Kinta. This departmental store is a member of George Town Holdings which ran another retailing business in Penang, the well-known Super Komtar. If I remember correctly, Super Kinta started business in 1983, located at 2nd & 3rd floor of Ipoh Central Market, which is a square-O-shape building. Although as mentioned above it occupied 2 floors, but it appeared to be single floor under one ceiling. Therefore, the whole departmental store looked spacious & tall. This had made it significantly different from other supermarkets at that time, such as Angel's, Crescendo, Perak Emporium & Beauty that operated in multi-floor but narrow building. As a result, one after another of these supermarkets closed down in the competition.

However, as the Chinese say, fortune is always taking turns (风水轮流转). After more than two decades of glorious era, Super Kinta finally faced its fatal challenge from the modern shopping malls, Ipoh Parade & Kinta City, during the end of 1990's. Apart from departmental store, the new malls provide more choices for shopping & entertainment, such as fashion outlets, cinemas, bowling center, restaurants, etc. Even Super Kinta practiced major interior renovation at interval of few years to keep it up to date, the building had limited its transformation to stay on par with latest trend & new customer expectations. Finally, Super Kinta ends its chapter around 2004. Since then we hardly see its name & logo appear in public, and after so many years close down, we even difficult to find its plastic bag nowadays. To my surprise, the alley I used to pass by frequently but I never realize that there is one last signboard of Super Kinta which shows the way to its main entrance still pinned on the wall of Ipoh Central Market building. I believe this logo has been faded away from many of our mind and hope these photos could help recall some of our memories about this legendary departmental store in Ipoh. About this logo, I find it to be apparently a symbolic presentation of the location of its sister store in Penang, the Komtar Tower, which also experience the similar fate of closing down.

A Proper Way of Complaining?

I was going to take breakfast in Old Town this morning. When I drove into Lahat Road, I found something unusual along the street. There are notices with photo of Perak's Chief Minister on it and written with some sentences pasted on the pillar of shophouses. I was really curious and decided to find out the answer after parking at nearby. When I approached to read the notice, it is written in three languages that appear to be a complaint from the people of a particular settlement regarding land ownership problem. It seems the residents are not happy with the way of government handling this issue by transferring the case among several departments without a conclusion. Anyway, I believe the notices would be removed by local authorities very soon. There would be no absolute answer of whether this is a proper way to make a complaint, but somehow a group of people are really caught in frustration. Hope the issue can be resolved in peace.

No Theater on Theater Street

The street is so called Theater Street because the first theater or cinema in New Town was loacted here. If I am not mistaken, it should be Capitol Cinema (京都戏院). The cinema is at the junction between Theater Street & Anderson Road. When driving along Anderson Road & Chamberlain Road from north to south, there are four old cinemas i.e. Ruby, Capitol, Rex & Majestic. Three of these cinema buildings still exist and all are converted into furniture gallery. However, Capitol Cinema has been disappeared from the horizon in an inferno at least 20 years ago . The site was left vacant and served as a car park for so many years. In 2010, the car park finally closed and give way to the construction of a 3 & 4-storey shop lot project. After almost a quarter century, the site is eventually welcoming a new building. Anyway, there will be no longer any trace about a theater along Theater Street. Capitol Cinema will be just a memory to the older generation & it only appeared in limited number of photos.

Summer Paradise & Folie Folie

There was an old bungalow at this location, the junction between Anderson Road & Green Lane (Jalan Dato Seri Ahmad Said) that used to be a furniture galley before its demolition. A new building is built here and it turns up to be an amusement center Summer Paradise that come with a western restaurant Folie Folie Cafe & Grill. The building can be seen from Tower Regency Hotel (as posted in 6-Nov-2010) with its striking neon lights. There are some karaoke rooms & a fun pub in the building while the restaurant is operating in a separate unit at its side. I visited the restaurant & karaoke once each and find this is quite a nice place for night life. I believe it also attarcts guests from Tower Regency Hotel which is just within few minutes walking distance.

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Chemor Shops Collapsed

This building could looked like destroyed in a blast during battle. Well, this is not a war zone but the busiest main road of Chemor town. The trunk road connecting Ipoh with northern towns cut through the heart of Chemor and there are thousands of giant trucks or containers carrying all kind of heavy goods, such as timber, cement, bricks and so on, passing by here everyday. When I was out for lunch around here this afternoon, the traffic was extremely jam because the main road was closed. By no choice drivers were all directed into other streets as alternative route and all those big vehicles crawling in the narrow alleys were endangering other road users. But why the main road was closed? When I passed by here again after work, I realized there were 3 shophouses having their front portion torn down violently. Immediately it came to my mind it was caused by the collision by truck and later proven from the evening news that I was right. A truck came from northern direction lost control and slammed onto the five-foot-way at opposite direction causing the upper floor of these shophouses collapse. The truck driver was injured but luckily no other casualties in this incident. From this accident, it reminds me about another small town at south of Ipoh, Kepayang, which is similarly right on the intercity trunk road had been many times hit by trucks and forcing the residents either keep themselves safe by living only at the rear portion of the shophouses or simply move out from there. However, if similar incident happen again, it will be greater risk of civilian death in Chemor than Kepayang because Chemor is much more crowded and almost every building along the main road is occupied. Hopefully appropriate action will be taken to prevent any unwanted tragedy.

Past & Future Alongside River

Kinta Riverfront is a long term project to revive the glorious Kinta River after the collapse of tin market. On top of the 5-star hotel & luxury service apartment, something making it different from other development projects is the complete plan stretching few kilometers along Kinta River which consists of cafe, restaurant, landscaping, pedestrian bridges & even a mini museum. Although it is not world-class architecture, somehow the project at its completion is expected to beautify Ipoh city center. Also, the mini museum displaying tin industry, particularly in Kinta Valley, is a great effort to share the history of Ipoh's establishment & the hard work of our ancestors to grow this city from a small village.
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The master piece of this project, the luxury service apartment & hotel building, is progressing intensively. The apartment block has reached its top floor and is now one of the tallest buildings in Ipoh. It is also the second building after 28 years that achieves 20 floors, apart from Kinta Heights. However, it is probably at same height above sea level with other tall buildings, such as the 17-storey Tower Regency Hotel, because it is standing at a lower ground. By the way, the neighbouring hotel block is catching up and will reach almost the same height at its 19th floor.
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New Intertown Bus

Ipoh public transport has not been upgraded for decades. After years of talking, finally we see some realistic changes. The existing city public transport companies join venture to run a combined service, so called Perak Transit. The process of transforming Ipoh buses from old to new will be carried out in phases. The first batch of new bus appear in pink color start runing on the road few months ago serving intertown routes. Hopefully the transformation will be conducted successfully to provide citizen of Ipoh a comfortable & safe ride.

Electronic Vs Conventional Billboard

A new electronic screen being installed at the entrance to Bandar Medan Ipoh (commonly known as Ipoh Garden East). This is quite popular in other major cities in Malaysia. However, Ipoh's economic development is at slower pace. After the first electronic billboard appeared at Brewster Road many years ago, this is only the second in the city. Although the changing screen can display more advertisements compare to the still picture on conventional billboard, people moving on road may miss some images.
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Sunny Morning In The Rainy Days

The weather is mostly cloudy and rainy in the recent days. Direct sunlight only appear for short while or not even a single hour in a day. Anyway, a nice blue sky is seen this morning and lasts till afternoon. The skyline looked clear in the fresh atmosphere and under the brilliant sunlight. Government offices along Douglas Road (Jalan Panglima Bukit Gantang Wahab) have been closed since last Friday (a special holiday for Malaysia winning a regional football championship) and traffic in this Sunday is quite relaxing. However, the day ended up a thunder storm & downpour in the evening. Several lower grounds even suffer disaster of flooding. It seems we will continue dealing with the rainy days for some time.
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The Brilliant Moment To Welcome 2011

During the first moment in year 2011, brilliant fireworks lighted up the skyline of Ipoh. Crowds gathered at Kinta City Shopping Center's roof top car park to witness the welcoming celebration of new year. When the moment zero hour reached, explosions in the sky cheers everyone. People at the roof top could enjoy a 270-degree view around the city and witness the flowery fireworks at different corners of the city, among those, government origanized fireworks at Greentown Ipoh Square (Dataran Ipoh) and Indera Mulia Stadium were the largest and longest. Although viewing from Kinta City was quite far, its beautifulness still amazed the audience. Nevertheless, the nearest firework explossions by nearby pubs shocked the crowd and won the applause.

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Happy New Year 2011!!

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