When the weather is clear, the view from our 20th-floor apartment is spectacular. In one direction we get 1.5 Petronas towers. In the other we get Titiwangsa Lake and the Istana Budaya -- and the rough old craggy old mountains, often piled with cloud. There's lots of greenery. Plus lots of roads and railways (we're very connected). Oh, and lots of building sites. They've not finished building KL. They probably never will.

The weather was not clear for most of last week. Haze from Sumatra... But it began to improve on Saturday, after we had rain. It's raining because it's coming up to the time of the festival to honour the nine Emperor Gods, which also coincides with a Hindu festival, Navarathiri.

From our window we can see a Hindu temple and a mosque. The call to prayer is lonelier than it was in Yogya. We don't have phalanxes of small mosques all competing with each other. We have just one. But it has a very beautiful call.

In the mornings and evenings, you hear birds singing. Yes, birds. It must take some initiative for a bird to navigate this high-rise concrete world. But there are trees, so there are birds, and they sing...



Looking down, you see many versions of the perennial shophouse. Narrow frontages; deep premises that run way, way back from the road, lit by narrow courtyards.

One of the reasons we chose this place (apart from the space and the view) was the wide range of local food available all around us. It will take us ages to suss out all that's on offer (says Prudence, with glee).

Right across the road there's a food court. The Indian place does nice rotis and teh tarik for breakfast. If you want something to take away, they supply little packages of nasi lemak. There's also a good nasi campur place, run by a lady from Sumatra.

Near the bus station there's a long row of Malay, Chinese, and Indian places. Green mango salad... Spicy pan mee... In the streets round here on a Tuesday evening there's a pasar malam, selling all kinds of stuff.

In the other direction, we've tried the bubble tea place. And one of the many other mamak places. The other morning we ate tosai here, with cheerful Indian music videos blaring out for entertainment (certainly beats the ghastly National Geographic crocodile docos at our nearest place -- what IS this obsession with crocodiles that has taken over cable TV??). As we enjoyed the typically Indian food and musical exuberance, a Malay woman came in to buy packets of nasi lemak. Someone else was reading a Chinese newspaper a few tables further on.

If you head further off towards Chow Kit and Kota Baru, you get even more options. Middle Eastern. Lots of Indonesian. And tom yam is ubiquitous.

According to one of the security guards, there are 49 nationalities living in our apartment complex. I love that. And I love the colourful, slightly scruffy streets outside.

It's a great place to live. We've been lucky again.