Monday, January 19, 2009

City of entertainment


Welcome to Genting, city of entertainment!
This hotspot for entertainment is only 30 minutes drive from Kuala Lumpur. Located on top of a hill, the air is so chilled that I don’t need a mini bar to cool cans of soft drinks. This time, we decided to take the Genting Skyway, a cable car to the top. At RM10 you can enjoy 3.4 kilometer scenic view from the cable car which is the longest and the fastest in South East Asia operating from 7.30am to 11pm (12pm during weekend).
As usual, the theme park is packed with thousands of visitors. I do not know about others but I am here just to escape from Kuala Lumpur hot temperature. Fully ‘armed’ with my jacket, I ‘browse’ through the labyrinth of shops. Of course the price is slightly ‘inflated’. What do you expect?
Almost everything here is commercialized. However, you need to admire the vision and the set up of the theme park. Who can imagine that there is a ‘hotspot’ on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere? (perhaps the casinos had something to do with it…maybe…) Nevertheless, you can find almost everything here from roller coaster, video games, cinema, bar with live bands etc to keep up with the tag ‘city of entertainment’.
The temperature became cooler in the evening. I looked outside the window of my hotel room. The valley beneath my hotel is slowly become ‘invisible’ as the clouds slowly enveloped the valley. At 9pm, you can’t see anything but the clouds. I took a quick shower (believe me it is really quick as the water is darn cold) before I went out for dinner. Somehow, my appetite doubled in cold weather. Better check my weight tomorrow. I end the day watching the late night movie at the cinema theatre.
My mobile which doubled up as my alarm in the morning perform its duty exactly 6am. Arrghh!!!! I had to brave the cold shower again.
As I look outside the window, appreciating the panoramic view of the tropical forest, I wonder how long this last can. Whether the next generation will be able to enjoy the same fresh air that I breathe today?
Carol bought blouses from FOS (Factory Outlet Store) yesterday and instead of putting the merchandise in a plastic bag, they are giving away bags with environmentally friendly message (for purchase above RM100). Our bag consist a simple message of “Stop Global Warming” with a picture of two sad looking penguins. Hmm…everybody is in the ‘green’ bandwagon now.
However, there are people who does not know (perhaps does not care is more accurate) of the ‘green revolution’. Malaysian produces an average of 0.8kg to 1.2kg of waste per day per person. Out of that amount, we only recycle 5 per cent of our waste compared to countries like Switzerland, Germany and Japan who recycle 35 to 47 per cent of their total waste. The Waste Management of Malaysia is targeting to increase the percentage to 22 per cent in 2020; the year that Malaysia supposed to be the first world country. Compare this with the aim for our recycle percentage is even lower than what the first world countries have right now! It is quite a deplorable aim for a Malaysia Boleh spirit don’t you think?


On the other hand, the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007 were put off once again (somehow it did not surprise me at all). This Act supposed to create an integrated system in managing waste in Malaysia. One of the intentions of the Act is to ‘force’ home owners to separate their waste and make it easier for recycle measure. One of the reasons of the delay is the jurisdiction issue between the federal and the state government in implementing the waste management. It is silly to even think that we can politicize environmental issue.
We are busy exploiting the natural resources and forget we need to dump our waste somewhere. We thought that somebody will pick the waste and the upper echelon of the society is fighting on the issue who should have the right to pick up our waste. At this moment, I don’t have the answer to the two sad looking penguins at the FOS bag.

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