I’ve lived in 3 cities throughout the 30 years of my life. Born in Penang, I went to university in London and now live in Kuala Lumpur. So I understand what living in a new city is like. At first it’s met with a little bit of fear of the uncertain but excitement from the adventure of exploring it. Then you start exploring more and more of the city you live in and develop a certain routine. Before we know it, we slip into our comfort zones and we stop. We stop exploring.
There’s a saying that “If you tire of London, you tire of Life”. I believe in that saying not just for London but for any major city in the world. There is just so much more we have yet to experience in any city that we stay in… but sometimes we just need a little nudge. A little push out of our comfort zones to go explore once again.
Heineken gave me that nudge just recently. I love Heineken and I work with Heineken regularly which says a lot considering how I’m really picky about which brand I associate myself with. I love Heineken not just because of its beer. I love what the brand stands for: “ Going beyond boundaries”.
One of their recent initiatives is Heineken Cities where they encourage everyone to go explore the hidden gems in our own cities. In KL, they booked out this huge area where they created rooms of a select few hidden gems around KL and recreated the experience of each place in those rooms.
There was Bespoke @ 1 Utama, A gentleman’s tailor in KL where you could go, pick whatever cloth you wanted and custom make a suit. Every suit is handmade stitch by stitch.
Replacement @ Bangsar; the next generation hair dresser.
Unlike the usual hairdressers, in this saloon you have no mirror in front of you. Your faith and trust is put in the guy doing your hair. The only mirror you have is up on the ceiling where you can look once the haircut is done.
And of course there is Paradox Café, where they have salsa nights full of energy and people dancing around.
I ended up spending most of my night in the recreated Paradox Café. Watching everyone dance while sipping on my beer.
Along with these crazy people.
Shorty though was particularly amused by this art exhibit. A futuristically dressed woman in a glass booth, dancing.
It was amazing. It’s like being able to go to all these places all at once without really needing to. All I had to do was walk through another door and it felt like I was teleported over there.
In line with their theme to explore more of their cities Heineken now has these limited edition bottles with the names of some of the most metropolitan cities on them.
More importantly, if you want to step outside of your boundaries and explore more of your city to find new places to visit or eat or even get your hair cut, Heineken helps you out here on http://openyourcity.heineken.com and also on Twitter.
You can tweet your location to @wherenext, and it’ll recommend 5 hot spots around you that you can explore.
At the end of the night, I brought home this bottle.
KL after all… is now my city.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space