{"id":1601,"date":"2012-09-20T04:18:44","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T04:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/?p=1601"},"modified":"2012-09-20T04:18:44","modified_gmt":"2012-09-20T04:18:44","slug":"the-section-17-neighborhood-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/?p=1601","title":{"rendered":"The Section 17 Neighborhood Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was born in Assunta Hospital, on Jalan 1, the first road ever built in Petaling Jaya. It goes by the name Jalan Templer these days. I lived in my grandparents’ house in Section 17, Petaling Jaya. One fine day I decided to ask my dad what happened to the park that he used to take us to as kids, and where was it?<\/p>\n


\nAs it turns out, the playground\/recreational park was in Section 17 itself, and it was still around!<\/p>\n


\nI remember very vaguely memories of this parking lot marking the entrance, getting there in my dad’s Datsun 120Y.<\/p>\n


\nThe steps to this place.<\/p>\n


\nThe road. Notice the MBPJ logo – Majlis Bandaraya Petaling Jaya, or Petaling Jaya City Council, effective 20th June 2006 when Petaling Jaya was granted city status.<\/p>\n


\nAn entrance that was now blocked off. I remember back in the early 90’s when you could leave your gate unlocked in Section 17 and crime wasn’t so rampant.<\/p>\n


\nUp on the hill was a signboard with the old MPPJ logo – Majlis Perbandaran Petaling Jaya, or Petaling Jaya Municipal Council.<\/p>\n


\nAs you entered, a common area lies, growing moss. Admittedly I have been digging up a bit on Malaysian history where it comes to buildings so this strikes me as something that might have been built when this park was built. I don’t know when that is, but Petaling Jaya was established in 1953, so it could’ve been anywhere from that point onwards.<\/p>\n

You can imagine kids just going apeshit running circles around this. Well, maybe 90’s kids.<\/p>\n


\nBehind it, more garbage bags with fallen leaves.<\/p>\n


\nTo its right, a basketball court, and a new playground up the hill.<\/p>\n


\nA bit further was a playground that had a bit of fresh paint.<\/p>\n


\nThe new playground up on the hill. I remember this type of playground back in Bangsar Sports Complex, in the 90’s. There is also one near my current residence.<\/p>\n


\nI seem to have regretfully forgotten to take a picture of the signboard, in case it would have any clues. Also note the benches. Classic!<\/p>\n


\nFrom on top of one of the many hills.<\/p>\n


\nSame basketball court.<\/p>\n


\nSome hut on top of a hill.<\/p>\n

But you know, I really didn’t care for all that back then. I think I was under the age of 10, and the playground didn’t excite me…<\/p>\n


\n…it was the laterite hills that really did.<\/p>\n


\nThe shape was the same, but the color was different. It was now covered in moderate vegetation and leaves, regretfully! I remember going apeshit, seeing the bright red laterite, climbing it with my bare hands!<\/p>\n


\nSome parts of it still show what originally was all orange.<\/p>\n


\nOn the right is some good ol’ laterite, a rich crust of rust due to the presence of iron oxides.<\/p>\n

When I asked my dad about this park from my childhood with the red rocks, he expertly identified it as laterite. Of course, I learnt that in Geography, many years ago, but quickly forgot. Perhaps it was his qualification as a chemical engineer that hardened it.<\/p>\n


\nI think I remember this rock from my childhood! What a beauty.<\/p>\n


\nThis is a peak I don’t remember going to, which overlooked the older playground. I don’t think stone walks were in fashion back then. I remember the craze back in the 90’s, and we’d go to Bandar Utama Park and abandon our slippers for some acupunctural goodness.<\/p>\n


\nThis is the view when you’re on top, looking over to the other end of the uh… mountain range.<\/p>\n


\nThis is the view from the front. Honestly not as appealing without its trademark rusted red.<\/p>\n


\nThis is the view from the other side of the park. For some reason, I never really journeyed here.<\/p>\n


\nRandom rocks. Exciting, like discovering kryptonite!<\/p>\n


\nA little rock that strayed.<\/p>\n

I don’t remember if there was also earth that was easy to chip, causing rocks to come off.<\/p>\n


\nHalfway up.<\/p>\n


\nMore of that rich red goodness.<\/p>\n


\nI’m not sure which angle this is from.<\/p>\n


\nA plainer looking view.<\/p>\n


\nOf course, there were huts in the distance. For some reason I never got excited about the cemented jogging path on the left, that made a circle around the park. In a way, this rock in the foreground, was what I remember to be my invisible bounds – nothing interesting beyond there!<\/p>\n

Today it might be a different story, as there were two chicks jogging the circuit. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n


\nThere was an electricity control box nearby, and there was an alternate entrance, guarded by… a cat!<\/p>\n


\nI got nice and close with the 1985 Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan. Intentionally, I went there with the oldest Minolta lenses I had – the 1987 Minolta 24-50mm F4 being the other. I left the 1985 Minolta 50mm F1.4 at home, though, thinking I could get by with Super SteadyShot since I wasn’t shooting moving subjects in twilight. To be pure I’d have used Fujifilm Velvia and a Minolta Dynax 7000 but I don’t have a Dynax 7000 and I wasn’t keen on using film so I brought the Sony Alpha 900 instead. It would’ve done good since I was shooting late into the evening where I had to use ISO1600 as both lenses were cutting off at F4.<\/p>\n


\nI then walked out Jalan 17\/33 and spotted this dramatic scene, in time for magic hour.<\/p>\n


\nThere was a torn-down house to the left.<\/p>\n


\nI went down the stairs to Jalan 17\/31.<\/p>\n


\nHowever, 17\/31 proved to be too modern for me so I headed back up the stairs and into nostalgia.<\/p>\n


\nYou know, I really don’t remember what this used to look like. This is the darn toll people keep avoiding by cutting through Section 17.<\/p>\n

I normally don’t like going to Petaling Jaya, as I attract lots of mosquitoes, and Petaling Jaya is just full of them. Especially Section 17.<\/p>\n

There is a reason why I went down nostalgia lane (or nostalgia park?) but I will blog about it soon, hopefully, when I am done collecting information on the subject. Unfortunately, not many pictures of that subject can be found, which is why I went down to Section 17 to document as much as I could about the park I loved as a kid!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was born in Assunta Hospital, on Jalan 1, the first road ever built in Petaling Jaya. It goes by the name Jalan Templer these days. I lived in my grandparents’ house in Section 17, Petaling Jaya. One fine day I decided to ask my dad what happened to the park that he used to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,21,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pictures","category-rants","category-travelling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glaringnotebook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}