It’s no secret that I was in the Oil City of Sarawak last week. Spent four days in the city known as Miri with another seven in the team which was representing the school in the Sarawak Finals of the National Robotics Competition 2012.
Before anyone says I’m going ‘sakai’ over this city in my coming description, let me please advise you that this is my first proper visit to the city, although booking a flight down to Miri is easy, like when you reserve your Hong Kong flights with Dial A Flight services.
Previously, it was merely air travel transits at the Miri Airport. If you are in anyway not looking forward to a long post, then here’s my summary of Miri – “It’s like Kuching and KK, but something in between“.
For those of you willing to read on, here’s more. You know how we love Kuching for being ‘relaxed’ and homely? Well, Miri seems to offer that with major roads looking less hectic and less jammed up with traffic.
There are major brands and malls which could equate tHe Spring Mall, and like Kuching, it isn’t packed up to the extend you’d have to queue to order. Bintang Megamall was however a huge maze for me =(
Moving around the city by foot is easy as many famous destinations are easy to locate and nearby with everything practically ‘just around the corner’.
If day time in Miri was like Kuching in a lot of ways, the night life resembles a ‘mini KK’. Bars and pubs started to light up by 6PM, and live band shows start to entertain a little after 10PM. The road stretch of the hotel I was staying in for this trip had some of Miri’s best night spots as I was told by Joe and Eileen (Two Miri Sarawak Bloggers members)
They also commented that this particular stretch is slowly turning into a ‘food-entertainment joint’ for the young adults with another area which has a bar called Cherry Berry pulls in the younger crowd.
They told me this while I was having my first bite of the famous ‘Pork burger’ at Ming Cafe. Not far from Ming Cafe was this restaurant called ‘Muara’ which described itself as the founder of ‘Lalapan’, a local Miri dish which somewhat has made me fall in love with the city even more.
Last but not least, the saying goes that a road trip can only be as good as the company, and the company I had for this trip, the 6 kids I had for the past six days or so were a fantastic bunch. I bet, by the end of the trip, they’d be regretting having a me as their so called ‘guide’ cause i kept saying ‘Awak belum cukup umur lagi’ when they requested to see the live band performances in the nearby bars.
There’s more to my trip, but my first visit to Miri was awesome, despite it being a working trip. With that said, I’ll return dear Oil City.
Miri is ‘Meriah’ as one of my ‘kids’ would put it =P
