Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
29 December 2025 - 02 January 2026
The 5,843 days between the last
time that I’d celebrated New Year’s Eve at the Traders Hotel in Kuala Lumpur,
to now returning to enjoy a second experience, had seen my life transition in
express fashion, through a variety of phases. This period of my life had
certainly been coloured by a vast amount of change, from getting married at (day
2708), to starting a family (day 3343), to moving to a new city and country (day
1992) , and also, the ache of having loved ones pass away (day 1718 & day 1759).
The rate of change had for me been unparalleled. Within those 5,843 days, day 1
of the commencement of this cycle was an evening spent with my great friend,
Jet Frichot.
Back towards the end of 2009, we
had spent a week or two travelling Vietnam, predominantly Hanoi & Da Nang, and at its conclusion we were on our way back
home to Sydney via an end-of-year stop in KL. This stop was meant to serve both
as punctuation mark for the year being finalised and also set of ellipses for
the year ahead.
The New Year celebration of
2009–10 was spent at the Skybar of the Traders Hotel in KLCC, a prime location
whose vantage point to the Petronas Towers was the best you could get in the
city. With that said, not knowing exactly where the fireworks display would
take place, our best judgment and intuition indicated that the Petronas Towers,
an iconic symbol of Malaysia, would more than likely serve as the backdrop for
the celebratory psychedelics… and, of course, we were right > https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=apZcYaHSerw.
It’s amazing to me that still
after 15 years, this video is available on YouTube.
In that time and space, I could
have never imagined that at some point I’d be returning to the same location to
celebrate a New Year’s Eve with my wife and my son, although… and I say this
truthfully, there have been many times in situations such as this, where in the
midst of the post-celebration lull, that my mind has projected forward in my
loneliness-inspired introspection and I lived in the hopeful thought, that maybe
one day I’ll do this with my wife and kid(s). In all honesty, I can’t say that
at some point after 1:00 a.m. on New Year's Day, 2010, I didn’t think that—it
was only 5,842 days ago.
Arriving at the Traders Hotel
after a long drive from Ipoh, there was a small sense of completing a full
circle, and also a sense of amazement that somewhere in time, within this common
space, the same person would experience
an event framed by a structure, but that my internal energy was now resonating
significantly differently. And yet, across that chasm of time there may very
well have been a connection. One version of me reflecting on another time, remembering
a feeling of melancholy in a time of celebration, and the other reaching
forward hopefully for something better and more fulfilling. Standing here at
what was now day 0, I can fully recognise what I was longing for.
For this stay I had booked a Twin
Towers View Suite—a wonderful room that had stunning views to the Petronas
Towers from both the living room and the bedroom. Additionally, the room also
provided us with access to the Traders Club Lounge on level 32, which is such a
blessing when it comes to sundowner cocktails and the chance to do bottomless
drinks at happy hours. Let me say, we had consecutive nights of happiness from
the 30th to the 1st of January, inclusive.
In the two full days that we had
prior to the New Year celebrations, we didn’t really move further than what the
internal lift system would allow, which means that we pretty much travelled
almost exclusively vertically—from the buffet breakfast on level 5, to our room
on level 23, to the Skybar on level 33, or to the gym or to the spa. Add to
that two separate experiences at the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur, which is a vast,
upscale mall, approximately a 15-minute walk from the front door of the
Traders, and there you have it—our collective KLCC experience for the last few
days of 2025. Even so, our time there was more than satisfying.
What we came for was really the
view to the Petronas Towers, which are icons of Malaysia and absolutely
spectacular structures. Both by day and night, these buildings stand proudly in
the heart of Kuala Lumpur, architecturally significant, magnificent in design
and visual appeal, and true KL identifiers. I can’t really say if they are
underrated structures, but when the sun goes down, their brilliance is on
display for all to see. Sitting in front of these structures in the confines of
a hotel room allows you the time to appreciate and ‘bask in their gravitas’,
and also just reflect generally. Those moments of peaceful contemplation were
priceless.
5,844 days from when I
last celebrated New Year’s Eve in this building, I sat on the windowsill of the
Twin Towers View Suite with my wife and son. The darkness of our room
overwhelmed by the vibrancy, and nearly dystopian, cyberpunk-type view in front
of us. The city hum of early evening, and the low electric haze glowing off the
layers of concrete and glass, giving way to the increasing energy being created
by the crowd below. Screens, lights, neon, horns, building facades—all
constructed in front of us in what could look like a wide glass picture frame.
Here I was, 5,844 days later, these same eyes looking at the city below,
welcoming in the year 2026, and occasionally flicking my mind back to how I
welcomed in 2010. Sixteen years tethered by a single thought.
Counting down to the final seconds,
and then in a moment, there we were—a new year in its infancy. No longer really
thinking of what I need and what I want my world to be but now thinking of how
I want to be able to shape the world for my son.
As the first morning of 2026 grew
older, we ventured out for a small stroll to make sense of it all. It was New
Year’s Day of course, and there’s always a vibe to that, albeit relatively low
key. For all the New Year’s Eve’s that I’ve survived, and consequential New
Years Day’s thereafter, this was a good one.
This day, the first of 2026, was
going to be our last full day in Kuala Lumpur, and in fact Malaysia. The next
day, we were scheduled to depart at 08:30 for Colombo in Sri Lanka—a new
country on the horizon for all of us: No. 12 for Aiden, No. 61 for Inga, and
No. 74 for me.
