The show is over…

Yes, the show is over and the cinemas…

…stand, looking somewhat sad and desolate today, as bleak reminders of the glory days gone by.

In my growing up years, long before there was television, our much-looked-forward-to form of entertainment was a movie at one of the cinemas in town. We had three in the town centre, the Rex Cinema and the Palace Theatre and the Lido that was burnt down and now turned into a hotel…

*Archive photo*

…and then the Cathay Cinema came along, later to become the Star Cineplex but it has closed down quite recently. The King’s Cinema was opened even later and despite having been in a fire a couple of times, it is the only one that is still going strong except that it is now what they call a trioplex by virtue of the fact that it is a cineplex with three halls showing different movies simultaneously.

Going to a movie these days can be very expensive, over RM10.00 a ticket compared to 50 cents in the front seats during the good old days and RM1.00 for 1st class and RM1.50 for the reserved seats, usually upstairs. I had my share of the sword and sandal movies, the westerns, the Shaw Brothers’ productions and so on and so forth, even the Malay and the Hindi ones.

The Zenith Mint at the Rejang Park commercial centre here (in the first photograph above) was one of the cinemas outside the town centre along with the Rejang Cinema at the Sungai Merah Bazaar. It made its appearance much later and I do recall seeing some very nice movies here including Fame and Voices, just to name two. I don’t know what they have upstairs these days but at the ground floor, you will find all kinds of shops and no less than four coffee shops including this one, this one, this one and this one…

I heard from my paternal aunt and cousins that the noodles here were quite nice so we decided to drop by that day to give it a try.

I had the Foochow fried noodles (RM3.50)…

…which I thought was all right – I do prefer some elsewhere but they certainly were very generous with the meat…

…and the green vegetables.

I had some very nice fried kway teow at this coffee shop in that same building but I would say that the one my missus had (RM3.50)…

…was just as nice or maybe, even nicer…and the serving was so big that I had to help her to finish all of it…

I loved the wok hei fragrance and also the pleasant taste of the chives.

The kopi-o-peng (iced black coffee) here was all right, good enough for me and at RM1.50 a glass, it is much cheaper than a lot of other places in town. I certainly would not mind dropping by here again should I happen to be in the vicinity and no prize for guessing what I would be ordering…