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KL Chinatown: We mistook Guan Di Temple as a restaurant

After our jaunt at KL’s Central Market the parents have become hungry and wants to eat. Our next item in the agenda is the other market nearby, Chinatown’s Petaling Street Market, so I suggested that we go there to find a restaurant. I am hoping to at least find an ‘interesting’ place worthy to blog about, hehe.

We have already walked towards Chinatown which is not really far from Central Market, just a stone’s throw away, but if you have been following my travels with my parents in Asia by now, you know that a 500-metre walk can already be very tiresome for my mobility-challenged mother. Let alone the hour she spent at the Central Market browsing all the jewellery shops while I am stuffing my face with fruits rojak. That adds up.

What are the chances of this being a temple or a restaurant?

So yes, we are desperate to find a restaurant! Then we saw this big sign in Roman alphabet on the side of this red building saying BIG MOUTH. I was not able to take a picture of this sign though. So naturally we gravitated to the big sign because when you are hungry you just cannot put logic to reason, you tend to hallucinate for food, or in the case of my mother, a place to sit down.

BIG MOUTH? Big and mouth? Sounds like a place to eat. This must be a restaurant, we all thought. 

I also remember back in Manila of a restaurant called similar, big mouth or something with mouth on the name. Additionally, many Chinese restaurants have red temple-like buildings so what are the chances? I do not really mind at all going Chinese for lunch.

Turns out it is indeed a temple. LOL.

Then we saw this smaller sign on a passageway leading to god knows where beside the temple. Aha, this must be the Big Mouth restaurant or whatever that is because it says, ‘fish head’ and ‘inside with air-cond’. It is somewhere in this passageway and not the temple beside it. OK, now we got it.

I don’t know with my parents but I felt so silly for having mistaken the temple as a restaurant. I am mortified, haha! But this temple is a beautiful one so I am glad we detoured here as I very much enjoyed our visit. Have a look below…

Guan Di (God of War) Temple
TripAdvisor: Guan Di Temple

Guan Di is the Taoist God of War and the temple was built in 1888 on Jalan Tun H.S. Lee No.168, Kuala Lumpur (in Chinatown).

The parents entering the building only to find out it was a temple. When you are hungry you just think of food. And when there is smoke, there must be someone cooking? Food? As for me, I was busy taking pictures around the area I did not even notice we stepped inside a temple until I saw the buddha and the lantern-style incense.

Like lanterns, hanging coils of spiral incense at the Guan Di Temple. So ethereally exotic and mystical. 

When you are visiting KL Central Market or Chinatown, drop by at this impressive Taoist temple. Everyone is free to come and go. Just make sure you show respect, as it is with all religious places of worship.

Travel Period: August 2013
Destination: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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