The Third Floor Cafe

Big books. And good coffee. On a Sunday afternoon. Sounds like a perfect way to end the week.

That was what I had earlier today when I ventured to Isetan at Lot 10 as I got a spare couple of hours. The initial plan was to see a 3D printing demonstration but I realised that the timing was not right. I had to be back home before the program started. So, the hour sipping coffee and browsing books at the third floor at the Isetan store sounded fine to me.

Just in case you were so enamoured and wanted to go to Japan straight away, there was also a travel agent on the same floor

It was rather difficult to term the place. Was it a cafe with books, or a cafe at a bookstore. Seemed like most people were doing a bit of both. The coffee was OK, not the best in town, but the books there were something else especially when you venture towards the travel books section. Great material, in heavy minded volumes. The books on urban landscapes and street photography definitely tickled my fancy as lately I found those to be the kind of photography I like - or more like the only photography my schedule allowed me to do plenty of.

I decided against buying the books as I had to trek back to another store where I parked my car and I had a couple of stops in between. Maybe I would come back to buy some books. It would complement the volume I had in my living room nicely.

The cafe counter

Typical Japanese. Everything were laid over neatly ...

Apart from the cafe and books, the third floor were also dedicated to workshops for origami as well as all things Japanese. Take that day for instance, there was a Japanese artist who came to do a demo on 3D glass printing. There were more activities laid out for the rest of the year - which you had to enrol and pay for of course. I might just bring Idlan there one of these days if the event was right ... he loved origami.

Lot 10 hosted - and still hosts - the first Isetan Store in Malaysia. There were a few others now but the one in Lot 10 had been renovated into what was termed a “Japanese Concept Store”. It had ample space with plenty of room to browse around. There were no items cluttering the walkways and it did not have the typical “pushy” salesperson common in KL. You can just walk around without being bothered. Definitely a place worth visiting ....

Low Yat Look

Since I had some free time last Sunday, I walked - with the camera - towards Low Yat, enjoying the gorgeous weather. The MWC at Barcelona last weekend came with plenty of announcement - the HTC M9 and the Samsung S6 Edge to name a couple. I was keen to see if there had been any discounts going on at the plaza with the impending release.

No such luck. Business as usual from the look of things. I had a good look around at some cases for the iPad but nothing took my fancy. I was thinking of upgrading my 2 year-old Nexus 7, but the recent Lollipop update gave a new life to the ageing device. Although the battery life suffered big time, the new upgrade offered plenty of new excitement, especially in the notification department. The system also felt snappier than before.

And to be honest, the 7-inch Android tablet market had not been exciting for a while now, and certainly not after the release of Nexus 6, and the announcement that Google was not planning to replace the Nexus 7.The next up would be the Nexus 9, which personally felt to big. Samsung had a couple of offerings, but not much of an upgrade to my current tablet.

Frankly speaking, nothing much to see really. Maybe the next month would be interesting with the release of a host of new devices.