Istana Negara Jalan Istana

School holiday was around the corner and this mother, again, was busy planning some activities to occupy the kids.  A few other parents from the parenting forum that I joined recommended to visit the old palace.  Sounds interesting!  A sneak peak for the outside world to how lavish our King lives.


Surrounded by a beautiful park, Istana Negara, was the official residence of the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong.  A new palace has been built, so this old one was opened to the public on 1st February 2013 for viewing.

The front gate

The guard house has been converted into a ticketing counter. Fees for Malaysian is as shown below:-

A long walk before we reached the palace building.

Front view of the palace

The museum consists of 2 buildings, the palace gallery and the Balairung Seri.  Visitors are only allowed to take pictures at the Balairung Seri. 

We had a glimpse of the conference rooms, dining areas, royal bedrooms, bathroom and even a laundry and dentist room.  Seeing the main royal bedroom, Andrew says that is how he imagines his dream bedroom to be.  Accessibility to most of the rooms are limited to the entrance only.  We had to extend our necks into the rooms to get a proper view (felt like an ostrich).  Though there were some information on the plaques, but it was extremely brief. The lack of information was rather disappointing.  But there are a lot of photos and captions to read along the corridors.  There is also a video room which played the installation of the fifth King of Malaysia.

Replica of the King's and Queen's throne

It only took us around 30 minutes for the entire tour.  Once again, daddy acted as the tour guide the entire visit.  Although mommy did the planning, looks like daddy needs to equip himself with better knowledge each time we visit a museum.

Parenting is never an easy task!!!  :p