Understand

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Founded only in 1954 as Malaysia's first planned town, PJ has become a busy commercial and residential hub in its own right with over 450,000 inhabitants. In the later years, further expansion to the north saw the rise of the posh Damansara area that gave birth to such housing estates as Bandar Utama, Kota Damansara, Damansara Perdana, Bandar Sri Damansara and Damansara Impian.

Addresses in PJ are remarkably bureaucratic. The town is divided into numbered sections (seksyen), which to further confuse things are denoted with just S (eastern PJ), SS (central and western), PJU (northern), and PJS (southern). SS is an acronym for Subang-Sungei Way. The northern chunk is also known as Damansara. Each road in a section is numbered, so an address like "No. 38, Jalan SS 21/58" means house 38, road 58, section SS21. There is no definitive form for a PJ address. Therefore the above example could well be written as 38 Road SS 21/58, 38 Jln SS 21/58 or simply as 38 SS 21/58. Most major roads developed during the 1960s are given names,e.g. Jalan Utara, Jalan Selangor, Jalan Kemajuan. Certain secondary roads, even those located at residential or industrial areas were also given names. For example, Jalan 8/8 in Section 8 is also known as Jalan Tengas, Jalan 13/1 is also known as Jalan Bersatu. In addition, the roads of PJ Old Town or Section One are simply named as Road 1, Road 2 etc. As for the predominantly industrial Section 51A, the roads are named as Jalan 222, Jalan 225 etc.

The numbered sections are usually but not necessarily located adjacent to each other. For instance, Section 16 is adjacent to section 17 which is adjacent to Section 19. The 'missing' Section 18 is located way across the other side of town. Likewise, without a good map, it can be an onnerous exercise to locate PJ roads. For instance, Jalan 21/20 is adjacent to Jalan 21/18. However Jalan 21/1 is also adjacent to Jalan 21/18. In addition, residents within a local PJ community may sometimes choose to refer to their local roads simply by their numbers, and omitting the prefix such as SS altogether. For instance, in Damansara Jaya, residents often choose to refer to the road 'Jalan SS 22/39' as simply 'Road 39'.

Eat

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Eating is almost a national obsession with eateries available around the clock. Petaling Jaya is home to many restaurants and stalls serving all sorts of Asian and Western cuisine catering to almost all sorts of budgets.

Asian Food House, No. 38, Jalan SS 21/58, Damansara Utama. The sign unhelpfully proclaims that this restaurant specializes in "Asian food", but in reality it's mostly Taiwanese fare. The pork stew with rice (RM8.90) isn't bad.

Fatty Crab Restaurant, No. 2, Jalan SS 24/13, Taman Megah. It's been over 30 years since Uncle Fatty set up his shop, but their famed sweet, sour and spicy crab still continues to draw the crowds. Roll up your sleeves and dig in, and figure on RM30/head with a few side...