Kula Lumpar - Petronas Towers

Mon June 11 & Tues June 12

Our last few days in Lombok were low key. We rented the scooter for another day of galavanting. And spent our last day just lying on the beach and eating.  It was lovely and relaxing.  

View from our window

Wednesday June 13 morning  we caught a flight to mainland Malaysia, into the city of Kula Lampur.  At this point we finally had to accept that the size and weight of one of our bags has now moved it into the checked baggage category.  This was very hard for N, as you pay quite a bit to check bags.  We did so well for so long!  Nearly two months with only two carrying bags!  

We're in nicer hotel, although it is teeny tiny and looks like the Easter Bunny decorated it.  We can see one of the Pretrona Twin Towers just through the trees from our window.  

We are now into the last week of our time in Asia!  Naturally my body would assume this is the time to fall ill,  again! Thank God for N!  He takes such amazing care of me: goes out to find the food I that willl settle my stomach, finds a clean sock (no face clothes)  to dampen to cool my head, turns the A/C off and on about a thousand times in the night and also gets no sleep because I am up every hour.  I am so, SO grateful for him!

I'm very eager to get out and explore the city.  One of its main attractions is supposed to be the food, not sure how that is going to sit today maybe we will put our emphasis elsewhere for our first day and go all out the second. 

A sample of the hilarious decore and poor sicky N in bed 

Thursday June 13 2013 

Sadly, instead of my health improving N joined me on team bed rest. Poor guy is in rough shape.  We spent very little time outside our room yesterday and a lot of time admiring bathroom tiling.  

Feeling a bit better in the after noon I decided to brave the streets on my own, while N rest and recouped.  I felt a bit intimidated in such a big city at first but I managed to find my way to a major mall, of which there are many.  I  found a hair salon that looked decent.  I am trying to grow out my short hair and it is always an awkward phase.  I was pleased with the result.  

Friday June 14

We are both a bit better today so decided to push ourselves to see some of the things on our short list.  In truth just wandering around the city feels like enough for me.  This is just such an interesting place.  

We were headed to Starbucks for breakfast but passed a little cafe called The Loaf. We were lure in by the amazing smell.  I don't know if its just been a long time since we had real breads but I'm pretty sure these were some of the best pastries I may have ever had.  My latte was also worth bragging about.  The chocolate pistachio croissant literally melted in my mouth, and all over my face.    (That may have had something to do with temp being well over 30).   I picked up this random little thing that I thought was a cranberry scone but turned out to be extremely moist and filled with a cream-cheesy kind of custard.  It took me about twenty minutes to finish because I just never wanted it to end.  It was so delicious!

Downtown KL feels a lot like Manhattan, NY.  It is all glamour!  There are designer shops on every corner.  The whole downtown area is just one mall bumping into another mall.  Some places we have travelled my camera is always horizontal.  All the shots are landscapes: beaches, fields, winding roads.  In cities like KL and NY it's always portrait mode.  The camera in in a constant vertical state to capture the colossal giants that adorn the streets.  It's not all posh, the city still has its own very authentic, unique flavour.  It's a really neat place to just amble around and window shop (since I'm not in the market for Louis Vuitton luggage).  They do have lots of my favourite stores from home too but I find it depressing to try on clothes when the other women shopping are too small for the xs!

The mix of people in KL is also fascinating to observe.  The local people are a cross section of mainly Malay, Indian and Chinese.  There are many visible Muslim's: women in bright patterned hijabs (head scarves) fastened with glitzy jewelled broaches and quite a few full burkas.  You see many badly dressed Caucasians (I assume mainly tourists) as well as those who appear to be doing business here in suits.   I think there is a significant expat community in KL as well.  Some people dressed extremely well in designer clothes or just fashionably trendy but not high end with cutting edge haircuts.  It's a really diverse metropolis.  I enjoy the vibe of the city.  It's the kind of place where it seems like no one really blends in so you don't feel like you stick out so badly.  

We headed to the Bird Park, which is the largest in the world.  I took two photos and the camera battery promptly died.  Charging it apparently got overlooked in our delirium yesterday.  We wandered around trying to find somewhere to sell us a cheap one with no luck (it's a stupid $80 specialty battery) so we headed back to the hotel to charge it.  

After some lunch the battery was finally charged so we headed back to the Bird Park.  

It may be because I watched Free Willy too many times as a kid...but I really hated this place.  The park aspect is lovely.  The exotic birds in cramped cages next to blaring low heavy bass music and the peacocks missing all their tail feathers was extremely distressing.  Places like this make me like people a little less.  And also hate children a lot.  In my opinion if parents don't prevent their children from tormenting innocent creatures then there should be nothing preventing strangers from smacking evil children!  Obviously I would never hit kid but man there were some parents in that park I seriously wanted to punch in the face. Clearly,I have a high tolerance for the abuse of nature...I am now committed to stop visiting these type of places.  It's more of a necessity thing, before I end up in a foreign prison somewhere.  

I do love taking photos of birds though so that was a redeeming factor.  And I love flamingos...and I especially love when those hilariously awkward birds fly.  

Mandarin Ducks...little cuties kept splashing around and wouldn't hold still long enough to get very good pics of them.  The pond was filled with coy fish as well, you can see them in the water.  

Hornbill

In the afternoon we got up close to Petronas Twin Towers.  They are quite impressive.  There is a shopping mall between them.  We got some frozen yogurt and dinner while we waited for dark.  The towers look even cooler all lit up at night.  

 

Yea for selfies on the iPad!

 

As always, photos don't do it justice

Tomorrow at 2pm we fly off to Tokyo for a few days.  This is the last lag of our journey before returning to Canada!