Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia's Capital
Trip Start
Apr 14, 2004
1
4
38
Trip End
Jun 14, 2006
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Thursday, May 6, 2004
We stayed in a great hotel called The Ascott that had a pool on the rooftop giving us an amazing view of the adjacent Petronas Towers (yes, the ones in that movie with Cathrine Zeta-Jones).
During the week we hit the KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Center) where Fashion week was going on. April watched a few fashion shows and we shopped in the mall. Malls here are a much more important part of the culture than at home. The mall was HUGE and we could barely walk from all the people. Surprisingly, finding April was quite easy whenever we separated! We swam laps in the pool and visited just about every area we wanted to see. The original intent was to find furniture here but.... no luck. We did find some fun areas. Bangsar is an area much like Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale with outdoor restaurants and great nightlife. April celebrated her birthday in KL so we went out for dinner to a nice Italian restaurant called L'Opera on Bintang Walk (another fun area of the city). At the restaurant we met the chef, an Italian named Luigi, and the host Julius. We spent an hour or so with them talking about our experiences in Malaysia. We followed Julius to a few fun nightspots including "Hemingway's" where we had a much-needed MOJITO and Julius shared some of his cultural views. It was a blast! On another night Darrell (another Motorolan here) and I left the party pooper wives at home and cruised around Bintang Walk. Between each bar we would be approached by taxi drivers who would say "Taxi?"... we would say no.. they would say "Ladies?"... we would chuckle and say no. I thought this place was going to be conservative!!
In addition to the city, we also visited Batu caves, a major Hindu holy place where they flock for Thaipusam.
Yes Sanjay the Indians still do that here. I was expecting larger deeper caves so we were let down to find there is one large cavern, which we hiked about 300 steps up to see.
Neat but not worth the 30 minute drive. KL would be an easy place to expat. There are many more westerners there. Darrell got invited to a basketball game his first day. It took him a week to find a game in Penang. The drive home was nice too. The mountains in Penang are beautiful and there are palm trees as far as the eye can see. KL was cool. We will definitely go back!
Our camera battery died so many of the photos were taken with my cell phone. Sorry!
