Unexpected

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Malaysia from the air is so green, it is just all jungle, really nice. The airport was so nice, clean and spacious and modern. There were people movers, I haven't seen those in quite a while. We took a express train from the airport to the city, it took a half hour and we were both impressed by what we saw. It is so different here from the rest of SE Asia, not what either of us expect. Cook said she expected something more "exotic", which, when pressed, apparently means mud hut on the beach. Well Kuala Lumpur is definately not that. I knew they had set a goal for being an industrialized nation by 2020 but I didn't expect everything to be so modern and wealthy. They are definately a consumer culture here, not only is the number of malls staggering but so is the number of fast food joints. Their aspiration to be a country more like our own is evidenced by the number of overweight people we have seen here. Malaysia is a blend of many different types of people to begin with, but there are far more heavy people than we have seen since, well America. Not trying to harp on this, pot calling the kettle black and all, it is just thathaving not seen it for so long it has been a shock.

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I am glad that I like Malaysia, I now can definately name my unborn, unconcieved, daughter Malaysia with no qualms. After we checked into our unusaul... um room? welllets put it this way, we only stayed the one night. I napped (passed out is more like it) then we went out to check out the neighborhood. Went into a really cool card/knick knack store, we had a blast. They had a huge Christmas display and so did the next similar store we went into. Then walked to Petaling Street in China Town where they have the night market.We were both amazed because up till that point nobody had yelled at us in an attemptto get our business, well that feeling was quickly shattered. Petaling street is a mad crush of people and vendors, there is barely enough room to walk. If you want "designer" goods this is the place, Christina you would love it. It is also the ideal place to buy unrealesed movies and tons of music. Oh ya, and watches, more watches then wrists really, everybody there could buy two and there would still be more left over. Everybody has pretty much the same stuff and yet when you reach the middle they still try to sell it to you like they are the first ones to offer it up. Knowing that we could walk away from it and nothave more hawked at us made it great fun though, it really was wild. We went back to our room and drifted off to the sweet smells of gasoline and exhuast, which were, incidently, the same aromas which woke us the next morning.