Asia at Last

Jalan Petaling. Street we stayed on.

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Kuala Lumpur.  I  must admit I was a little scared getting of the plane and started our journed through Asia.  We grabbed our bags and booked a taxi.  The airport taxis are pretty expensive but really nice.  It drove us into the city going roughly 30 over the limit the entire time.  Malaysian roads look nice.  Nothing run down like people might expect.  We stayed in Chinatown which is a little dirty but really lively.  Our hotel room was clean but had no windows.  The street we stayed on has a crazy full blown night market every night where they shut down the street and sell knock off products.  It was an adventure finding the hotel for the first time.

We spent our first day in KL touring the gardens.  It was super hot and humid.  We ate for our first meal.. Macdonald's.. ok Im sorry... it was a little scary.  On the way there we had to cross the river and we saw a giant lizard/fish swimming in the water.  It gave me the creeps.  It must have been over 5 feet long. The gardens had a few attractions.  We went to a museum on the history of Malaysia.. only 51 years old.. and then to a butterfly park.  I never knew I was scared of butterflies.. it was kind of sad to see us running from hundreds of them... Some were as big as birds.  From there we walked to the national monument and then took a taxi back to the hotel.

There are 2 things I am afraid of in Asia.  The food and the toilets.  I have still not used an asia toilet.. commonly known as "a hole" :).. actually a squatter.  We ate our first street vendor food and it was amazing.  Mom, I know we arent supposed to.. but everyone does.. geez.  Ha.  I wasted money in the night market and then we crashed.  It is weird having a room without a window.. you have no idea what time it is at all.

The next day we went into the Golden Triangle.. the upscale business district which is home to the famous twin towers (no, not those ones).  We took the train and ended up this huge shopping center that is below the towers.  It was really expensive and to be honest, way better than west ed.  It is huge.  We looked around, ate, and went to the bridge that connects the two towers.  Unfortunately it was absolutely POURING rain when we got up there.  You could see about 5 feet out.  Oh well.  The tower gets hit with lightning all the time and you could hear the bzzz every time it happened. 

We spent the rest of the day napping and touring the markets where we ate a delicious dinner on the side of the road... satay.  Including beer, which is expensive here as it is a muslim country the dinner cost roughly 10 dollars total.. not bad.  In the middle of eating, stalls full of fruit began being pushed by people down the street.. some of them running.  The radios that everyone has started squawking .. then came the police.  Apparently this road was not supposed to be closed for traffic..but the shops move out more and more each day until they get busted again and the cycle continues.  The police took everything they deemed to be too far into the road which included piles of watches and even 2 chairs and a table from our restaurant.  They had to move our table inside but it was fine.

Next we move up north to Penang where Carol, my mom's friend from work has a condo.  We are taking a bus which should be fun.