Hello Malaysia!

It's been a week, and I'm still in Kuala Lumpur.  It's impossible to leave this place.  Every time I think about leaving, I realize that there are still a million things that I want to do here.  In Nepal, I got used to moving slowly through each day and generally being lazy about life.  There wasn't much to do in Nepal, aside from relaxing and watching the grass grow (which, let me just say, is a very important thing to do sometimes).  Malaysia is much more fast paced.  I'm in a CITY now.  There are lists of things to do and see, and the busy people on the street make you feel like you should also be in a rush to get somewhere.  Unfortunately, I don't do well at rushing.  In general, I like to move slowly.  I've realized that this is part of who I am, and I'm fine with that. 

This is Mac.  He works at the hostel that I'm staying at and has become a good friend of mine.  According to Mac, tourists usually stay in Kuala Lumpur for 2 or 3 days, and then they move on.  After I'd been at the hostel for 5 days, Mac was like "why are you still here?"  But, I swear, I am moving on very soon.  Tomorrow, I'll be on a bus northward, slowly making my way to Thailand.

This is Ben.  He's from England, but he's been living in Thailand for the past year teaching English.  He's on vacation from school and came to Kuala Lumpur for his holiday.  We've been hanging out for the past few days and going to the sights around the city.

Naturally, the first thing we did in Kuala Lumpur was go to one of the giant shopping malls.  Kuala Lumpur is half shopping malls and half jungle.  Of course, the first shopping mall we walked into was 11 stories high and had an amusement park inside.  The Lonely Planet travel guide describes this mall as "lacking the pizazz of KL's other shopping malls."  We went into the park, rode a few roller coasters, and hung out with Frankenstein.  I'm sort of embarrassed to say it, but we spent my whole first day in KL at the amusement park.

This is a flower that attacked me at the amusement park.

The next day, we went to Menara KL (or KL Tower).  Of course, you see jungle in the foreground of this picture.  KL is the biggest city in Malaysia with 421 meter towers and 1.6 million people, but there is still jungle everywhere you look.  What a crazy (and beautiful!) city.

This is the view of the city from the tower.  When you're up there, you get a tape player that explains what there is to do in the city and shows you where things are.  It was definitely a good thing to do on your first day in KL.

After visiting the KL tower, we walked through the jungle to get to the Petronas towers.  I think it's hilarious that you have to walk through the jungle to get anywhere in KL.  I thought that Nepal had jungle, but Malaysia's jungle is something much more serious.  The city is this crazy mix of concrete and thick plant life that ends up being a beautiful piece of high-tech chaos.

These are the Petronas Towers, which are linked by a sky bridge on the 42nd floor.  They are the highest twin towers in the world.  The Malaysians are very proud of these towers, and they are basically the symbol of KL.

The Petronas Towers are just one example of the amazing architecture found in Kuala Lumpur.  The city is an interesting mix of little old temples and new and impressive skyscrapers.  Just by walking through the city, you can see how Islamic architecture has developed over the years.

Next to the Petronas Towers, there is an aquarium.  I haven't been to an aquarium in ages, so I was super excited to check this one out.  I don't think I've ever seen so many silly looking fish in one place!  Even better, they had snakes and bugs and alligators and otters!  This is me in the otter pool (though the otters were too quick to catch on camera).

This is Ben in the big fish tunnel thing.  It was pretty cool - they had lots of huge sharks and turtles along with all of your regular fish.  They also had a moving walkway, so you could just hang out and watch the sharks swim around you. 

The other really good thing about the aquarium was that it's inside.  Right now, Malaysia is HOT.  I don't think I could survive if I couldn't cool down in an air conditioned at least once per day.  I really wonder how Malaysians manage to do exercise and such.

There was a "fish doctor" attached to the aquarium, which is where you stick your feet into a pool and fish come to eat the dead skin off your feet.  They're really little fish, so it doesn't hurt.  It does, however, tickle A LOT!  We sat around for a half hour laughing like mad.

This is Ben relaxing at the fish doctor.  They had a huge TV where they played a relaxing visualizer, and lying back to watch the visualizer helped to forget about how much the fish tickled your feet.

The next day, we went to the KL Bird Park, which is the biggest walk-in aviary in the world.  We spent the whole day there, and it was amazing.  I knew that these types of birds existed, but I never thought that I'd ever be so close to them.  Like you can see in this picture, we were just walking down the path when two peacocks started doing their whole mating routine about 5 feet away from us.

 We saw a lot of birds at the birdpark, but this was by far the coolest.  I would describe him as a mix between a peacock, turkey, and yak.  I forget what his actual name is supposed to be, though.

I'm adding this picture just because I feel like there is a lack of monkey photos on my blog.  Both Nepal and Malaysia have lots of monkeys everywhere, and I just want to recognize that they are not adequately represented in my blog.

 After leaving the bird park, we had to (again) walk through the jungle to get home.  This is the Lake Gardens park in the center of the city.  KL is pretty serious about their parks.

 In the Lake Gardens, there are many playgrounds for kids.  This is me in one of them.  I wish that I had such a playground when I was little.  It's like heaven!  It was so big that it was sectioned into different parts.  My favorites were Dinosaur Land and Fantasy Land.

 On the walk home, we passed through Merdeka Square.  There is a huge cricket field here, along with some nice fountains and such.  People like to hang out here, and I heard that they sometimes hold big events here (like on New Years Eve).

The next day, we went to a big flea market inside a shopping mall.  It was really funny to see people selling all these old antique things in stalls right outside of trendy clothes shops.

I also walked around town and learned about a lot of new fruit that I didn't know existed.  This is rambutan, which (I think) means "hair" in malay.  It looks funny from the outside, but it tastes wonderful on the inside.  When you open it up, it's squishy, white, and sweet.



And that's Kuala Lumpur!  If I had to pick a city to live in, KL would definitely make it high on the list.  I had a great time here, and it's hard to convince myself to move on.  Tomorrow, I'll be catching a bus to Ipoh, which is a smaller town about two hours north from here.  From Ipoh, I'll head up to the Cameroon Highlands, which are rumored to have strawberries, butterflies, and tea.  Get excited!