Day 5 – KL

My first full day in Malaysia. The alarm went off at 6, as I’d been told that I needed to be at Petronas by 8 to get the free tickets for the skybridge (which is only at the 41^st floor and the buildings are 88 stories). I hit snooze. I reset the alarm. Hit snooze some more. Reset the alarm again. Decided that I’d go on Thursday. I finally did get up and had a complimentary breakfast buffet in the hotel restaurant – I had pancakes and then a garden salad. LOL. So, what to do now that Petronas is out? Not a clue, so decided to walk over to the Malaysian Tourism Office, which is actually not that far from Petronas. The tourism office seemed to be more for tours/traveling in other parts of the country and not really too much about KL in and of itself. But they had computers with free internet access! So I caught up on e-mail. There’s a limit of 20 minutes and while the computer doesn’t shut off after that point in time and no one was waiting – indeed, no one by then was on any other computer – I didn’t want to abuse the privilege so I signed off and left.

As I was quite close to Petronas at this point, I figured I might as well walk on over. At the very least, there’s a 6-story shopping mall inside the complex, so I could look for souvenirs. Ah-ha! There are still tickets left at 10:00!! My ticket is for 4:15. Ok. What do I do with myself for 6 hours? I headed outside as there is a beautiful park as part of the complex. There was a nice breeze, so not too bad I thought. Wrong! It was still HOT and HUMID, just with a breeze. I took pictures of the towers, but the park itself was pretty much just green. No interesting flowers and the better views of it are from the skybridge. So, back inside I went and I walked the mall. Again and again and again. Went in many shops. Bought almost nothing. Hung out in the book store for a while until I nearly fell asleep, so headed to Starbucks for a pick-me-up. A major downside to today’s world economy is that the shops are all mostly the ones we have at home and the ones that have a different name, really didn’t have any product that was different. I saw: L’Oreal, The Body Shop, Crabtree & Evelyn, Guess Kids, Marks & Spencer, Max Mara, Chanel, Hugo Boss……….. Did buy some water in the grocery store – Cold Storage. Isn’t that a neat name for a grocery store? I think so. Much better than Piggly Wiggly. I also bought a canvas bag in the store and used that to put my purse and packages in. Very convenient. Though when I went back later in the day to stock up on water (and diet coke), the cashier went to put my purchases in a plastic bag – I had the canvas one from the store sitting RIGHT THERE on the counter. Guess recycling is catching on slow here.

Finally, it was time to head down for my assigned time for the skybridge. There’s an interesting exhibit in the waiting area about the construction of the towers – they are currently the second highest buildings in the world and the highest twin towers. Once I joined the tour, we had to sit through a movie which was basically propaganda for Petronas Oil. Met up with a woman from Canada who was on her own and she’s an environmentalist, so she said she was gagging through the presentation. She’s been in Southeast Asia for several months (though had just arrived in KL) and is hoping to go to China - though at the moment they’re only issuing visas to their own citizens (at least in Malaysia, as she heard she could get one in Bangkok). It was nice to have met up with her, as we took pictures of each other on the skybridge. Found a thimble in the gift shop!

As this is a predominantly Muslim country, I had the opportunity to observe many head coverings (only saw a handful of women in the full, black outfit with just the slit for the eyes). While I may not agree with the conservatism that keeps these on women’s heads, what a fashion accessory! Some of them are absolutely beautiful and are matched to the outfit. Many are held on by elaborate pins, so that adds to the accessorizing! There are two things that I have a problem with, though: first, wearing a skimpy tight shirt and tight jeans with your boy friend’s hand high on your thigh while wearing a head covering – isn’t that just a LITTLE hypocritical? And second, the husband (one assumes that’s who he was) being so conservative that the wife has to wear the full garment with just the eye slots, yet HE is wearing jeans & a short-sleeved t-shirt (in other words, WESTERN clothing) and holding his wife’s hand (which I thought was a no-no in super conservative circles, but perhaps not). Boggles my mind. Oh well. There’s a reason I’m just visiting here and it’s something that I can’t change. (hope I didn't offend anyone)

One thing you definitely have to watch out for here in KL is the scooters! They are everywhere! Weaving through traffic, riding along the sidewalks (though not too often), parked all over the place (esp. in the evening), and zooming up to the front of traffic at a stop light. Oh, the KL police are just as effective as directing traffic here as at home……the light would turn, but they’d have the traffic with the red light moving, for no apparent reason.

Still need to decide what will be on the agenda for tomorrow, besides figuring out how to get to the airport. Enjoy the few pictures from today.

KL Pictures – Wednesday