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Published: April 26th 2010
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The Blue Mosque
Holds as many as 24,000 worshippers and has the highest minarets in the world at 470 feet. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to see it any closer. After a nice 2-days at sea, we arrived in Port Klang, the port for Kuala Lumpur about 8:00am this morning. We decided to use our last ½ day Cruise Specialists car today. Our guide picked us up about 9:00 at the pier and off we went to Kuala Lumpur, commonly known as KL, about 25 miles away.
Kuala Lumpur, translated as “muddy confluence,” muddy estuary,” and “muddy city; is the capital and largest city in Malaysia. The city proper, had an estimated population of 1.6 million in 2006. Greater Kuala Lumpur, known as the Klang Valley, has about 7.2 million. Kuala Lumpur has its origins in the 1850’s, when the Malay Chief of Klang hired Chinese laborers to open new and larger tin mines.
During WWII, Kuala Lumpur was captured by the Japanese army in January, 1942. It remained the capital through the formation of Malaysia in 1963. In 1969, one of the worst race riots in Malaysia took place in Kuala Lumpur between the Malays and the Chinese. It gained city status in 1972. In February, 1974 Kuala Lumpur became a Federal Territory. It ceased to be the capital of Selangor in 1978 after the city of Shah
The War Memorial
Our second stop. Alam was declared as the new state capital. It is a very clean city, looking very much like Singapore. It is a city that mixes colonial architecture with modern skyscrapers. The city is primarily Muslim.
Our first stop was at the Shah Alam Blue Mosque, one of the largest mosques in Southeast Asia. Actually, we didn’t stop there, only close enough to take a photo. It can hold as many as 24,000 worshippers at one time. The dome rises to about 350 feet and the four minarets rise to a height of about 470 feet, the tallest in the world. Our next stop was the War Memorial, which was sculpted by the same man who created the Iwo Jima Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington.
From there we went down to Merdeka Square. Merdeka means “independence”, and this is where the 328-foot flagpole displaying the Malaysian star, moon and stripes replaced the Union Jack here on August 31, 1957. Once known as the Padang, the square hosts cricket matches. From there we walked past the 19th century Sultan Abdul Samad Building, with its Moorish arches and 140-foot tower, once the British administrative secretariat. We could also see the
The Happy Travelers
Taken by our guide as the fountain erupts with the sculpture in the background. The sculpture was designed by the same person that created the Iwo Jima War Memorial in Washington. Old Railroad Station, completed in 1910, looking like something out of 1,001 Arabian Nights. From there we went to Masjid Negara, the National Mosque, that can accommodate as many as 15,000 worshippers during prayers.
We then went to Petronas Twin Towers, at 88 stories, the 1,453-foot headquarters of the national oil company resembles two mosque minarets. The design of each tower’s floor plan is based on simple Islamic geometric forms of two interlocking squares creating a shape of eight-pointed stars. Architecturally, these forms reflect important Islamic principles of “unity within unity, harmony, stability and rationality”. They have a Skybridge at the 41st floor that connects the two towers. People can get tickets to cross the Skybridge, but they only allow about 150 tickets each day, but one has to be there about 6:00am, as that’s when the line for tickets opens. Unfortunately, we could not do the Skybridge as the tickets for today were long gone. It is an amazing building! We were able to spend about 30-minutes walking around the shopping area and then re-met our guide. Our last stop was at the King’s Palace, Istana Negara, for a few photos, then back to the ship.
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