From One Modern City to the Next: KL --> Singapore

---

With Elysia's eye still red and painful, we had a bit of a leisurely last morning in KL. We didn't feel so pressed to see things here, because they're not all that different from home. Don't get me wrong, we really do like KL. It's worth seeing even just to realize that there are some super modern cities in Asia that are not a whole lot different than those in North America. We think that KL would be a great place to live as an ex-pat, and we would definitely add it to the list of places we may want to live one day. Just in terms of major sightseeing venues, there isn't a whole lot. Unless you want to shop- KL is a shopping mecca. I highly suggest that if you do like to shop, that you make the pilgrimage here to do so!! Elysia will definitely come back for a shopping trip one day.

Anyways, we had a leisurely breakfast, checked out and were on our way to finish exploring KL by 11. Our first stop was the post office, to mail something to Mike's dad. After that we were on our way. We decided to walk instead of taking the train or monorail, that way we can work off some of the yummy food we have been eating in Malaysia. KL is also an eating mecca, and we'd love to have the time (and money) to try everything. We winded our way through the busy and fast streets of KL to Chinatown. We thought we'd start there, but turns out we didn't have a whole lot of time until we had to leave to go to the airport for our flight to Singapore, so we didn't get much further than that.

The Chinatown in KL is quite clean and not as smelly as the one in Toronto (to Mike's delight). It isn't very big though, but it was still interesting to see. We made our first stop at the Central Market. This was to Mike's peril, however, because Elysia's been on a jewellery shopping spree (not expensive jewellery so don't worry about that! She wishes!) and there were a ton of booths selling really interesting jewellery. We stopped at one selling glass jewellery and she instantly fell in love with some of the pieces so we bought a few. At that point, Mike felt it was his duty to drag her out of the market for fear that it would be hazardous to our bank account's health to stay. We continued through Chinatown and explored a few temples. The first was the Sze Ya Temple which was built in 1864 and is the oldest Taoist temple in KL. Then we visited a few other temples including the Sri Maha Mariamman Temple, which the city's main Hindu temple. We figured we had enough of seeing temples, so we didn't want to take our shoes off and go inside that one. Then we continued to the Jalan Petaling Market, which is just a few intersecting streets in Chinatown with a bunch of stalls on it selling knock off Gucci and Prada purses, sunglasses and other fake goods. We didn't buy anything, although it was tempting. We stopped and had a bite to eat, but then realized we didn't have a lot of time before we needed to get to the airport. So we paid and walked to the monorail statio, took it back to the hotel to get our bags, and we went to KL Sentral station for our bus to the low cost carriers terminal for our Air Asia flight to Singapore.

There's nothing really that interesting that happened on our trip. The terminal was quite crazy, and lots of people seem to have this nasty habit of pushing ahead of people in the line. The trick is to be aggressive and not let them through, but sometimes it happens and you can't let that bother you. We attribute this pushing in to the fact that these people doing this probably don't fly a lot, so they're in a rush because they don't know what to do.

We were so excited when we landed in Singapore. It was night, so we didn't see anything but we were so excited to see our friend Jemi, who was picking us up. Elysia did her undergrad with Jemi, in psychology but she moved back to Singapore right after so we haven't seen her in 6 years. She was supposed to be picking us up, but she wasn't there when we got out of security. We waited for awhile (30 mins) and then we realized we didn't have any contact information for her. OOPS! So we were getting worried, but then Elysia realized that we had her phone number on this iPhone app called whatsapp, but we didn't know it was the right one. Fortunately for us it was, however, we didn't know it because Jemi had sent messages back that we never got! Anyways she had thought our flight came in the next morning, so it was a really good thing we were able to get ahold of her! She was at home when she saw our message and had to run out to get us, and fortunately they live close to the airport. This wasn't the first time on this trip Elysia had been forgotten at the airport!!

Anyways, it was so great to see her when she finally did arrive (hahaha we weren't bothered by the wait at all, more worried!)! She picked us up in her car. Elysia remembered that the last time she had gotten into a car with Jemi, was back in Vancouver at UBC when Jemi was giving her a lift home (Elysia lived 5 minutes away from campus). As soon as she put the van in reverse to back out of the parking spot, she tapped a car behind her, then we drove on and she turned left out of the parking lot when she should have gone right, so she had to back up and then hit a stop sign. All in 2 minutes. We love to tease her about that incident! Fortunately, 6 years has done wonders to her driving skills (note: I'm actually really joking about this- she's a wonderful driver!!) When we got to their beautiful place, we sat and caught up with her and her husband Jeremy for a bit and then we went to bed. Time to start our Singapore adventure!!

---

Photos

A Hindu Temple on the Street
Exactly like many of those that we saw in Nepal.

Jalan Petaling Market
With the knockoff stalls

Rainforest Bed and Breakfast
We may not have had a window in our room, but it was not a bad place to stay.