A Stroll Around KLCC

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If you're waiting for one of those blogs that contains footage of us eating chicken brains or snake guts...you'll have to keep waiting. Perhaps, on one of our "obligatory vacations" to exotic India or Indonesia, we shall recount you with some wildly entertaining tale of eating deep-fried sea slugs or barbecued parakeet.

But not today.

No, today my mission is to simply have you take an enjoyable and scenic walk with us through KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Center). We've been here for almost two weeks, but until yesterday we hadn't actually journeyed into the heart of the capital. You're probably thinking that it's all fun and games over here, and don't get me wrong. We're definitely having fun. But I can also assure you that it's a lot of work. Trying to learn the local culture and customs of a land so foreign from your own takes time, energy, and massive amounts of brainpower. The typical thoughts that go through my mind each day are something like this:

Did I turn on the switch (located outside the bathroom) that activates the hot water? Has it been on long enough (30 minutes) to actually produce any hot water for my shower? And why can't I get the temperature right in this bedroom? How is possible that 21 degrees Celcius is too cold for the air-conditioning but 22 degrees Celcius is too warm? Isn't there, like, 21.5? Am I dressed modestly enough so as not to offend the locals, but not so modestly that I'm going to collapse from heat stroke? How many people are going to pull out their cell phones at the mall and take a picture of me as I walk past? One? Five? More? Maybe I should just wear my hair back...again. Or dye it black. Or shave it off. Dangit, I got into the wrong side of the car...AGAIN! Is my GPS going to get me where I'm going, or am I going to end up in some weird neighborhood in Chinatown? Wow, this traffic is insane. (Good thing guns are illegal here!) Wow, another huge intersection. Which side of the road will I be on when I turn through it? Wait, is that a Komodo dragon crossing the road...?

And it's not even 10am yet.

So you get the point. Just the everyday little activities that we don't think twice about back home take a lot of mental energy here. And that's not even accounting for getting our car, apartment hunting, getting our phones set up, and all the other necessary tasks of life that take ten times longer when you have no idea what you're doing! Two weeks of that, and we're fried. We were supposed to be moving into our new place today, but it got pushed back a week so they could finish installing appliances, touching up paint, etc. No point in shopping for household goods or setting up utilities, because we still have another week before we're in.

So. With a free day at our disposal, we hopped into our little Viva and headed into the city. It's just as fantastic as I remembered!! I know this is true of Singapore, but I'd be willing to bet that you can cross virtually all of downtown KL without ever having to step outside. It's one gigantic shopping complex after the next (Mills malls have NOTHING on these beasts), usually connected via skywalk or tunnel. Six stories, eight stories, sometimes more, in a dizzying white blur of everything from Gucci and Prada to H+M and Zara. And the restaurants! Forget Islam. I'm convinced that FOOD is the national religion of Malaysia. These people eat, and eat well, and eat ALL THE TIME. In one shopping center we went into, 1Utama (happens to be the 4th largest mall in the world), there are - ready for this? - 157 restaurants. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY SEVEN restaurants, cafes, and dining establishments, in ONE shopping mall. And there's practically one on every block! I think we've been to eight different malls since we arrived, and that's just been in our tiny little part of town. We went to one today (Sunway Pyramid) that not only has a gigantic Sphinx at the entrance, but also an amusement park, water park, ice skating rink, archery center, laser tag, movie theaters (plural), as well as hundreds of shops and restaurants.

Basically, when you live in a place this hot, you have to stay inside a lot. So if you're going to stay inside, you might as well have tons of cool stuff to keep you entertained!

But I digress. Back to downtown KL.

More shops. More malls. Oh, wait, it's not really that different. It blows my mind that there are actually enough people in this city to merit this number of retail outlets! And they're jam-packed, all day and all night (many are open til 10pm, midnight, even later).

And then...you emerge from the retail madness into this beautifully landscaped city park, smack dab beneath the mighty Petronas Towers (still the tallest twin structures on earth). Green grass, banyan trees, little ponds - it's truly an oasis from the concrete jungle surrounding you. You walk through - you guessed it - another mega shopping mall, this one directly beneath the towers, and emerge again to take more pictures of these incredible buildings that soar 1483 feet (452m) above your head!

Then you decide that you're hungry and thirsty from all your endless trekking through Mall-ville. So what do you do? Call up your resident ex-pat buddy, Danielle, and ask her where she likes to dine in the city. Her response? La Boca. Yes, that's Spanish, and yes, it is a Spanish restaurant (Cuban owner). Now don't get me wrong. I LOVE Malay food. Nasi lemak, char kway teoh, sago gula melaka...I've got no problem chowing down on the local stuff too. But what I truly truly love about Malaysia is the incredible variety of food that's available. Walk down any one of these "restaurant rows" and you'll find a French restaurant next to a Spanish tapas place next to a Moroccan cafe next to an Indian restaurant next to a Korean BBQ next to a Japanese sushi house next to a Persian restaurant next to a Balinese place next to some American chain, like Johnny Rocket's or Chili's. And it's all good, and even the more upscale places are considerably more affordable than they are at home! (There are a few interesting things about eating out here, though. Pork is almost impossible to find on any menu, and items like bacon are replaced with "beef" bacon instead. Also no alcohol at any of the local spots, only the western restaurants! Even grocery stores have a separate "non-halal" section for pork products and alcohol - both big no-no's for the Muslim populace.)

So we took Danielle's suggestion and seated ourselves at the colorful bar of La Boca. A few minutes later, we're sipping authentic Caipirinhas made from cachaca rum and muddled limes and listening to Spanish music like we're chilling in South Beach. Three tapas for $10US? Bring it on! Platters full of calamari with avocado aioli, gigantic prawns swimming in olive oil and garlic, and roasted peppers stuffed with tender ropa vieja (beef) grace the bartop before us. Dessert was bananas flambe' in Grand Marnier over homemade vanilla gelato. Deciding we weren't ready for the night to be over yet, we took Danielle's second suggestion and had a nightcap on the 33rd floor Sky Bar of Traders Hotel. Ordered a French martini (for me) and a shot of absinthe (REAL absinthe, not the fake green stuff in the states), and settled back to watch the daylight fade and the lights of the city glow. This bar, funnily enough, also has a long swimming pool cut right through the middle of it! It was packed with lots of other westerners, all sipping cocktails and listening to the likes of Boston, Journey, and ACDC. Truly a cool place - it'll be the first stop for anyone who comes to visit us!

And with that, we bid you farewell...until next time! (Photos below, and an extra page with this one too!)

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Photos

Almost a Local...
This very friendly local wanted to pose for my shot!

Caipirinha Time!
Enjoying Brazil's national drink.

Suria Mall
Beneath Petronas Towers.

Gambas al Ajillo
Shrimp baked in olive oil, garlic, and chilis.

Comments

[Sarah H]

Keep talking...
The more Brent and I read, the more we're like, "We wanna go there!" The ONLY thing that's making us stop is the heat! But wow it sounds like an amazing place to visit. We need to start looking at airfare....

[Muhamad]

As a local I always find it refreshing to read of Malaysia from another's perspective. Never realise Food is our national religion (true, now that you mention it!), and a mall here (1Utama) can have 157 restaurants! More so because many of us locals are often, believe it or not, at a loss at where to eat! The photos, especially of the Twin Towers, are all beautifully taken but by way of an excuse to share information that will impact on your stay in Malaysia, allow me to comment on one of the photos: the one with a supposed local.He is almost certainly not a local. His appearance, demeanour and attire seem more like a South Asian Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi. Not surprising though because Malaysia is a magnet for foreigners - foreign workers to be exact, the highest number in Asia if not the world. Excluding long-stay visitors (mostly Arabs) and expatriates (all nationalities, mostly western) who by definition are in white collar jobs, the country has 2.5 million documented and estimated 4 million undocumented foreign workers (mostly Indonesians and Bangladeshis) all in manual/menial/blue-collar jobs shunned by the locals. Imagine total 6.5 million foreign workers in a population of 30 million and labour force of 13.5 million. This means foreign workers form nearly 50% of the labour force, in jobs most of us, expatriates and locals, will usually meet and interface with daily. The cashier at mini-market, the security guards at housing area, the waiters at restaurants, the attendants at gas station, the guys who sweep the roads or take out the garbage or deliver the furniture ordered or repair the plumbing, those who broke into your house (so the locals say)...the list goes on. Therefore if anyone in Malaysia stares at you, or takes a photo of you, or requests for a photo together, or can't understand your question and can't answer you even in broken English you can bet he/she is a foreign worker. Welcome to Malaysia - be cool (if that's possible in this climate), take it easy and hope you have an enjoyable time and stay here!

[Aerogers]

Clarification
Thanks for the clarification and the extra information! Obviously we've had only been here for a few weeks and we're going to guess some things wrong (like this man's identify). Malaysia is certainly one of the most diverse places we've ever been. We're loving it so far!

[Aerogers]

Clarification
Thanks for the clarification and the extra information! Obviously we've had only been here for a few weeks and we're going to guess some things wrong (like this man's identify). Malaysia is certainly one of the most diverse places we've ever been. We're loving it so far!