We are back from a wonderful ten day vacation in Malaysia. We flew into Kuala Lumpur, the capital and biggest city in Malaysia. We chose to spend only one full day here, as the main attraction for us in this country was the seaside.
The first thing we had to get used to was the temperature. They have a "tropical rainforest climate" here, and you can tell that immediately upon stepping out of the plane! This was a dramatic difference from the place we flew out of. (Irony: When we landed in Seoul, the pilot announced current temperature of 32 Fahrenheit; upon landing in KL, the pilot announced the current temperature was 32 Celsius.) The country gets a lot of rain as well, but we were fortunate to not have too much during our trip. When it did rain, it was usually in the evening when we were finishing our day anyway, and it didn't last long.
The next adjustment was getting used to seeing all the headscarves. I was all prepped to answer questions about this form of dressing from the girls, but they never did ask. Malaysia is about 60% Muslim. People with Israeli passports are not allowed to enter the country. On the islands we visited there were also many newlywed Arabic/Muslim couples with the women dressed in the full burka. Refer to the paragraph above and you'll understand why I bore some sympathy toward them! My female American mind thought it hugely unfair that they had to wear all that while their husbands were in shorts and tank tops.
Kuala Lumpur is may be a large city, but it does not have a city like feel. Yes, it's dirty and crowded, but in a different way. It's dirty because it seems like it's always fighting to hold back the jungle creeping in everywhere and because it still seems like many of the people are still poor. They may have the second tallest buildings in the world, but they cast a dark shadow over the have-nots. I saw a lot of slummy looking living spaces during our short time here.
One thing KL does have is diversity. The population is mostly Malays, Chinese, and Indians, with a good sprinkling of other ethnicities as well. A walk down the street confirms that all these groups still hold on to their identity. The food court in the mall we went showed this as well:Matt had middle Eastern food, I ate Malay, and our daughter ate Mexican.
Of course I did some shopping. We went to the Central Market , where I experienced something unknown to me - pay for use toilets! Fortunately, Korea has taught me to carry tissue, so that proved to be a valuable lesson learned. The Market was very mall-like, and not a 'true' market, like Seomun Market here in Daegu. It was similar to the Silk Market in Beijing, though not nearly as crowded. Much too touristy, though that didn't prevent any shopping from getting done! We still did bargain for our purchase, and I love how dramatic she was. I almost laughed during the 'negotiation' because of her. After my shopping fix, we headed over to the biggest attraction in KL: the Petronas Towers. We weren't able to go to the observation deck or the bridge in the Petronas Towers, they only sell tickets on certain days and we weren't so lucky. We ended up in the basement, where there is an aquarium. In between the market and the towers, we stumbled across a Malaysian military day of some sort. It was some sort of national day, I'm not sure what though. It was directly across the street from this buidling:
The Sultan Abdul Samad Building. The field the military display was in is called Independence Square, or Dataran Merdeka.
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| at the aquarium |
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| Petronas Twin Towers |
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