The drive to the Hilton Kuala Lumpur was about 50 minutes and the scenery was pretty pleasant. The Hilton seemed to be guarded pretty well which was reassuring but somewhat scary. Before the taxi driver could enter the hotel area they walked around the car with one of those mirrors on a stick to look under the car for bombs. The driver told me that they only did this at the Hilton and no other hotel bothers. The Hilton is right next to the Kuala Lumpur Sentral Station - a major hub for trains. I ended up using it later but what a disaster that whole ordeal was.
I checked right into the hotel and made my way upstairs for a much needed shower and to catch up on where we were work-wise. I haven't enjoyed a shower this much in a long long time. It was truly wonderful. To top if off the shower had 2 outputs - one was your typical angled water spout above your head on the wall - the other was a rainfall spout mounted on the ceiling. I turned the rainfall spout on and literally stood there for 10 minutes. Afterward I worked on the power situation. This didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I brought 3 power adapters and a power strip. The 2 power adapters I'd used in South Africa didn't work (the plug was the right type since they were universal adapters) and I have no idea why. The CEO of my company gave me an additional one while we were in the office on Sunday and I'm glad he did because it's the only one that worked. Luckily there is also one US style outlet in my room as well. I have my power strip plugged in there and it seems to be working for the most part. I caught up on all my email and checked in with the office. Once it hit about 1pm I decided it was time to venture out for food and some sightseeing.
I had done some reading about a short walking tour that sounded kind of interesting and it started in Chinatown where supposedly the food was great. I looked up which train station I needed to go to - only 1 switch and a total of ~5 stops. I packed up my camera and made my way to the train station where I was easily confused. There are 3 different train companies that run the lines in Malaysia from what I've read. If you buy the unlimited passes then you can go from train company to train company otherwise you need to buy individual tickets for each train. The system is similar to DC's Metro - you pay based on how far you go as opposed to a flat rate. I changed plans and decided to start at the end of the walk instead of the start - the Petronas towers - since it was on the line that I could access at Sentral Station. It was 1.60 RM for the ticket and I was on my way. I started to notice the ads that were displayed everywhere. The ads were an interesting mixture of English and what I'm guessing is Bahasa Malaysia (the national language). It didn't seem that the ads repeated everything in both but for some reason had parts in both. I still don't really understand it. I did see a few ads for KFC and immediately was reminded of how much of a presence KFC had in South Africa.
I made it to my stop - KLCC. It was under the famous Petronas towers - tallest twin towers in the world and for some time were the tallest buildings as well. You could ride up to the 42nd level but I wasn't too interested in doing that just yet. I tried to read the signs to figure out how to see them but got distracted by Suria. Supposedly this insanely large mall that is 6 stories - I went in for a few minutes to check it out because I wanted something to drink. I found a store and bought the equivalent to a Sunkist. I love looking at foreign drinks - it's interesting to see the different options you have elsewhere in the world. Next I made my way outside to check things out. The towers were immediately impressive - I will definitely be back at nighttime to see them again. I snapped some pictures and tried to get my bearings so I could start this walk. I pulled up Google Maps on my phone and thought I knew where I was headed. This quickly turned into me getting off the path that I wanted to be on. Roads didn't link up as I assumed the would based on the map and I ended up walking much further than I anticipated. Eventually I was so sweaty that I decided it was time to abandon this effort. I looked up the closest train station and made my way there.
Just to get in the next train station was difficult. There were entrances on both sides of the street and of course I picked the wrong one first. After waiting in the line to buy a ticket the guy pointed to the other side. I went over to the other side but before we get there let's go over pedestrian crossings in Kuala Lumpur. Before you cross the street - go find some padding to reassure yourself that when you get hit it won't hurt so bad. It's insane - there are walk/don't walk signs but they take forever to change so people just kind of wait for a clearing (enough to run full speed and barely make it) and go. The cars/motorcycles don't care - they just keep on going hoping the person in front makes it out of the way. I haven't seen someone get hit yet but I imagine people die on a daily basis. I'll get the flip out sometime to try and document this process. After I made it to the other side I get in the ticket line only to be told I'm in line for the wrong train company. He points to some stairs and I head that way. I see another ticket line down the stairs and woohoo jackpot. I bought a ticket back to Sentral Station. I was only a few stops away so it was a short ride.
I saw some food spots in the train station before I left earlier and figured I'd try one that had a menu I could read or at least some pictures. I made my way to a place and ordered Special #1. The menu said it consisted of - chicken curry - rice - bean sprouts - some weird pastry things - soup of the day - dessert - 1 Pepsi - all for about $6 and I was sold. They brought all of the food out somewhat quickly and I could barely tell what I was looking at. The curry was great - although the chicken could have been better. The soup was kind of like warm bath water. The pastry was just tasteless and I couldn't tell what it was filled with but I'm assuming it was a type of grass based on the taste. The rice was great and I think it had some butter on it. The dessert was the most confusing. It was a small bowl with ice and a little water in it. Then some pink/orange/green cubes. I tasted the water and it was good - then I went for a cube. It kind of reminded me of solid jello that had very little taste. It was a sweet/fruity type taste but with a texture of hard rubber. I know the waitress must have been disappointed when I told her I wanted the bill and 3/4 of the food was left. Next stop, McDonalds! The menu was very similar other than you could also order drumsticks. They also had these little spicy shaker packets for the fries and I took one when my order came. I got it to go and went up to the room to eat it. It was everything I'd hoped for.
I got a little bit more work done and by 5pm I was ready to go to bed. I went to sleep very quickly and woke up about 11pm or so and got online to chat with the work crew and Lora. I caught up and went back to sleep. I woke up again at 4:30am and knew it was time to prepare for work.
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