And an hour later we are installed in room #8817 a the Pacific Express hotel with a view of the Twin Towers and their sister the KL Tower. Woohoo!
We settle into a routine of morning walking tour and lunch at a vegetarian restaurant; back to hotel for some rest and pool time; out at 3 or 4 pm for more touring,shopping, or snacking and dinner at Lakshmi Villas vegetarian restaurant. Life is good.
The weather in KL is noticeably different: hotter, clearer skies, and less humidity - not bad.
From the bus we get our first glimpse of the Petronas Twin Towers of Kuala Lumpur.
Vegetarian dinner.
Our hotel is adjacent to two of the finer Art Deco buildings in KL, the Central Market and the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation building.
Sunrise view from our hotel room.
KL has more public transportation than I've ever seen in one city.
Buses.
The old train station.
Monorail.
Chinatown main drag - ready for Chinese New Year.
Chinese temple.
The city's main Hindu Temple is also in Chinatown.
Veg meal.
Street Shopping.
Merdeka (Freedom) Square is surrounded by colonial buildings in Islamic style architecture. Not to mention the tallest flagpole in the world.
These tomato & chilis uttapams from Lakshmi Villas were the best ever!
Sun-Ling enjoyed walking on KL's skyways which provide quick, above-the-street, covered access from A to B.
I took way too many shots of the Petronas Twin Towers (1483 ft tall). Here are a few.
These are not models but "in action" heavy machinery demolishing a building(s). Cool, yes.
The Sunken Garden at the Botanic Gardens.
Wedding photo session at the Botanic Gardens.
The Orchid Garden at the KL Botanic Gardens was not as impressive as the one in Singapore but still very nice.
The highlight of our last day in KL was a visit to the Islamic Arts Museum (IAMM). A well designed building with an impressive, interesting, and mostly-new-to-us collection of Islamic Art. Kudos to the IAMM. While Malaysia is an Islamic country, it is certainly not the center of the Islamic world.
Did I mention that our hotel had a rooftop pool?
And the final KL sunset view from our room.
Holy bat guano, Robin! From Google Maps Earth view, there is one night time photo with the twin towers in the distance, KL is extremely lit up. Where does KL get the power for such.
ReplyDeleteRooftop pool! Living the high life, lol. Did you go up the towers? And does the Islamic museum still have models of all the world's major mosques?
ReplyDeleteHi. As always - wonderful pictures! I found out several weeks ago that my 4th quarter assessment will be in your current city. I am scheduled to be there the 3rd week of October. I would love a list of the veggie restaurants. The food looks wonderful.
ReplyDeleteEd, Malaysia is doing pretty well. It's per capita GDP is about 25K USDollars. Note that Petronas is the national oil and gas company.
ReplyDeletePetroleum. I shoulda thunk it.
ReplyDelete@Kathy, staying at boxy modern hotels is totally not our style. As you know, the weather is unbearably hot here. John gets soaked through within the 1st hour every day. Being able to cool off in the pool in the pm is a big comfort, so we settle for the big hotels.
ReplyDeleteEd, CORRECTION: Malaysian per capita GDP is 10.5K USD.
ReplyDelete@Liz, you'll love KL!(that's how locals refer to their city, be sure to use that on your KL contacts, haha). There are veg restaurants all over the place. Once you know where you are staying, I'll plot them for you.
ReplyDelete@Kathy, the museum still has the models. We have only been to three of them. Since our chances of getting in a lot of them are not great, we had a good time admiring them in the museum. Aside from the models, how did the museum get all that good stuff???!!!
ReplyDeleteSun-Ling, I would love your help plotting the veggie restaurants in KL! I probably won't start planning until sept. It looks like an interesting city.
ReplyDelete