272 is a painful number

Sunday Afternoon

Just got back from our day tour around Kuala Lumpur(KL)!
We started off today around 8am... our tour guide was a taxi driver. He drove us around all day in his taxi, telling us about the places we passed and visited along the way.

One of the first places we went was called the Batu Caves. They are these really famous, and even older, Hindu caves. The first place was visited was a sort of side cave that had been decorated with colorful paint on the cave walls, and had statues and information about the different Hindu Gods and ceremonies and stuff. There was also a small zoo... well, a reptile zoo, I guess. The snakes in there were pretty active and kept moving around and yawning.

Anyway, so apparently there is this deal with Hindu temples that they have 272 steps leading up to them or something... so said the tour guide, but I had never heard that before. Well, you guessed it.... there were 272 steps leading up to the main cave entrance. Next to the steps there was a HUGE statue, plated in gold, apparently it is either the biggest one, or one of the biggest ones around. Massive, right?Of course, what goes up must come down... unfortunately, because there were no less steps getting back to our taxi! Whew, talk about leg pain! haha...okay, it really wasn't THAT bad!
We also visited a pewter factory. Tin is one of the top exports there, so pewter is a big thing. Let's see... what else.... we saw a Chinese Buddhist temple, some big Mosques, and the tallest buildings in the city, the KL Tower and the Twin Towers. Now technically speaking these towers are just about the same height, but the KL Tower is built on a hill, so it gets the tittle of "tallest." Now remember that Tin I mentioned earlier?... well the Twin Towers are plated in it so that they will always be shiny.

The Twin Towers have another name as well... the Patronas Towers. I tend to like THAT name better... for certain reasons involving my favorite fictional books :] (for those of you who can't figure it out, I am referring to Harry Potter, people!)
Anyway, the tour was good. It had more freedom than usual since it was just us and the driver, which was nice, though an actual tour guide might have talked more about the history and stuff... but why do you need that when your mom has read everything there is to know about the city? haha
So now its right around 4 in the afternoon and we are back in the hotel. Spiderman is on TV, so guess what we are doing. Later we will probably go wonder around some more, but for now it is "rest time."





Speaking of our hotel, I noticed yesterday that there was an arrow on the ceiling of my room pointing in a corner, but couldn't figure out why. I couldn't read what it said, either. Today I noticed the same arrow in my parents room... there room faces a different direction, but the arrow was pointing the same direction as ours, I could tell...and I figured out what it was. It was pointing to Mecca! In my previous post, I mentioned that KL was predominately Muslim... well they pray facing Mecca, so all the rooms have arrows pointing out the right direction! Interesting, right?