Fish Food

Monday Night
This morning we got up and head into KL around 10:30. What was the destination? SHOPPING! The have a mall laid out with a bunch of little shops and stands run by the locals. It was great! I bought a wrap-around style skirt that is popular around here, my parents got a few souvenirs and gifts... but the best part of the day by far was the Fish Spa.
What is a fish spa, you ask? Well they are petty simple really... large fish tanks or pools with benches around them filled with small fish. The interesting part is what the fish eat... namely, YOU. Thats right. You put your feet in the water and the fish swarm around you and eat the dead skin off of your feet and ankles and...well, pretty much as high up your leg as they can get. They also have tanks for your hands, but I didn't do one of those.

So after convincing my mom that she also wanted to participate, we payed up for our ten minutes... (US wise, it was about $2) and stuck our feet in. The worst part was how much it tickled! The best part was the four late twenties-aged American guys who couldn't resist joining us, but then couldn't stand the tickley feeling long enough to keep their feet in for a full minute straight. Our little spa area was so loud with the male squealing that we drew a crowd!...which I am sure the spa lady loved.

Anyway, the fish spa was so funny, I am going to have to do it again! They are all over the place in Singapore.
hmmm... what else did we do of interest... well, we did eat at KFC. Since we've eaten at both the Singapore and China KFC we thought we had better try the Malaysian one... liked it! Actually, it was far better than Singapore's. Come to think of it, I haven't mentioned what we ate last night... Pizza HUt! Also delicious, though I still miss the good old USA version :(
Hmm... besides that, the other main activity was getting back home, I guess. Our plane was delayed at the airport, but only for about 30 minutes, so that wasn't too bad. We spent the remaining Malaysian money we had on duty-free chocolate... don't tell my dad! lol
Overall impression? I enjoyed KL and would probably go again... though I would mostly just do more shopping, so on second thought, maybe I had better not try visiting anymore! Next big trip starts this weekend: China! We are going to Xian and Beijing. I won't be able to upload new posts while I'm there, but I will keep track of all the cool stuff and update you later, promise!

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?

Kuala Lumpur at last!

Saturday Night

We finally made it to Kuala Lumpur today! Yay!

So some background info: Kuala Lumpur is in Malaysia. Actually, most people around here call it KL for short, so I will also resort to the abbreviation. Malaysians speak Malay and I really have no idea as to how much English to expect everybody to know and understand. Malaysia is a predominately Muslim country, though it does not restrict other religions. Another big one in the area is Hinduism and probably Buddhism after that.

If you read my last post, you will know that we were supposed to arrive in KL Friday night, but we missed the flight and had to take one this morning instead. We made it to the hotel, a Hilton, though not the one my dad thought we were staying at. It was close to lunch time when we got here, so we decided to just eat at one of the hotel restaurants. They had this buffet… it was awesome. They had Western food, Indian food, typical Malay food, and other Chinese/Japanese selections as well. There were also a lot of good bread, soups and fruits. So good! Besides that, they had desserts! All types of strange looking little cakes, chocolate fondue (for the fruit), ice cream and shaved ice!!! Yummmmy! Needless to say, we stuffed ourselves.

 We took the LRT (Land Rail) into the midst of the city after a brief resting time (okay, okay, I conked out for almost 2 hours!).

We went to Petaling Street, this area where venders line up as close together as they could get and sell you all types of goodies. I GOT SHOES FOR 3USD!!!! Oh yeah! We also each got a pair of sunglasses!... mine are Louis Vuitton… or at least that’s what they say they are. Lol We got some Satay from a local vendor, later made a pit stop for some sodas at a grocery store, at McDonalds for some ice cream, then back on the LRT to the Hilton. Whew! Might not sound like much, but it was an exhausting day!


So tomorrow we have a tour lined up of KL. We are supposed to visit these really old caves and some of the tall buildings and stuff! Will let you know how it goes! :)

Close, but no banana

Well today has been an interesting one... interesting for lack of a better word. Technically, I guess you could actually make the argument that this was a day full of wrong. I will let you decide.
It started this morning, as most days do. I woke up at 7:30.... okay, okay, really more like 8, and ate some breakfast. The same breakfast, I might add, that I have been eating for the last two or three days. A few spoon fulls of apple sauce, a slice of bread from this loaf my mom picked up on Monday or Tuesday, and a glass of milk. Now the bread is a few days old, but we've kept it in a sealed bag, so it is still pretty good. This morning, it was on the verge of almost becoming stale, so sadly, I threw the remaining end piece away, thinking that I probably should not eat it after today. 
Fast forward to 30 minutes later.... and I feel sick. I was all dressed and ready to head down to the gym before those crazies who like to workout without the air con could take over, but instead I spent a while in the bathroom before deciding that maybe the gym wasn't an option today. I felt awful all morning.
To complicate matters, my family was scheduled to leave for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia today, so I had to pack my stuff! Slowly I managed to gather my things, then around 12, when I was starting to feel slightly better, I headed into the kitchen to wash the piled up dishes while my brother thankfully agreed to make a Wendy's run for me so I could have a plain baked potato.
Now my thinking: it was the bread. It had been a little off this morning, and I had, after all, felt sick within an hour after eating it. Makes sense, right? Well part of my "cleaning the kitchen" task, involved me leaning food out of the refrigerator. That was when I noticed the mold in the tomato sauce I had used the night before. The mold was growing on the lid of the jar and the contents must have already been bad by the time i used it last night or something. I know, ewww.
Anyway, so I'm feeling much better that before, but not entirely recovered, when the time arrives for us to be off to the airport. Well, to make matters short, we were a bit late setting off, and the traffic was ridiculous, so we entered the departures area at 5:14 for our 5:30 flight. One look at the immense line before us, and we were like "Yeah right. This is NOT happening." It didn't.
So instead, we hopped back in a cab homeward bound, ate a plentiful dinner at Kenny Rogers, grabbed some ice cream bars and spent the rest of the evening finishing up season 3 of Merlin.
Don't worry, we are stilling heading to Kuala Lumpur... just not until around 9 tomorrow morning.For now, I will just enjoy teh extra night I get in my own bed. :)

*Title dedicated to my piano (and Sunday school) teacher, Susan Reed. lol... she used to say this to me during lessons.