Kuala Lumpur

It has been 12 years but I remember it just like it was yesterday. It was a normal Friday night except that my dad and sisters were not home. My mom and I decided that it was a perfect time for dinner and a movie. The food of choice: cheap Chinese and the movie: Entrapment. I was captivated by this movie from the second it started and in the 12 years that have passed I have rewatched Entrapment countless times. I have always had a determined personality. It is something that I have grown to embrace. When I saw the Petronas Towers in the movie I was determined that I would one day see them.  Isn’t it funny how half of my life, to this point, passed and I suddenly found myself living in South Korea. When vacation time showed u p on the calendar the first thing I did was search for flights to Kuala Lumpur. Rachel lovingly agreed to blindly follow me to this bustling city to fulfill this goal of mine.

Day 1

After 10 days of energy draining travel we landed in Kuala Lumpur. It was the middle of the day, the sun was shining and my eyes began to scan the horizon. It is hard to put into words the feelings that I was having at this moment. They ranged from sheer exhaustion from our travels, disgust at the BO seeping from every pore of the man in front of me, shame that I had traveled this far just to look at a building, and eagerness to get a glimpse of such a beautiful set of twin towers. Sitting on the hot, bumpy bus with my eyes glued to the horizon I finally saw them! Towering above the landscape these silver bullets dwarfed everything in sight and I couldn’t help but smile. For the next hour I continued to giggle, fight passing out from BO and stare at the towers as we slowly crept closer to them. We arrived almost 2 hours later at our hotel in Bukit Bintang, a small part of Kuala Lumpur. Rachel humored me as we threw our bags into the room and took off on a mission. From our hotel we had a direct skywalk to the mall that goes under ground and resurfaces inside the towers. Rachel and I spent a long amount of time that day staring. We sat by the fountains and just looked at the towers. The rest of day 1 is a blur to me. In my head I was really convinced that I could leave Malaysia and be satisfied. Little did I know it would be a country with some really unique things to offer.

Day 2

5:30 am is early no matter where you are in the world. Our hotel receptionist told us that if we wanted to go into the towers on a tour we needed to be waiting in line at 6, so we trusted him and got up before the sun. After 3 hours sitting in a line in the basement of one of the towers we were finally given tickets and were able to start the tour. Being the first tour of the day we were able to enter each part of the tower before they became congested with tourists. Our tour was not terribly long but consisted of a short amount of time taking in the view from the 46^th floor sky bridge and then continuing to the top floor, 86^th, to tower about the city and see everything surrounding it. After our tour we decided that we had earned the right to nap so we went back to our hotel for a few hours and caught up on sleep. After a very refreshing nap, Rachel and I decided that since the weather was uncertain we would spent the afternoon at the aquarium.  I have been to many aquariums and know a far amount about fish and coral but I have never seen an aquarium like this one. They have the world’s longest underwater aquarium tunnel and one of the most impressive fish feeding shows I have ever witnessed. We had front row seats to the feeding of giant Rays, 8 foot sharks, sea turtles, and hundreds of other beautiful fish. We then raced to the freshwater exhibit to watch the piranhas devour some dead tilapia. After indulging our nerdy fishy sides we had to rush to the hotel for our dinner date. One of Rachel’s good friends, Ellie, is living and working in Kuala Lumpur. Ellie and Rachel played softball together for many years and have been chasing each other around the globe. After college Ellie moved to Nashville but our visits never worked out to where we could see Ellie. We were escorted by Ellie to a great Vietnamese restaurant right around the corner from our hotel. The rain had stopped for the day and the night air was very fresh and cool. We were able to enjoy our food on an outside patio where we exchanged stories and caught up on one another’s lives. Time seemed to fly over dinner and suddenly we were saying our goodbyes to Ellie. Being in a predominately hindu part of town Rachel decided to have some Henna done. Half way through the process we ran into some issues with the police but we were able to sort it out and her hand was successfully henna-fied.

Day 3

We only had two things on our agenda for day 3 so we slept in a little and had some breakfast by our hotel. We then boarded the train for the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park. This park is the largest open air aviary in the world. My visit was authenticated the second I opened the doors, a very angry, blue parrot decided to disrespect the small amount of hair that I have left on my head and went in for some prime nest building material. I almost hit the deck in fear and then proceeded to snap pictures of this phenomenal creature. For several hours Rachel and I wandered around looking at peacocks, feeding parrots and parakeets and being blown away by the diversity. I won’t bore anyone with all of the detailed pictures we took but some of them can be found on our facebook pages.  After an overly priced hamburger at the Bird Park Kafe, yes with a “K” we skillfully negotiated a taxi to take us to the Batu Caves. At the Batu caves, a hindi temple has been integrated into the caverns which are littered along the mountains slope. At the foot of the caves, and rising to what seems to be taller than the mountain, is the world’s largest statue of Murugan. It would seem that on our 2 weeks of travels we found a lot of sites whose builders had size complexes, but that is an entirely different subject. We were disappointed to find the Batu caves in poor shape, there was trash littering the steps, a stench of urine in the air, and the most aggressive monkeys I have seen. Although we were upset with the state of this temple we decide to push on and see what was waiting at the top. 271 steps later our question was answered: more trash, monkey and pee. I would not count it as a total loss though because while on our trek to the top we watched a monkey swipe someone’s Fanta and proceed to pour it out for himself to drink off the ground. No sooner had we stopped laughing at monkey and descending the stairs from hell did the torrential rains of SE Asia roll in. We took cover in a train and then made our way back to our hotel. We decided that we should spoil ourselves, as if this entire experience isn’t being spoiled enough, so for dinner we went to Chilis. I had a quesadilla explosion salad and almost cried it was so good. Our table was over-looking the fountains at the base of the towers which was very neat to watch. We then rolled out of Chilis and went to a movie. I have seen movies in a lot of places around the world but I have never once watched a movie with such an active crowd. The entire movie the Malaysians were uncontrollably laughing out loud which really added to our experience. After Chilis and a movie we had filled our Western culture quotient for the month so we took a casual walk back to the hotel and began to prepare for our journey back home.

We have been blessed beyond our wildest dreams. After only 3 months in Korea our marriage has grown stronger, we have realized childhood dreams, and have been pushed to better ourselves. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about and miss friends and family but the opportunities that have been given to us continue to put wind under our wings and keep us pushing forward. 


For more pictures of Kuala Lumpur follow this link