Aug 2007

So we finally rolled our tired behinds out of bed at 09:30, when we then showered, packed for the day and went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. And boy what a breakfast it was! What a buffet: western breakfast foods, and lots of Asian specialties. Delightful. After seconds and thirds were had, we were quite full. I decided I had to have the recipe for kesari, an Indian dish, so the staff called the chef out of the kitchen and, through a translator, explained it to me. It was really generous of them to take the time out to explain it to me, so I hope I can do it justice when I make it at home.

After breakfast we caught the shuttle again back to the airport to catch the ekpress in to the centre of the city. The people trying to sell you stuff had finally set in for Andrew by this point, as people were asking us where we were going. The train was super fast and easy. Twenty-eight minutes to KL Sentral station (otherwise a one-hour teksi ride). Our ride was uneventful, and we saw a lot of green, which is a lot different than the endless houses you see in Japan.

Because we were only in KL for one day, we decided to take teksis everywhere. Conveniently there are booths set up where your can buy a prepaid fare to the destination of your choice. It takes the haggling and fear of getting ripped off out of the equation, which is really nice when you're in a new city and have no idea where you're going or how far it is. Our first destination was the Lake Gardens. Our driver let us off at an intersection and indicated the direction of the butterfly garden, the orchid garden and the aviary. We walked up the hill to the aviary. It's the world's largest covered aviary, and we figured we should get a preview so we would know what we were looking at in the wild later in vacation. We were not disappointed. It was amazing. The first bird we saw was a rhinoceros hornbill. Totally cool, and bigger than I expected.

We also saw lots of other species; storks, egrets, flamingos, pelicans, parrots, toucans, peacocks, eagles and so many more. We wandered around the aviary for an hour or so before stopping for an ice cream break.

As we were continuing on our way, it started to rain. This was not a surprise: apparently it rains for 1-2 hours each day in the city, and it had been thundering all morning. It poured for a while, so we took shelter under a thatched roof and waited it out next to the parrot enclosure.

When the rain finally let up, we continued through the rest of the park and ate lunch at the restaurant there. I had carrot-pumpkin soup and fruit salad, because I decided that I wasn't going to eat any bird-type product out of respect. Andrew had chicken tandoori and potato wedges. He also had a Tiger beer in honour of Jeff Hames' birthday. Hope it was a good one Jeff!

After the aviary, we caught another cab to Central Market. Our driver was a case; he was telling us all about the weather in KL, and pointing out the other sites along the way, like the national mosque and the old train station. He was really friendly and helpful. Central Market was nothing like I expected. It was more like a shopping mall than a market, and more upscale looking. We bough a couple of souvenirs and moved on nearby Chinatown. This was more like a market, but instead of food, they were mostly selling knock-off goods. We decided we needed nothing from this place, and having had our fill of markets for the day, went on to Little India on a quest for spices. I found a big bag of cumin seed for dirt cheap, as well as some other Indian food to take home. Yum biryani. By this time we were tired of walking and decided to catch a cab to KLCC and the Petronas Towers, where we were going to meet Emily, a fellow Harvey High grad living in the city. Before we met, we found a bank for a cash advance, and then made our way to a bookstore. We didn't know what to do with ourselves, surrounded by English books for the first time in a very long time. I bought a couple of field guides, and Andrew, a novel. After this it was off to Starbucks (how Malaysian!) to meet Emily.

It was great to meet up with a familiar face in a foreign place. She gave us some insights into the culture of the city, and was a great gastronomic guide in the food court. We sat down to some delicious dinner and had a good long chat before heading out the check out the Petronas Towers, now illuminated. We took a lot of pictures and craned our necks for a while taking in all 452 m (1483 feet) of the towers. This year is Malaysia's 50th birthday, so there are flags flying everywhere around the city in celebration.

After all this we were getting pretty tired, so we went to a grocery store to get provisions (read: snacks) before catching the train to the airport again. Emily made sure we were safely on our way, and we said our goodbyes. We got to the airport just in time to catch the shuttle back to the hotel again. It was a good day in KL, and I think we may have to come back.

So after weeks of careful planning on my part and a week of classes I really didn't care to teach, it was finally time to go on vacation. We had to get up bright and early to catch the train to the airport shuttle (which, as it turns out, is so much easier than actually taking the train all the way to the airport and having our backpacks hitting unsuspecting and irritated people on their way to work during rush-hour traffic). We got there plenty early, picked up our tickets, and waited in line until we were able to check in. We encountered a few of our coworkers on their way to various places as well. After checking in, we got a bite to eat, and then proceeded through security to wait for our flight to board. Story was that our flight was going to leave 10 minutes early; great! Reality was that because of all the vacation air traffic, we ended up leaving 30 minutes late. We decided that we wouldn't have been as irritated if they hadn't told us we were leaving early. Bah.

So Air China from Osaka to Beijing was pretty uneventful, and the service was adequate, although slightly unfriendly. We chalked it up to someone having a bad day and left it at that. We arrived in Beijing safely. We were struck by a couple of things. Firstly, we had to fill out arrival and departure cards and present them at the same time, even though we were just there for a five hour layover. Waste of paper and time. Wouldn't have been so irritated if we had actually had a pen on us, but I digress. Secondly, getting through the process of the arrival/departure card was slow and unwelcoming. Beijing has a lot of work to do before the Olympics next year. The general unfriendliness continued until we arrived in Malaysia. There was a chance where we could press a button to indicate how the service was as we were going through the arrival/departure card thing, but we didn't do anything. Figured some guy would come out of a back room and interrogate us as to why we chose what we chose. I really hope I'm not getting a false sense of the country, but I really came to miss the service standards present in Japan. I don't care if you're having a crap day, or a crap life. Throw on a fake smile if you're serving people. Thirdly, the air quality in Beijing left much to be desired. I was glad we didn't have to leave the airport. Moving on.

Our next Air China flight was significantly longer and more uncomfortable than the first, significantly magnifying our crotchity-ness. Inadequate seat space, low water service by unfriendly flight attendants, and no movie on a 6 hour flight is not OK.

Longest. Six hours. Ever.

It was a relief to finally land in Kuala Lumpur. From there, security was a breeze, people were friendly and helpful, and we quickly and easily found our airport shuttle. Andrew had to get back into the swing of travelling again, and realizing that sometimes a friendly helpful person is really just a disguise for someone trying to sell you something.

So the shuttle was 15 minutes from our hotel. We arrived, checked in and crashed really hard after the travel day that seemed like it would never end.