Sweat and Sugar in KL

To welcome in our first morning in KL, I did what I do best and hit the gym for a workout in the hotels version of a glasshouse to cook people. I ran about 45 minutes at which I called it quits before I died of heatstroke. All I can say is, training in this heat better make me faster once I am home, I feel like a turtle right now.

After a quick shower, we headed down to breakfast, which I have to say is one of the better buffet breakfasts we have had so far. Feeling full, we grabbed our stuff and headed out the door to walk towards the National Heritage Centre and the Botantical Gardens.

We walked about 30 minutes so until we came across the outskirts of Chinatown, which is very similar to all the other Chinatowns we have come across throughout the world. We headed in to have a quick look at the Central Market, an enclave of tourist and art outlets. There was some beautiful artifacts however, as we have been travelling for three months, there is barely any space in our bags to pick up souveniers.

We made our way to Merdeka Square where Malaysia's independence was proclaimed on 31 August 1957. The square is surrounded by some pretty impressive and beautiful buildings with the Sultan Abdul Samad Building being a particular stand out. Apparently it is the first example of Moghul architecture in Malaysia and was used to house the Federated Malay States administration. Across from this building is the Royal Selangor Club which apparently only admits men. BOO 👎. This made me want to go put on a suit, cut my hair and pretend I was a man to get in. This type of stuff really pisses me off.

After I finished cursing the Royal Selangor Club, we headed towards the National Mosque, which being a weekend was inundated with locals heading to prayers. To ensure the locals had enough food and drink, a local market was set up directly outside which sold all sorts of amazing Malaysian Delicacies. The problem with having a massive breakfast, is that we aren't really hungry until dinner so can't even contemplate eating lunch. Such a shame because it all looked delicious.

We kept walking towards the Observatory which looked like a dump on the outside, so we kept going until we came across the KL Bird Park. Both Jamie and I are not really 'zoo' type people, but seeing exotic birds seemed like a good idea, so we headed in. I have to say, I was pretty blown away by the beauty of these birds and enjoyed myself throughly. My favourite was an owl that looks like a Gremlin (see below) and some bird that made a weird grunting noise everytime it bowed to the ground (which it often did in successions of 4 or 5 bows). We spent a good hour and a half here and then made our way across to the orchid and hibiscus gardens, which I suppose is pretty important considering that Hibiscus is the Malaysian national flower.

My camera died towards the end of our visit and so did my hydration. With that, our day in the sun concluded and we walked about 3km back to the nearest train station and headed back to the hotel. On the way back we stopped at our local shopping mall and picked up tickets to see "Office Christmas Party" in the evening, based on Jon's recommendation. After a spot of window shopping and a smoothie to get a sugar kick, we went back to the hotel for a quick rest before heading back out for dinner and the movie.Read more