Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Tuesday December 19th, 2nd day in Kuala Lumpur

More facts about Kuala Lumpur

-Ikea locally manufactures furniture from Malaysian rubber wood trees.
- when Chinese marry an Indian they are called Chindian.
-13 States. Flag has 14 stripes. Used to be 14 states. Now 13 and one federal state.
-Each state has its own flag. There is always yellow in the flags.
-Royalty always wears yellow.
-Each state has a sultan(monarch)
-Hibiscus is the national flower
- Popular fruits are Durian( tastes like heaven, smells like hell), mangosteen, rambutan.

Before we got off the ship this morning, the captain announced that our next port of call which was to be Bintan, Indonesia had been cancelled due to difficult tendering issues, so that will give us one more day in Singapore.

Our tour today was a 5 1/2-hour tour called “Kuala Lumpur Highlights”

The first stop, the mosque Masjid Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, more commonly known as the Blue Mosque, is the largest mosque in Malaysia. With its blue-and-silver dome measuring at a massive 106 meters in height, flanked by four 140-meter-tall minarets, and the two-story prayer hall inscribed with various Koran verses, the Blue Mosque is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Kuala Lumpur.

The next stop was Thean Hou temple, a six-tiered temple of the Chinese sea goddess Mazu. The temple was quite large, ornate, and colourful. Around the outside, they had statues of the animals that represented your year of birth. Each Chinese lunar year has a Chinese zodiac sign animal. As it turns out, Don is a goat and Lee is a dog, neither of which we found very flattering.

Next was Sri Kandaswamy Temple, another unbelievably ornate temple. We were not supposed to be able to go in, but Lee was able to remove her shoes and to go in. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside. Apparently, there was a wedding, and they were pouring stuff over their heads, accompanied by the worst music you’ve ever heard and a deafening ringing of bells. Our guide told us the ringing of bells was supposed to attract God, but I told her I thought the bells would scare him away.
We then drove to Kings Palace, the official residence of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the monarch of Malaysia. It is located along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Halim (formerly Jalan Duta) near Taman Duta, northwestern Kuala Lumpur. The palace opened in 2011 and replaced the old Istana Negara which was located at a different compound in central Kuala Lumpur.
The palace complex has an area of 26 acres, has 22 domes, and is split into three main portions: the Formal Component, Royal Component and Administration Component. Because of this, there are 3 entrances to the Palace. The main entrance is for Diplomats and Government Head, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister and wife. The second entrance serves as a main entrance for the Royal Guests and VIP. The third access is meant for the general public, including the Palace Administration's Staff.

Next, it was off to Tun Abdul Razak memorial, the residence of the second Prime Minister which was originally known as the Sri Taman Building. This building was later turned into a museum to commemorate his services and was inaugurated by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on May 6th, 1982. Tun Abdul Razak had lived in this building since 1962 until he died in January 1976.
This memorial displays materials belonging to Tun Abdul Razak himself and also materials related to him. The exhibition is divided into two parts. The first part is the exhibition at Bangunan Sri Taman which exhibits about 650 materials and can be categorized into three large groups namely archive materials, museum materials, and library materials.
The second part displays about 1580 materials about Tun Abdul Razak's involvement and activities during his tenure as Minister and Prime Minister of Malaysia. Peter, Heather, Lee and I thought it was all very boring!
Next on to the Independence Square which is situated in front of the Sultan Abdul Samad Building. To get there, we had to walk across 8 lanes of traffic so it was quite intimidating. It was formerly known as the Selangor Club Padang or simply the Padang (meaning "field" in Malay) and was used as the cricket green of the Selangor Club (now the Royal Selangor Club). It was here that the Union Flag was lowered and the Malaysian flag hoisted for the first time at midnight on August 31st, 1957. Since then, the Independence Square has been the usual venue for the annual Independence Day Parade.

The Gombak River is a river which flows through Kuala Lumpur. It is a tributary of the Klang River and the point at which they meet up in Kuala Lumpur is called the confluence of two muddy waters and through translation, somehow gives the city its name. As important as it is, visually, it was not a very featured “feature” and we only had time to get a distant photo of the location.

The next stop, at the 88-story high Petronas Twin Towers, was the highlight of the day. They look like side-by-side silver rocket ships, and they have extensive, arching water fountains in front of them, which makes for great selfies and picture taking. In 2011, a Frenchman, Alain Robert, nick named Spiderman, fastened securely by a safety line, snuck past security guards and began his climb to the top. After 6 hours, he surrendered to the police on the 60th floor. He has climbed 70 of the tallest buildings in the world. You can Google him.
There is a bridge type observation deck between the towers on the 42nd level at 558 ft. above ground and a restaurant on the 86th floor. The space is rented to upscale retail stores as well as to some of the largest companies in the world, including Microsoft, Boeing, IBM and Reuters. There are a total of 29 elevators but the the main bank of lifts is in the centre of each tower. All main lifts are double-decker with the lower deck of the lift taking passengers to even-numbered floors and upper deck to odd-numbered floors. To reach an odd-numbered floor from ground level, passengers must take an escalator to the upper deck of the lift.
There is a 1 km long, air-conditioned walkway that leads from the convention centre in the building to downtown shopping.

We often wondered, how it is that all these tall buildings don’t collapse or fall over. Well, I found out that for the Twin Towers, the foundation was 100 feet deep, with 104 piers standing on a 15 foot thick concrete pad, each consisting of 470,000 cubic feet of concrete that was poured continuously for 54 hours……for each tower!

Once back on the ship, it started to rain, but we were able to have a light but late lunch on the deck protected by the awnings. Because of the cancellation of our scheduled stop in Bintan Indonesia, we have an unexpected day at sea tomorrow, which because it’s been quite hectic lately will be well appreciated.

As the ship left Port Klang for Singapore, I sat for a bit on our veranda and was struck by the number of cargo ships each carrying enormous quantities of shipping containers, one of which passed us going the other way, and must have only been 150 yards away.
Mild thunder and lightning in the distance made the time even more enjoyable.

Tonight, as a pre-farewell party, the ship’s crew performed a 40 minute stage performance with singing and dancing. What made it so remarkable was that these were not members of the entertainment group. They were from all different departments like laundry, housekeeping, security etc. and it was incredible the skills that they had.

Dinner tonight was at Prime Seven, which is the upscale restaurant on the ship, and during the course of the cruise, we made friends with many of the servers. Saudi, a male server, in particular, gave Heather a tongue in cheek scolding for not ordering enough food. Rack of lamb was our favorite, consistently delivered to perfection according to our rare, medium, and medium rare requests.
The entertainment tonight was by a ventriloquist, who was a very humorous performer. A lot of his routine related to our own personal life experiences, as well as on board ship experiences.
Peter, Heather, Lee and I were tired and packed it in at 11:15, looking forward to a leisurely breakfast and relaxing day at sea tomorrow.Leer más