KP in KL

More pictures can be found by clicking here.

One of our reasons to move to KL was to experience something new and see the world a bit. Now that Taiwan was off the list, we set off for the next destination which so far has been a little more tame than our Taipei experience.

After our endless day in Taipei, we took the 5 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, our home for the next two years. Times like these I am very thankful for my uncanny ability to sleep anytime, anywhere as I was out like trout on the plane the entire ride. I did however, wait until they served a Malay/Chinese meal of chicken and noodles and lemon spice chick peas. While we're on the topic of plane food, I must mention the food on the way to Taipei. The stewardess gave us the option of the Chinese or American breakfast, and of course both Paul and I opted for the American. It consisted of the regular eggs, sausage, hash brown, and yogurt which we enjoyed as much as you could for plane food served in a foil box. After our stomachs were satisfied I looked over at the Chinese man next sitting to Paul, who of course opted for the Chinese breakfast and realized instead of yogurt, they got a Rice Krispy Treat wrapped in the regular blue wrapper with Crack, Snapple, and Pop on it, with American writing. Now, I admit I was a little jealous and wondered how in the world an American Rice Krispy Treat ended up on the menu for the Chinese breakfast? I guess that's a mystery we'll never know.

When we arrived in the KL airport we exchanged our US dollars for Malaysian Ringit and payed for the Taxi to take us to the hotel.

The taxi ride was all backwards. Here everyone drives on the opposite side of the road, and in the opposite side of the car, and the fast lane in the US is really the slow lane in KL and the same applies for walking down the street, sidewalk, up and down the escalator, etc. For me it's as confusing as it sounds and is going to take some getting used to, but I know I will be reminded daily with at least one collision with a fellow pedestrian. It was about 9 at night, so in the darkness of the car ride all we could see was the highway lit up in front of us and the city sky line which was much larger and prettier than I imagined. The Patronas Towers were lit up like a Christmas tree and were a bright reminder that we were a far cry from small town Katy, Texas.

As we neared the city center, we pulled up to our hotel/home for the next 30 days. The G-City Hotel is a new building which has only been open for two months and we were very silently made aware of it's newness the instant we walked in and saw the only other people there were staff. We since have seen one other man at breakfast, who happens to work with Paul, and 3 other hotel guests. Again I can't go without mentioning the design of the building, so bear with me. This building is KL's first "green" building which means it basically had to meet several requirements for sustainable design. It's extremely modern with dark wood floors and black and white photos by a famous KL photographer adorning the walls.

There is an infinity pool which I plan on visiting later, and the bathroom again has only Toto fixtures. I have claimed the Eames Chair in the corner of our room as my blogging chair, so here I sit very comfortably with sounds of new building construction in the background.

Overall, the hotel is extremely nice and I would highly recommend it to anyone if you can handle the not-so-hefty price of $120/night. I'd say a place like this in the US might cost at least $225/night. I'm learning things here are a little less expensive.

Paul and I enjoyed breakfast at the hotel the next morning and will continue to do so every morning since it's free. They serve the basic things for breakfast like omelets, fruit, yogurt, and cereal, along with some traditional Malay food. What's interesting to me is we've realized that you are expected to drink tea or coffee or both with breakfast and it's even common to add juice to that list. So when Paul and I ask for only water, the server almost always questions us to make sure they understood correctly that we don't care for the liquid trifecta. Only water.

The view from our hotel room

That evening we were invited by a few people who work with Paul to have a drink after work. We both weren't really sure what this entailed but figured we'd go along and make some new friends. Paul, me, and a girl named Stephanie who is from East Malaysia jumped in a taxi and she directed the driver where to take us. The entire fifteen minute ride the taxi driver was talking with the three of us like we had known him for years. And we have come to realize that most people here have that very warm friendly mentality. Waiters, store owners, taxi drivers, and really anyone else you run into always talks to you like you have been life-long friends with a huge smile on their face. We got a few tips on where to go for weekend trips from the Taxi driver and he dropped us off at an area called Bukit Bintang where the street was lined with small restaurants and bars open to the outdoors. Stephanie, who I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot more of, told us this would be our introduction to Malaysia outside of KLCC. The restaurant ironically was called Havana, and looked like it had been plucked straight from the streets of Cuba. The building was painted orange with light green shutters on the large open windows with an old wooden bar wrapping around the building. We sat under a cabana and waited for three other people from S7 (Subsea7) to arrive. Paul tried a beer from Singapore called Tiger and I had a mint mohito. We talked with Stephanie about the culture and history of our two very different cultures as our face glistened more and more from the sticky humidity.

Stephanie let us know she would have a lot of questions about the way people live in the US because they only know what they see on TV. She asked if the shows Glee and Desperate Housewives were accurate representations of our lives, and wanted to know what high school was like and if we were really cowboys. I was glad when she assured me not to worry that she didn't think I was like Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears. She told us that part of the Malay culture is that you don't usually get married until you are about 30 years old, and you have to go through three years of school after high school, and then three years of college. She was very surprised when I ordered only a salad for dinner and let me know that "In Asia, people eat a lot and they don't eat salad for dinner." She was true to her word ordered the same plate Paul had and ate every last bite. When she heard me ask for my salad without shrimp, she asked why and I explained to her I was allergic to shellfish. Stephanie then proceeded to tell me that her sister is allergic to the tree worms that they eat, and she hopes she never develops the allergy. "Some people can't take them" she said "because they crawl and move on the plate, but they are real big and fat and they are okay to eat." I asked if they tasted good, trying not to show the disgust on my face, to which she replied, "They don't taste great, but I'm used to them so I take them." The thought of eating a big fat tree worm gives me the heeby jeebies, so Andrew Zimmern, I salute you. Your job is much harder than it looks!

It didn't take long for me to realize that like the streets and road rules, the entire restaurant and bar we were in was completely backwards. A hodge podge of every culture in one building. While it was called Havana, it served very Cajun food including crawfish and boudan, and while we ate we listened to classic songs like "Sweet Caroline" to which I was happy to sing a long to. After dinner we went upstairs to find that people had reserved seats to watch the badminton match on the big screen while enjoying margaritas and listening to the live Polynesian band play songs from "It's my life" to "Lady GaGa, R&B songs, and everything in between. We met some girls from the UK who work with the company Technip, and talked about life here in KL. They assured me that while months 2-6 can be very trying, I will love it and everything will be okay. They recently made a trip to the bat caves and were going this weekend to the elephant refuge, so those may be some new stories I can blog about in the future.

Stephanie is going to take us to China Town today and maybe other places through KL, where I will be taking my camera so don't worry. The next blog post will be complete with more pictures.

Overall, the night was great. Everyone was so friendly and eager to talk with us with no reservation or expectation. As we sat at the table with our new found friends laughing and singing along to the American songs, Stephanie leaned over to me and said, "Welcome to the world!" I've decided it's time I say Hello world, here I am, with no expectations of what the future might hold. I'm going to soak it all up.