Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
I woke up today, got ready, packed my bags, checked out of my hostel, gave my thanks and goodbye to the manager, and then walked to the Dutch Square to ride the city bus to the interstate bus terminal. After waiting twenty minutes, the bus came, I got on, and then rode all over Malacca for an hour before finally reaching the terminal. Once there I bought my bus ticket to Kuala Lumpur (buses leave every hour during the day – not night); after forty minutes of waiting, at 14:00, I boarded the bus and was bound for Kuala Lumpur. During the ride I read the Book of Tobit and the Book of Judith; also, halfway to the city, we stopped at a rest stop to switch to another bus to continue our journey (our bus was not full enough, so it wasn’t cost efficient for the bus company to continue on with us). After nearly two hours, we reached the southern bus station and from there I took the city train to KL Sentral Station; then I used the LRT to travel north to Pasar Seni Station and from there it was a short three-minute walk to the hostel I booked with (located right in the Central Market). I checked in to the hostel, drank a couple of beers, and then walked out with camera and tripod to capture some of the city.
First, I walked north through the Central Market, then alongside the river, past the Sultan Abdul Samad Building, and past the Masjid Jamek; from there, I entered the nearby LRT station and traveled to the iconic Petronas Twin Towers located at Kuala Lumpur City Center. I took many pictures of the towers while the sun was hanging low in the western sky, first from the northwest, then from the southeast, by the man-made ponds and garden. Then I walked to the food court located in the shopping complex between the towers and ate sweet and sour chicken, sweet and spicy chicken, steamed water spinach, and fried rice. After that meal, I then fattened myself up a little more with a frozen coffee drink and toast with butter and jam. I then walked back outside to the southeastern side of the towers, on the other side of the pond to take some evening and night pictures of the towers; I also watched the light and water display in the pond that they have synchronized to music (similar to the Bellagio and the Burj Khalifa, but much more colorful). After taking 4.6 metric shitloads of photos, I then walked back to the LRT station and traveled back to the Pasar Seni Station.
From Pasar Seni, I walked east, two blocks, to Chinatown and entered in to Petaling Street to walk around the night market they have there every night; the street was crowded with vendors and shopping stalls, making it very difficult to squeeze my way through – there were also people there, complicating the matter more so. I didn’t waste too much time in the night market since I wasn’t interested in buying anything and I just wanted to get a sense of what it was like; so once I had sensed enough, I walked back to Central Market and went back to the hostel for the night.