Arrival Day (8/11)--Kuala Lumpur

By the time we arrived, both of us were exhausted. Our hotel is across the street from the train station.

We’re currently staying at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton. This place is NICE. Everything is very modern and clean. I took pictures of our room and hopefully they show how big it is. Our bathroom is almost as big as our room. It has two entrances; the one we are used to opens up from our “entry hall”—like most other hotels. The other one opens into the bedroom. There is a sliding wall that opens—I took a picture. There is a mini-tv in the bathroom so you can watch while you’re showering!!!
Now, staying at the Hilton isn’t as ritzy as you may think (I was quite impressed with Frank when he told me where we were staying; I wondered what coupon he had found). The cost of staying here is almost equivalent to staying at the La Quinta. Yippee for the exchange rate!!!!

To make the most of our time, we decided to hit the streets. The guidebooks said that Chinatown couldn’t be missed so we decided not to miss it.

We didn’t take a cab—we were told the monorail was much cheaper & faster. Luckily Frank is great with the guidebooks because we headed off and very soon it was obvious that we were in the right place because there were stalls everywhere.
Stalls were in front of stores with absolutely no room to spare between. They were squeezed tightly together—hundreds of them.
The stalls sold just about everything; it was like being on the streets of NY but multiplied exponentially. There were sunglasses, shirts (t-shirts and polo/logo/name brand), watches, purses and any knock-off you can imagine. I wanted to purchase something but really didn’t want anything and didn’t want to stop and look because of the crowd—sensory overload!

About 1:30pm we stopped for lunch at a small restaurant. Not knowing what Malaysian food was, I was worried about eating on this trip. Well… this was where I was supposed to be because it is a blend of mainly Indian food, Chinese food, and Thai food. All my favorite foods; I’m in heaven.
We made our way back to Petaling Street. In the time we were gone, the stalls had multiplied! Originally it was set up like this—there is a street with shops on either side. Stalls are set up, side by side, in front of the stores (you can’t tell where the stores are because the stalls just look really deep). Now, there were stalls set up back-to-back, in the middle of the street. There was approximately 4 feet for two-way people traffic. We wanted out of there.

We left quickly left that area. Frank wanted to see little India so we continued until we found it. Stores told us that we were there by the things they sold—lots of rugs and other Indian-type wares.
We ventured on to the Central Market area. Central Market is an indoor market/flea market. Similar to Petaling Street but not nearly as crowded; it was closer to a mall because most vendors had little stores. The sensory overload continued. I wanted to purchase something but couldn’t—too much stuff to see and we were way too tired to comprehend everything we were seeing.
To get to the hotel, you must pass through the train station. As we rode up the escalator, I noticed a 7-11 store. I hadn’t seen one of those in years but I figured that they had Slurpees. I peered into the window and saw the machine. Naturally we were at the top of the escalator and the store was now at the bottom. We exited the escalator and went back down to the store. Our flavor choices were tutti-frutti or mango. I chose tutti-frutti (bright green)—mmmmmm.
Even though we were exhausted, we figured that we needed to try to stay up until a normal bedtime (instead of 6:30pm). We ordered room service and I turned on the tv. Being 13 hours ahead of your regular time zone is hard. Poor Frank was snoring before the food arrived.