June 12, 2001 - Tuesday - KL, Malaysia
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| Petronas Twin Towers, World's tallest buildings |
I got up this morning and headed to the light rail station to go to the Petronas Twin Towers, World's tallest buildings. The train ride was easy, clean, and efficient. After exiting the station, two shiny silvery towers glittered in the sunlight. For a minute, I had a vision of Madonna's pointy bras. I took a few pictures before heading in to the mall.
Tourist Trap Alert: Inside the towers, on the first 6 floors, there were hundreds of shops spread out on six huge levels. Most of the regular U.S. mall stores are all here, in additional to other shops. Every shop I went into was charging retail prices, U.S. RETAIL PRICES. It's ridiculous and I don't know how they stay in business here charging such high prices.
Only the food stores had reasonable prices and I ate my lunch there before heading to the National Mosque. I actually got a little lost and walked to the planetarium instead. Yes, even Orientals can get disOriented. On the way there, I had to climb from a highway to bridge above. While under the bridge, I found a guy sitting in his makeshift home of cardboards and whatever he could find. It was a weird sight and it stayed in my mind for a while, thinking what had happened to the man to make him end up living under the bridge.
I headed toward the Mosque again but was distracted by a large birdhouse on the way there so I went in. It costs RM$5 and I toured the facility for a few hours. The birdhouse is pretty much a huge area of woodland and streams covered by netting so no birds can fly out. There was pretty much every variety of birds there from little finches to the flamingoes.
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| Mosque in KL |
After that, I continued on my way and met up with yet another Brummie named Steve who was also headed toward the same direction. We walked the entire way back to the city and chatted in the mean while. I found out that he's only got a few more weeks and will be going to similar places before heading back.
We exchanged emails just in case if we're going to be at the Perhentian Islands at the same time. He's going to Ipoh first. Back at the hostel, I chatted with Jonathan and Peter, both very friendly Americans - one from Okalahoma and the other from Tennessee.
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