Skip to main content

Exhausted in Kuala Lumpur

The path through Kuala Lumpur International Airport was, by now, a familiar one. At least this time we could promise Alex that, yes, he could catch the train lifts as we descended to join the KLIA Express service to the city.

The light was beautiful as we raced past palm plantations and the amazing architecture of Putrajaya, reaching KL proper in 28 minutes. As we sat in the taxi driving to our hotel in Bukit Bintang the green, decaying city outside brought back so many memories. This was the second country I ever visited and it feels so familiar.



We had to wait a few hours to check in at the Parkroyal hotel so we ducked behind to the hawker stalls to eat some breakfast of roti canai and milo ais. Gosh the milo ais tasted so good.

Then Alex went crazy around the big Christmas decorations of The Pavilion, relishing the opportunity to run around. I was literally falling asleep on my feet and very glad when we could finally check in to our swank room. Pity about all the street noise though.

Only allowed an hour's sleep before it was swimming time. Alex refused to have a proper swim, enjoying wading around the shallow pool instead. But our swim was cut short by the dark storm clouds that soon unleashed themselves. It's wet season here.
When the rain died down we crossed over the Sungei Wang plaza for more shopping. I was thirsty and perhaps hungry, but too tired to tell. We shopped until 6pm, whereupon we walked across to Jalan Alor for a big dinner spread of grilled stingray, char kway teoh noodles, har mee, rojak and kangkong belacan. Alex devoured the char kway teoh and ate a fair amount of the others. He was drifitng off to sleep by the end of it.



I was too, so I carried him up to the hotel room while B continued to shop. Unfortunately, he woke as soon as the lift reached our floor, then complained noisily. All I wanted to do was sleep. I had a huge headache, but he refused to return to bed. When B arrived back we eventually all got to sleep, but at around 3am he awoke again and just wanted to stay awake. I still had a headache. With much struggle we all drifted off again.
When we were awoken by housecleaning knocking on the door it was 10.30am!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Kamioka mines: from silver to supernovas

Part of the Kamioka zinc mining and smelter complex Just after posting about the Kamioka Railway another photo from that 2006 set piqued my interest. Up there in the mountains the landscape looked blasted not just by winter but by something more. It was the kind of lonely place where you would not expect to find major industry, so this sight was quite surprising. Even more surprising is the history associated with this photo. According to some sources mining and refining of ores in Kamioka dates back to 710 AD  and only closed in 2001. Undoubtedly the mine was a major reason for the existence of the Kamioka Railway. Refining of zinc still continues to this day under the parent Mitsui Kenzoku zaibatsu . Gold, silver, copper, zinc and lead were all dug out of the rock here. Unfortunately, the process released cadmium into the river, which, when taken up by the rice that was grown in the river, caused the terrible itai-itai disease  - meaning "It hurts! It hurts". Cadm...

Asagaya and heading home

How can I be happy? I am about to return to a country where the toilets have at most two buttons and no seat warmers. But the tickets are booked and there are no cyclones, typhoons or other disasters standing in our way. It's almost time to go back to my first home. First B wants to do some "local shopping". So we catch the Chuo Line up a few stations to Asagaya, a residential area with a number of Shotengai, covered and uncovered arcades leading away from the station and narrow alleys lined with bars. It is an interesting area for a wander around. We are mainly looking, do some shopping for toothbrushes and sweets from Seiyu, a Wal-Mart owned supermarket/minor department store. We skipped breakfast and lunch is ramen and gyoza at a small restaurant near the entrance to the Pearl Centre shotengai. With the help of a staff member, I manage to purchase tickets at a branch of Lawson to the Ghibli Museum for a friend travelling to Japan in May. There are some...

To Melbourne on the XPT sleeper

Excited by the prospect of reliving the experience of seeing my very first movie and hearing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform it I bought tickets to The Empire Strikes Back in Concert in Melbourne back in February. Then I did nothing about actually getting there. Much as I love Melbourne, due to family commitments I didn't want to spend more than the Sunday away. Flights there and back made sense, but  my flight down to Melbourne in late October reiterated the fact that I usually don't enjoy descending into the city. And the concert was in December, a season of summer storms. I really didn't feel like driving the whole route alone and in a hurry, so that left one choice. The train. My very first trip up to Sydney from Melbourne was aboard the luxury Southern Aurora. Or it was supposed to be luxury. I wouldn't know because I spent the whole ride up very sick with the flu lying in the top bunk, unable to stay awake for my whole of night vigil. Now only...