Petronas Towers and Shopping

One of the few 'must-see's' in Kuala Lumpur is the Petronas Towers from the late 1990's, a pair of huge and unique sky scrapers connected by a sky bridge, so obviously I had to see them.

Since the theme of the day was architecture I was paying more attention to the large office buildings surrounding me, and to be honest a lot of them aren't particularly attractive.  Others are just unusual.

KL Tower

At night the camel lights up too

They're putting up a lot of new
buildings around KL

Monorail

The towers are just massive when you get up close, all steel and glass.

On the way back I stopped at a couple of the malls (one of the other things KL is known for).

Most of the malls I've seen in Thailand and Malaysia are incredibly nice.  This one was a high clss fashion mall with shops like Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., and Montblanc (in other words, places that I would never shop).  I tried to find a store with hiking boots but no luck.  The only boots I saw had stiletto heels.

The City Walk is pretty much a long alley that has been carved out of the city center, lined with shops and restaurants.

They have a couple of these elevated walkways around the city center, it seems like they mostly just connect the various shopping malls.

I didn't buy anything at the mall but I did pick up a couple things at the Chinatown market on the way home.

Little India and Brickfields

I had plans to meet one of my friends for coffee this morning (he was on a visa run from Thailand) so it was the perfect chance to try out the public transportation.  I took the train to KL Sentral which was pretty easy, and the trains come every few minutes which was nice.

Afterwards I took a walk around Little India which was nearby.  Very colorful!  And the food, as usual, was fantastic.

I wandered about a bit in the residential area.  There were some large apartment and condominium buildings, as well as houses and developments, not much different than the outskirts of any city.  I did find a couple small shrines and a few temples though.

Morning in Kuala Lumpur

 Oops!  I almost forgot about my morning explorations.

A market in Chinatown...

An interesting Hindu temple where they were doing some kind of ceremony, pouring coconut milk over a statue and playing music.

A Chinese temple...

And the Central Market, much different than it must have been in 1888, it's just a mall now.  Outside there are some artists and food vendors.  I tried a new fruit, the guy told me it was called snake fruit, I saw a sign on another stall that said Kelubi Kulit, although that's Malay.  Either way, it was really bitter and I could barely swallow it, I don't think I'll be eating it again.

Merdeka, mosques and a war memorial

Jamek Mosque is over a hundred years old, one of the oldest in the city.  Unfortunately it was closed to tourists due to construction but even from the outside it is quite magnificent.

There are Malaysian flags everywhere!  I'm not sure if this is just in preparation for their Independence Day on the 31st or if they are just incredibly patriotic.

Preparations are underway for the Independence day ceremony in Merdeka Square.

I walked through a nice park to get to the war memorial.  Of course it was surrounded by a sky scraper on one side and speeding cars on the other, but I did see frogs hopping around on the lily pads.

The war memorial was really nice.  The statue itself was designed by an American, the same one who created our Iwo Jima sculpture.  (I didn't know that at the time, but it's the first thing that I thought of when I saw it)

The national mosque was very nice.  It's very open and serene and had a clean feel.

Even the old railroad station is beautiful!