We spent about two hours walking around the National Museum and it was super interesting learning about Malaysia's history. Over the last few hundred years, Malaysia has been under the rule of Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands, before becoming independent in the 1950s. Apparently it all started when a Portuguese voyager came to explore the area. He showed up, people thought he was there for an imperial takeover, and so they took him captive. Then the Portuguese got mad and started sending warships. Talk about a misunderstanding!
We also saw that the Malaysia flag is very similar to the United States' flag, with 14 red and white stripes instead of 13, representing the 13 states and one for the federal government.
The museum was really great, we learned a lot, and it was nice and small :-p. They did a good job of packing in all the important information and leaving out the extemporaneous stuff lol. After plenty of learning at the museum, we headed off to the Botanical Gardens and park on the lake. It was beautiful!
There was also a semi-skate park in the middle of the park which was really cool and had a great overhang:
I loved taking photos there (even though it was SUPER hot outside!) We wandered around for a while before heading back to KL Central to catch the monorail so we could get to Suria KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Center) for a Chinese New Year Celebration!
For those of you who don't know, I'm a member of Couchsurfing.com, a really awesome community of cool people all over the world. Basically, people offer their couches, free of charge, to travelling strangers from all over the world to stay with them. The idea is built on cultural exchange and understanding. "Surfers", as travelers are called, receive a free place to stay, while they provide their host with knowledge of a different area of the world. Sometimes you'll hang out with your host and they'll give you tips on things to do and see around the city. Other times you will barely see them. It all just depends on the situation and their free time. I had couchsurfed several times while studying abroad in Europe and had had some great experiences. I had been looking forward to introducing Jon to the couchsurfing lifestyle while on this trip, and to the awesome community that exists all over the world of just awesome people looking to help out travelers. However, planning our trip the way we did (super last minute), it's been fairly hard to find hosts. That said, you can "post" trips publicly and people can reach out to you. Two people, one from Kuala Lumpur and the other a traveler from Egypt who was also in KL, reached out and asked if we wanted to meet up in KLCC, so I was pretty excited to meet some folks! While one ended up being busy during the times we were free, the other said he'd meet us to watch the Chinese New Year celebration. We headed to our meeting location at the appointed time (2:45), but with the performance at 3 on the other side of the building and our couchsurfing friend nowhere in sight, we emailed him and told him we'd try to meet later.
We then headed outside to catch the Chinese New Year "Dance of the Dragon" which took place at the base of the Petronas Towers. It was pretty cool - 2 guys dressed in a crazy lion costume dancing to gongs and drums.
After the performance, we wandered around the KLCC Park for about an hour, taking LOTS of pictures of the Petronas Towers (they are seriously SO pretty!) and then decided to head into the mall for a little snack. And then we ended up wandering around the mall for another hour lol. Why are the malls here so enticing to wander around you ask? Mostly because they are air conditioned lol. But also because they are MASSIVE. And it's kinda just fun to be a mall walker. I get it now :-p.
At 6 pm we headed down to the basement of the Petronas Towers building to line up for our tour. Once at the bottom we wandered around the gift shop (and I bought my postcard for Malaysia :)) before lining up to go to the top!
From the basement, you take an elevator to the 42nd floor, where the Sky Bridge is located. When you get off the elevator, you can then walk directly between the two buildings - pretty cool.
After wandering that floor for 15 minutes, we hopped on another elevator to head to the 86th floor, the top floor you can venture to in the towers. We had asked what the best time to enter the towers was and the woman behind the counter had said mid-afternoon. We decided to skip her advice and try to catch the sunset on the towers. I'm pretty sure we had it right. The view was BEAUTIFUL from the top of the towers. And it was really fantastic watching the sun as it descended next to the other tower from right next to it!
The Twin Tower with the KL Tower behind it from the 86th Floor
We spend another 15 minutes up there before it was time to head down again. It's funny how it's so touristy to go to the top of the biggest building in the city, but it really is amazing every time. Every city is so different and it's wonderful to see what they have to offer when you're way up on top of the world like that :).
After we reached the bottom again, we tried to meet our couchsurfing friend again. I sent him a few texts trying to contact him, but to no avail. And then I got a text from Verizon. Stating that I had exceeded $150 in international roaming fees. WHAAAAATTTTTTT?!?!?!?! I only had my internet turned on for about 3 minutes to send him a message using the couchsurfing app?!?!? What happened!!!???!
Turns out I hadn't turned off all my apps for roaming (because I NEVER use my internet when not in a wi-fi area - this was a VERY special circumstance). Andddd as a result, every single app on my phone was using data during the 3 minutes during which I sent 3 messages.
Lesson learned. OOF.
And after all that, he didn't show up. Turns out he had to work until 8 pm tonight (of course I didn't get that message until later...) ACK!
After getting the message from Verizon I was SUPER bummed and upset with myself for doing something so silly. Jon helped me to feel better, reassuring me that it was alright and it was just a mistake I had made. We decided we needed to relax a bit so we went to a Portuguese restaurant in the mall for dinner (for wraps - have I mentioned we're sick of Asian food???) and then wandered outside to see the Petronas Towers at night!
If I thought the buildings were beautiful during the day, MAN they glow at night!
I could have stayed all night, but we were both feeling pretty tired after pretty much walking nonstop all day starting around 9 am. It's DEFINITELY time for some well deserved rest!
Jess' highlight of the day: sunset in the towers and hanging out by the towers at night and watching the fountain show
Jon's highlight of the day: going to the top of the Petronas Towers
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