Journey to Malaysia

Well, its nearly August, and I'm about to write about what happened back in April. I have no excuses for not writing sooner. I haven't been working, or really doing anything. However, I started working yesterday, and sure enough, I have decided to write about our month long trip to Malaysia.

Things didn't start out so well for us. Before we could leave, we had to hand in our apartment keys to the on-duty security officer. Due to the ever present language barrier, this didn't happen quickly. As a result, we missed the first bus to the airport. Once we arrived at the airport, we didn't have much time to spare. We got to the counter, only to find out that we needed to hand in our expired Alien Registration Cards, and get a stamp in our passports for it. Kristin and I run to immigration, get hassled about how we should have done this two days before (when the cards expired). Luckily, they just give us a warning and we're able to check in and get on the flight. We are going back to Korea in September, and I'm wondering if we were to do the same thing again, what would happen. Not that I plan on it, but she said it was a warning, so what's the next thing?

While on the flight, we notice a bit of a commotion happening about ten rows ahead of us. I couldn't see exactly what was happening, but some of the flight attendants were continually going to the bathroom holding bloody towels. After a little while, they request the assistance of any medical professionals on the PA. Kristin and I are both pretty curious about what the hell is going on, and she decides to investigate. Turns out, a young Korean boy had a bloody nose. Not a typical medical emergency, but this turned out to be quite the bleeder. After a short while, they get things under control and the crisis is averted. The boy nearly had a second episode when his mother caught him picking his nose. Lucky, there was no blood this time.

Our flight took us from Seoul to Kuala Lumpur. The city is known to have a wonderful variety of food and we certainly got our fill of it while we were there. Our first night, we had Chinese food, and sweat our balls off because of the incredible heat and humidity in the city. Although the food was cheap, the beer was not. It was comparable to Western countries, which seems atrocious compared to most others in Southeast Asia. The high price is due to the country being mainly Muslim. However, it was like heaven whenever you had a cold one, since it so delightful to drink in the incredible heat. Plus, it was Tiger beer, which is now a personal favorite.

The following day, we were keen on having some of the Indian cuisine in "Little India". We found a curry house just down the road from our guesthouse. It was a simple establishment, you got your plate of rice, and then chose the curry that you wanted to top it with. It seemed you could pile as much of it on as you wanted. This presented us with our first big cultural difference. Kristin and I ate our curry with a spoon and fork, while the Indian's ate theirs with their hand, but only their right hand. The left is reserved for other matter's which don't go well with eating. All in all, it was a great meal, and I think it only cost us a couple dollars.

We didn't really have much of a plan of things to do in Kuala Lumpur (KL as the locals call it), so we just got a tourist map and decided to walk around the city. Our first stop was a huge mosque, and we were lucky enough to see it during prayer time. Since it was prayer time, thousands of worshipers piled into the mosque, and around it to do what they had to do. The architecture of many of the mosques is quite remarkable.

We continued our trek around the city and ended up at the National Mosque. Oddly enough, we arrived there at prayer time. Quite a coincidence really. We got stuck in a downpour and had to seek shelter in some sort of religious building for about an hour or so. Following this, we visited a Bird Park and a Butterfly Park. Not really sure why we visited the bird park, Kristin doesn't really like birds, and I'm sure I could have lived the remainder of my life quite well without going, but we did. We just bought a new camera before the trip, so this proved to be a good opportunity to test it out. After all the walking, we decided it was time to head back to our hotel in Chinatown and get some supper.

Later on that evening, we visited the Chinese Market. It was filled with knockoff everything. There was watches, purses, luggage, movies, clothes and even shoes. I ended up getting a Rolex. The guy tried to make me pay nearly $200 for it, but I managed to get it down to about $15 and felt somewhat proud. I've never been good at bargaining because I'm just to lazy to be bothered with it. It's sad though, that some people are actually willing to pay such high prices for fake merchandise. Afterwards, we walked downtown to check out the Petronas Towers and test out our new Tripod. It was given to us when we bought the camera, and actually proved to be pretty useful for the trip. The towers were a marvel to see, and were actually one of the highlights of our trip.