Today is the day we got to meet up with our study abroad group! But first, Renee and I had the whole day to ourselves again. We had to technically be checked out of our hostel room at 11:00am so we got up fairly early to shower, pack, and leave for the day. Since we weren’t leaving for the airport until 10:30pm we decided to lazily make our way towards the KL Tower. This is similar to the one in Seattle, Washington. We took the monorail to the Bukit Nanas stop and walked in the wrong direction by accident. In retracing our steps, we found a sign that led us through a national forest reserve towards the tower. Apparently getting lost brings wonderful surprises. While we had to climb a bazillion steps, it was nice in the shade and very pretty. Everything was so green and lush. The path led us through a park and all along the path there were outsets of picnic tables and benches to rest on. We finally made it to the tower around 12:30pm.
Once inside, Renee and I decided to buy a ticket to go up to the observation deck. From the top we had an awesome 360-degree view of Kuala Lumpur. It really is a HUGE city. After taking an elevator 421 meters up (4th tallest telecommunications tower in the world) we received headphone guides to explain each viewpoint to us. It was a little hazy because it was so humid today, but you could really see to the edge of the city. Some landmarks I saw: the king’s palace, the bird and butterfly conservatory, the National Mosque, and the American Embassy.
What I learned: Malaysia has 13 states that have ruling sultans, except for 4. The 4 that don’t have sultans have governors. While Malaysia functions under a parliament, the sultans and king act more as ceremonial members of the government. We spent about an hour and a half here. Before leaving, we had a cool drink at one of the local stands.
Around 2:30 we started to walk back towards the monorail station to eat back to our hostel. For lunch we ate at the restaurant right next door; there was something like a curry buffet that we could pick and choose from. This place was also like an open-air cafeteria with many tables and people everywhere similar to the one we ate in a few days ago. The food was a wonderful smattering of all kinds of new tastes. I especially like the tiny amount of chili paste I tried that was spicier than anything I have eaten in a long time. With 7 hours to go until leaving to meet up with our group, we blew some time updating our blogs, pictures, and doing prep work for our courses over here. Luckily, I found a sports channel with highlights from the 1st stage of Tour de France and watched that for 30 minutes. And then we watched a movie. A whole 2-hour movie. Honestly, both of us were so ready to leave the hostel and begin study abroad. Antsy doesn’t describe what we were feeling. At 8pm we ventured outside to grab a small dinner of grilled corn and fruit. Instead of eating and returning to the hostel we walked around the market, down the main road, and even went to a supermarket. (This place was like JCPenny’s on steroids!) And for about 35 minutes, we sat outside our hostel building on the steps just people watching and taking in the night market.
(Just a glimpse of the craziness inside one of the Malaysian fresh food markets!)
When it closed in on 9pm I thought I was going to lose my mind. Finally 10:30pm rolled around and the owner of the hostel drove us in his car to the airport. (For some reason the hired taxi service wasn’t available to take us?) It took about an hour to drive to the international airport and we were dropped off at the arrivals station. That was a little odd because we had all of our belongings, but those were our instructions. Once inside we found Kurnia, our study abroad coordinator and 2 other girls who had already arrived. Finally, the main reason for flying ½ way around the world was here! All the others (11 of us in total) arrived around 12 am and we were met by some students of UPSI (Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris) and our other MSU coordinator. Traveling was not over yet; our group had to travel about 1 hour and 45 minutes to Tanjung Malim where we’d be staying at the university. We finally arrived and crashed into bed at 2am. Lucky us, breakfast was at 7:30am!!
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