into the mystic...: who's too tall for asia?

we got into KL late saturday arvo. the taxi driver dropped us off at the front of the petaling street markets and with a final 'watch your pockets!' he sped off. we walked through china town avoiding the vendors selling dvds, watches and handbags and found our hotel - smack bang in the middle of all the action. luckily we couldnt hear any noise from the markets or we wouldnt have got any sleep! we dumped our bags and headed out for a quick bite to eat and got shepherded to a table out the front of a food court. we got tiger beers and settled in to a yummy chinese meal.

on account of me having been to KL before it was my job to be tour guide (or dictator as ross would say) and i was a bit worried about showing jess, gael and ross all the sights in such a short amount of time. the receptionist at our hotel suggested the hop on/hop off bus, so on sunday morning we set out to do that. we stopped at the orchid gardens and the bird park. i wasnt to keen on the idea of the bird park and after reading the sign saying 'largest free flight walk in avery in the world' we decided to give it a miss. we had quick photo stops at the palace and merdeka (independence) square and the commentary on the bus made my job much easier!

our next stop was the petronas twin towers. ross was especially impressed with the architecture, and after craning our necks to see the top we headed into 'suria klcc' the six level shopping mall next door. we were all very excited about the shops there, and you realise how little perth really has. we split up (ross to the toy stores, jess to the sports stores, gael in search of a new wardrobe) and went crazy for an hour or so. the next stop was the telecom tower. we bought tickets to get to the top and were all happy to see there were not only free water bottles, but an F1 simulator, animal park and pony ride included with the price. we took the elevator up to the top of the tower and i impressed jess with my knowledge of all the buildings. little did she know i was reading it off the guide above the windows... KL has some awesome architecture, so we took lots of photos of crazy buildings.

once back at the bottom of the tower ross and jess spotted a flying fox. that was added to the list of to do's for the arvo, but we headed to the F1 simulator first. we walked in and straight away they told ross he was too tall to fit in the car, so he had to wait outside. jess and gael did it, and they said it was terrible to make him feel better. we headed up to the flying fox and jess, gael and ross each had two gos. i chickened out and was the bag holder and photographer instead.

we were all too heavy for the pony rides (max weight was 50kgs) so we went to the animal park.we saw lots of snakes, spiders and reptiles. after being thoroughly creeped out, we headed back to the bus and the next stop: KL convention centre and aquaria.

the aquarium was the best aquarium i've ever been to. we walked in and my jaw dropped and it didnt go back up until about an hour after we'd left! it was a maze of the most stunningly beautiful aquariums i had ever seen. there were huge tanks and tiny tanks, all of them so carefully looked after and all of the fish were so healthy and happy. they used aquariums of all shapes, one was even a huge cylinder that went from the floor to the second story ceiling and you walked up stairs around it to get to the next level! we spent a long time in there, careful to make sure we didnt miss a thing.

the next day we went up to batu caves. its a humungous rock from a distance, and an even bigger one close up. obviously. it was pretty hot and only got hotter when it started to rain. we had to climb over 200 steps to get to the entrance, and as we were walking up them about 10 monkeys were swinging their way backwards and forwards between us, probably hoping we would give them food. we reached the mouth, and i realised that they werent caves like i think of them. it was more a huge cavern. the sheer size of it was unreal, and because it is a worship ground, there were a couple of ceremonies going on. i was a little disheartened because they were selling stuff up there in stalls, and i felt bad that it was our fault that their place of worship had become a tourist attraction. that being said, they didnt seem to mind.

we had a little rest in the afternoon, as you do, and then set off to Times Square. the reason we were going there was because it has the largest indoor amusement park in the world, through three stories of the 11 stories of shopping centre. WHAAAT?!!? it was so wicked. it was the best looking theme park i had ever seen. i started to think that the malaysian people certainly know how to do something properly. so me and ross were uber excited, and we got to the front....only to find out ross was too tall to go on the rides. to rub salt in the wound, we could see the main rollercoaster that went all through the whole place, AND had an upside down loop the loop! so ross had to go shopping with gael, for shoes that they didnt ever have in his size, while ange and i went on the rides. WHICH WERE AWESOME!! except for then i got on a ride i knew wasnt a good idea called the dizzy wizzy, and i got reeeealy sick, tried to ignore it, got on a ride that spun even faster, was so deleriously sick i couldnt stop laughing hysterically the whole ride, and then had to leave and lie down on a bench with a lemonade feeling sorry for myself and trying not to make a scene by projectile vomiting the contents of my lunch.