My First Visitors!

My apologies for the lack of posting lately, but as I forewarned I would be busy with my first official visitors in town!  So now the task to share all the interesting activities we experienced over the past two weeks, hmmmm, that might be difficult because we did so much!

My cousin Molly flew in and spent four days in Kuala Lumpur with me before we met up with her husband who had been working on a project in Thailand.  It gave me a chance to spend time exploring some of the city sites I hadn't made it to yet, and she did more exploring on her own while I was in class.  We visited Lake Gardens (a big park near my neighborhood), and a mosque near Chinatown.  One afternoon, we took the commuter train a little ways out of the city to a protected forest area called FRIM (Forestry Research Institute of Malaysia) and did some hiking around.  You don't realize how noisy it is in the city until you leave and experience the quiet of nature again!  Another evening we headed out to explore the impressiveness of a whole road full of different hawker stalls (street food) and attempt to choke down some durian fruit just to say we tried it.

Instead of boring you with a detailed narrative, I'll just share through photos... 

Fountain in front of the Petronas Towers/KLCC.

Replica of Stonehenge in front of the Planetarium in Lake Gardens.  Quite a random thing to exist there. 

Malaysian flags in front of the National Museum.

Petronas Towers at night.  Molly and I attended a concert in the philharmonic concert hall located in the bottom of the towers.  We didn't see an orchestra though, it was a Malaysian singer/songwriter/guitar player named Yuna who sang in both English and Bahasa Malaysia.  Fantastic night of music!

Molly hiking at FRIM.

Visiting Masjid Jamek (a mosque at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers) we were required to cover our heads and legs.  Fortunately they provided head scarves and robes for us to wear.  The robes were a little large and I kind of felt as if I was dressing up in a wizard costume. 

 

The juxtaposition of the modern high rise city buildings surrounding the historic mosque.




A dim sum master executing his craft on Jalan Alor, and amazing street full of many different types of food from Thai to Chinese to Malay and other goodies like roasted peanuts, durian, and yummy fruit juices.  Food is so cheap at the hawker stalls and most restaurants, that its basically cheaper to eat out every meal than to cook for yourself.  Plus, its so hot here that the thought of slaving over the stove is not so entertaining and is best left to someone else : )  So if I come back to America 20 lbs heavier, this is why!






Street food varieties. 



  More to come about our travels to Langkawi (a beautiful island off the NW coast of Malaysia) and Taman Negara (a huge national park in the center of the country)....