Brioni Southeast Asian World Tour: Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur

Welcome to another installment of the Brioni Southeast Asian World Tour! :) This post is going to talk about our two day stay in Kuala Lumpur!

After our overnight train left Singapore, we arrived in Kuala Lumpur bright and early. Luckily the hotel that we were staying at (the Aloft Sentral) was right across the street from the train station, and they even let us check in early too!

The hazy sunrise view from our hotel room...

Another shot from our hotel room from a different angle...

Because we were still a little tired from traveling, we didn't do much during the day.  This left us with enough energy to go out that night for dinner and drinks.  We went to Bukit Bintang, a popular area full of bars and restaurants.

For dinner, we at the Steakhouse KL. Here's a dim shot of my refreshing cocktail!

This particular restaurant allowed you to choose your starch, your sauce and of course your cut of steak. I opted for the baked potato and chimmichuri sauce with the strip!

Dinner is served!

Justin thought the restaurant was just okay, but it's hard to beat the steak we had for our anniversary dinner at CUT.

After dinner, we strolled around the nearby bars. A lot of the bars had different themes (e.g.: Irish pub, English ale house, etc.), which was very interesting. It appeared that these places were probably catering to the expats and tourists. Below is a sign for a pig knuckle eating challenge. Don't even even get me started...but for us having just ate dinner, you know Justin wanted to do it. 

Cool reggae bar signage that changed color!

Crowded streets...

This bar made us think of our friend/former roommate, McCarthy...

The next day was our big sightseeing day. Before we got productive, we took advantage of our hotel's complementary breakfast, which provided a variety of delicacies.

Sarawak Laksa is a spicy noodle soup from Peranakan cuisine. Pernakan food is a type of cuisine that combines Chinese and Malay food. I liked it because I love spicy food!

Below on the left is Chee Cheong Fun, which are steamed rice rolls with shrimp paste. I noticed a lot of Malaysian food had a lot of shrimp paste/fish sauce, which Justin wasn't a huge fan of. On the right was Nasi Lemak, which is a rice dish cooked in coconut milk.

Nasi Lemak is served with peanuts, cucumber and chili sauce, which you're supposed to put on top (in the picture below to the left, you can see it on my plate below next to some chicken curry). As you can see in my facial expression in the picture below to the right, you can't beat the fresh Asian fruit! I fully took advantage of the rambutan, yellow watermelon, and dragonfruit!

After such a hearty breakfast it was time for our tour of the city!

Here is a picture that I took of the home of the royal family.  Yes, you can't see much because I was scrambling to get into position, and the tour bus driver didn't stop. Would it have killed the driver to have stopped for a few minutes so that we could take one picture? Geez!

Malaysian TV news station...



The National Mosque of Malaysia (Masjid Negara Malaysia)

I think this was a Catholic church, which was neat to see, considering that Malaysia is predominantly a Muslim country

A cute sign that we saw while on our bus tour

The Malaysian version of the Ruff Ryders, LOL. Just kidding. Motorbikes and scooters are very popular in Southeast Asia for their ability to go between cars, and weave in and out of traffic.

Dataran Merdeka or Independence Square

Medan MARA. I'm not sure what kind of building this is (I know it was a government building), but I really liked the interesting tilework.

The Palace of Culture (which is a performance venue (I think) like the Kennedy Center)

And of course, the Petronas Twin Towers. Unfortunately we went on on Monday and their observatory was closed for the day.  Fortunately, there wasn't much to see from that height because it was a really foggy day!

Although we didn't see it, it looks really pretty when it's lit up at night



photo taken from flickr

The lovely fountains in front of the Petronas Towers

A picture in front of the towers, as well as a peak inside the tower. I would have never expected that inside the tower was a huge mall. Asians love malls. It's interesting to note that while malls are falling out of practice in the DC area (for more urban-style storefronts/town centers), malls will always be popular in Southeast Asia, if anything for their air conditioning!

 

Petronas is the sponsor of the Malaysia Grand Prix, so they had two Formula One racing cars in the entryway.

The KL Tower

Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown. There were a lot of vendors selling food, but most of the stalls were selling clothing or knock-offs. Of course you have the fake purses, but did you know they make fake Beats by Dre headphones? I wonder what the sounds quality is like?

Justin and I thought that these signs were funny. The fact that they are placed together shows that this places of business believe durian eating is just as offensive as smoking a cigarette, LOL! Justin actually had durian for the first time while on this trip (you'll see it in a later post :).

After a long day of sightseeing, we needed to head back to train station for the next leg of our trip, Ko Samui. We stopped by the mall near the train station and grabbed a bite to eat! The Malaysian version of Korean food! I thought it was pretty good!

And by the looks of the sign it looked like they were hiring too! Even the hiring ads reflected the Muslim culture with the women wearing hijabs. Our stay in Kuala Lumpur was really cool in that we got to experience a predominantly Muslim culture in Asia! With that in mind, businesses closed early for Ramadan and there were no pork products to be found (no bacon!)

The next stop on our trip would be a brief stop in the town of Butterworth. There we visited the island of Penang. Stay tuned!