We’ve given up on the idea of Thanksgiving, at least for
now. The past few years we’ve been fortunate enough that George has been around
and has had the time off so we could do some great Asian exploring! In 2010 we
did Beijing, China. 2011 we did Bali, Indonesia and this year, 2012, we did not
lollygag on the beach but did a 10 day vacation to Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam
and Singapore! Whew.
I’ve learned from my sweet friend KB over at Konversations with Kay… that you don’t have to write every little detail of your life in your
blog. I seem to have a problem with that, but will do my best to get this blog
done, and get it done in a nice timely summarized manner. Eh- we’ll see.
Day 1 of our Crazy Asian (Crazian) vacation consisted of us
making the military hop at 6am (hooray for space-a dreams coming true, boo for
6am!!!) flying the 6ish hours to Singapore, Singapore, grabbing a taxi and
taking it to the Sinagpore airport and then taking a flight to Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia! We landed that evening around sunset and then took an hour taxi ride
into the city.
Malaysia was so interesting! Just doing the city for 2
nights was not enough time but I got the gist of it. It’s an up and coming city
in the Southeastern Asia. I’m sure we even saw a sign at one point that said it
had a goal to be a fully industrialized nation by 2020. Good for them.
Everywhere you looked you could see new construction!
We had dinner at the Hard
Rock Café, which was in our hotel (I know, I know… SO touristy, but we were
tired and it was convenient) and then drinks in the hotel bar, which was the first time we heard “Gagnam
Style.” There was a lovely Filipino band singing it to a bar full of
Australians (and us). So very strange.
The next morning we got up and took a walk over to the
Petrona’s Towers! In 1996 they were the tallest buildings in the world. And
they are tall! They only sell a certain number of tickets a day so we had to go and buy
tickets that morning and reserve a time slot for sunset to go to the top and
check out the view.
We had a great time walking around the park surrounding the
downtown KL area and taking funny pictures. Plus, we got to check out the huge
mall at the base of the towers. We also found a grocery store and bought some candy to hand out to the children in Cambodia (more on that later). While walking through that store we also heard (for the second time) "Gagnam Style" on a tv commercial for a mop. We were 2 for 2!
We grabbed lunch at the food court there, and
went for a restaurant that had a sign that said ‘traditional Malaysian dishes’.
Whelp, my lunch tasted like cigarette ash. Like… real ashes. It was pretty
gross. George liked his but after I refused to eat mine he insisted on getting
me a McDonald’s cheeseburger. Bless him.
George getting creative with the camera.
Us with the Petronas Towers.
I insisted on taking a 'jumpy picture'.
Then I insisted on George taking a 'jumpy picture'.
We went back to the hotel and took a dip in the pool,
changed and then headed back to the towers for our viewing. My word, they’re tall!
Us at the top of one of the towers!
Just as we exited the building they turned the lights on to the buildings. It was awesome.
An hour later we were safely on the ground and ready for dinner. We hit another traditional Malaysian restaurant of some sort for dinner and then headed to bed. This trip was seriously a whirlwind! We had just enough time to touch on the highlights of each place we visited. Wish we could have had a few months to travel, instead of 10 days!
Stay tuned to read about our 4 days Cambodia!
Tokyo Time