Kuala Lumpur Trip Day 2 (4/4/2015)

We woke up early this morning as P wanted to take his jump shot at the Petronas Towers, and we have to do it before our private tour start at 2.30pm. We'd even wanted to squeeze in a spa session but we could not find a good and cheap spa in KL city, therefore we gave up on the idea. Anyway, we were out of the hotel by 10.20am and we headed towards the Pavilion to make use of the KLCC- Bukit Bintang walkway.

View of the walkway from the Pavilion

I've read up about the walkway before the trip, so I knew it started from the dining area of the Pavilion. In fact, we just had to walk straight and did not even need to go to a different floor to start our walk.

The start of the walkway from the Pavilion

This walkway was just launched in 2012, I've seen the chaotic streets and traffic in the city and I think it's really a godsend for tourists and locals alike. It should be hard to navigate through all the buildings and cross so many traffic lights just to get to KLCC from Bukit Bintang. Along the way, I saw a few hotels that I had considered booking, Impiana and Traders hotel etc, but I'm still glad that we chose Park Royal for the good location, it also look more grand and newer than the other hotels.

Clear signs on the way to direct us

As usual, P was walking really fast and we already reached the Aquaria within 10 min, there was clear signage around the place so it was really easy for us to navigate our way to KLCC. There were already other tourists utilising the walkway with us when we were walking through, I've also noted that the walkway is not opened 24hours, it is only in use from 6am to 11pm daily. Good enough for most tourists.

Greeted by the Petronas Towers

We emerged at the KLCC park and were excited to catch a glimpse of the Petronas Towers. As we walked nearer, we could see that there were many other tourists taking pictures around the area. However, P was not satisfied with this view and he felt that we should walk around to the front so that he can take the jumpshot at the front of the buildings.

He felt that this side of the park is the back of the towers

When we make a big round to the front, the sun was already out and shining brightly up there, the towers looked majestic but it was really difficult to take a good shot as the buildings were really tall and we were standing just in front. Even if we use a selfie stick to take the shot from the lowest angle, the pictures turned out quite dark as the phone is in the shadows with the bright sun up above us. We even tried to cross to another building opposite the Petronas Towers, but we still could not get a good shot. I was perspiring profusely and it was difficult to cross the roads and navigate through the traffics around the area as the town planning of the roads was really quite terrible there.

Our couple Jordan royal blues

The selfie stick was of great use

This shot really tested my abdominal strength

Finally he was satisfied

P is always a perfectionist when it comes to his jumpshot, so we decided to walk back around to the KLCC park and tried again. We were so tired when we finally accomplished the mission, it took us two hours and we were sweating buckets as the weather was really warm. I was glad that the walk back to the Pavilion mall was fast and the linkway is air-conditioned. It will be a real torture if we have to navigate through the terrible traffic under the hot sun.

The shopfront

We decided to reward ourselves with a hearty brunch at Johnny Rockets, a prominent American restaurant at the dining segment of the shopping mall. Even though I dont usually like to indulge, fries and milk shake sounded really good in the hot weather. 

My grilled chicken sandwich with premium chocolate milk shake

The portion of the food was quite big, so I did not finish some of the bread and the fries. The milkshake was served same style as billy bombers and we get the extra portion in the metal mixer jug. Someone left a comment in foursquare saying that the premium chocolate milkshake tasted like melted ice cream, I regretted not reading the comments before ordering. It was not really that bad but I prefer P's oreo milkshake. 

The crew dancing to music

Happy with our meal :)

It was interesting as the restaurant crew played some catchy music every half an hour and they will dance to the tune. Kudos to their courage!

After the very good meal, we went back to the hotel room to get some rest before our private tour at 2.15pm. I did some research and the Batu caves is one of the listed place to visit around the KL area, but the review is rather mixed. I decided to engage one of the private tours with high ratings on TripAdvisor to bring us to the caves and then to fireflies tour at Selangor. The total cost for the private tour is RM430 and its quite worth the money as the transport was comfortable and renting a cab all the way to Selangor for the fireflies tour actually cost more.

The big statue outside Batu caves

The guide helped with this shot (not sure what those behind us were trying to capture)

The long flight of steps just like Lantau Big Buddha

Monkeys feeding on scraps of food along the way

One of the guys there cleaning up the statue

The opening on top of the caves

The weather at Batu caves was really nice, we took sometime to climb up the long flight of stairs and took a look at the caves before reuniting with the guide. Honestly, it was not worth the time and effort if we had traveled all the way out of KL city for the trip to the caves, therefore I'm really glad that I made it part of the guided tour. We slept on the way to the caves and fell asleep again once we got back to the car, and our guide kept asking us why we were so tired. We traveled for quite sometime on the road and got to Selangor, another state out of KL. We decided to have a early dinner as our next destination was quite crowded.

Traveled to Selangor for seafood dinner

Horseshoe crab that I always tell my students about 

The fish trap that was common around Sarawak and Malayan kampungs

Seafood dinner that was so nice that P asked for second round

Seats nearer to the river had a nice view

The seafood dinner, which is part of the guided tour package, was at this Chinese seafood place along the river. Our table was the nearest to the river and the next few tables along the stretch were also reserved for other tourists like us. The set dinner included fried rice, cereal prawn, sautéed vegetables, chili crab and a fish dish. The crab had a nice chilli paste but it was too spicy and messy so we didnt finish it too.  hardly touched the fish dish as it didnt taste too good, but P ordered a second round of the cereal prawn (he liked it as it was oily but crunchy) and the fried rice.

Went to the peak of the place where there were more monkeys

Like a boss

Countless monkeys due to the feeding from tourists

Monkeys gazing at the sunset

Nice view and sunset

Our selfie with the sunset backdrop

We went to this place on Bukit Malawati, where there were tons of tourists... and monkeys. There were monkeys everywhere and tourists brought green bananas and other food to feed them. The view on top of the hill was really great as it was sunset when we were there.

Arrived at the right timing for the fireflies tour

The sampan that we will be taking

It's all dark except for the lights from the quay

It was about 7pm when we reached the place in Selangor for fireflies watching. The timing was great as the queue was not too long when we reached, more and more people joined the queue after that and the guide was telling us it could get really crowded. Other than the jetty itself, the river was pitch dark and quiet. I was really glad they operated on simple sampans and not those motorised boats to preserve the environment. The surrounding was so serene and quiet as the boatman rowed along, he brought us near to clusters of mangrove and we saw many sparkling fireflies when we got close. We tried to take pictures but it was impossible to capture anything except for the darkness, so we gave up and just bask in the surreal environment. The tour itself was really short but enjoyable, we only rowed out on the boat for 30-45min and were back at the jetty once we were done.

As it was only 9pm when we got back to the hotel, P suggested we go to the nearby mall to watch Fast & Furious 7. However, after I got onto the bed and was so tired that I didnt even wake up to shower, I just knocked out totally. I was shocked when I finally woke up at 4am and there were sms from Singtel showing that I was charged for data roaming. The unlimited data roaming I've subscribed for the past 2 days had expired but I've left the data roaming setting on as I thought we would still be going out before midnight, and anyway I was too tired to remember that also. It was shocking as the bill had accumulated to $250 without a few hours!

Downright daylight robbery!

I was appalled by the exorbitant fees and was puzzled that my phone had downloaded so much data when I was asleep, even though it was connected to the hotel wifi. Anyway, after I got back to Singapore, I immediately called Singtel to explain my situation, the operator on the other end refused to waive the fees outright and asked me to wait for the bill before appealing. I was so frustrated that I gave them a poor rating of 1 after putting down the phone. That was the effective enough to get the supervisor to call me back and set things right. Since I was connected to their partner network Maxis when the data was loaded, they just helped me to subscribe for another day of unlimited data roaming. Phew! At least that was just $15 spent instead of $250. -_-

The culprit of my diarrhoea case :(

Another episode that happened on the last day was that I had a bad case of diarrhoea and took a day of mc after the long weekend. :( We arrived at KL airport and I saw assam laksa on the menu at Old Town White Coffee, I really missed the assam laksa from Penang so I ordered that. It was really a wrong move as the assam laksa tasted horrible, noodles of rubbery texture with just some sardines bits. I started to feel really unwell on the flight home, luckily it was just a short 50min flight and I rushed to the toilet immediately after we reached home. I went to the toilet a few more times, slept for the rest of the day although we were back by noon, and still felt really weak thus took mc the next day.

Kuala Lumpur Trip Day 1 (3/4/2015)

It's Good Friday long weekend, and I embarked on my third trip of the year. I booked this trip shortly after the Malacca trip in January, and it was expensive to fly to the various possible weekend getaway destinations by then. I was determined not to travel by bus to KL after the bad experience on to Malacca, but I was surprised that a trip to KL on SQ was not that expensive as I managed to book a super saver deal.

Before the trip, I did many research on Tripadvisor and Agoda as the last time I was really at KL was at age 18 with the gang. Alas! One week before the trip, the school informed us that we have to stay in school till 7.30pm for the anniversary's full dress rehearsal, when our flight was actually scheduled at 8pm. I was upset that we were not informed earlier and I had overlooked the event, but there was nothing much I could do. We were looking forward to the trip and I was filled with anguish as I thought that we have to give up the trip. P insisted that we should not take an overnight bus, so instead of giving up the $500+ air tix, I rebooked another one way tix to KL on Air Asia at 11pm and it cost us additional $300+. Sigh... the total cost of the air tix turned out to be much more expensive even though it was just KL.

Both of us wearing pink when we left Singapore

On Thursday, we had a very long day at work and it was 8pm when we finally got home. Most of the stuff were already packed so we left the house at 9.20pm after a good shower. I was too tired to really feel too excited at first, but I was still glad that there was no queue at the Air Asia counter when we reached, and we still had 30min to slowly get to the boarding gate. I did not get any check-in luggage allowance for the trip on AirAsia but they did not stop us from bringing the cabin luggage on board, they did not even weigh it.

Selfie while waiting to board

After almost a year of getting the pink Kobe 6, I finally had the chance to wear it. Unlike P who have so many pairs of sneakers, I was still wearing the same old Kobe 8 I bought in Nov 2013. I got this pair of shoes as I really liked the colour, and P found a pair at the chamber with a reasonable price many months ago.

Even though it was just a short 45min flight, I was glad that there was nobody sitting next to me after boarding the plane. I had to remove my new shoes as my right foot was really hurting in the new shoes after takeoff. I woke up groggily when the plane had landed and the door of the plane already opened, I fell asleep even though it was a short flight as it was really late and I had a very long day.

I've only been to LCCT a long time ago when I was visiting friend Wen at Club Med Bali, the plane had stopped at KLIA2 and I realised it seemed to be the airport dedicated for AirAsia flights as almost all the flights at the arrival area were AirAsia. The airport was so large that we did a lot of walking, going up and down the escalators at time. The airport looked new but it was still irritating that there was so much walking to do, I comforted myself thinking that at least we did not have to wait at the luggage belt. The queue at the customs was not long but even after clearing that point, we still had walk long distance around the place before we finally arrived at the taxi counter. Phew!

I read from somewhere that it cost around 75RM to get to the hotel, I was somewhat puzzled when I paid 153RM for the trip, thinking that perhaps the rate is counted by per head The staff gave me a coupon and we walked out of the huge door 5 where all the cabbies were waiting. After I saw the big black cab, I realised that I might have paid for a premiere cab instead, since the cab did not look like the red budget ones waiting at the side. I had always known that the distance from KLIA to the city area was far, but it still felt like a super long ride that took forever. Both P and I fell asleep as we were so tired but the cab was still moving for a long time after we woke up, it must have been a full one hour trip.

I've booked Park Royal KL after seeing the rating on Agoda, and friends had suggested staying at Bukit Bintang where all the malls are. The feeling was almost the same as my trip to Hong Kong a few weeks ago, the lobby was grand and there was nobody around when we arrived at 1am+. We went up to the room on the 12th floor, and felt quite satisfied with the cosy room at the 5* hotel.

I was hungry as I had dinner much earlier at 4pm. I bought mee goreng cup noodles from the airport convenience store, so I set about cooking it once we reached the hotel. Both of us knocked out at 2am, falling nto deep sleep on the comfortable bed.

P fell so much in love with the pillows that he slept all the way till noon

I liked it that the toilet and wash area was divided into three portions

The area where we left messy, and the rest of the room were kept relatively tidy

The view of the other side of this area

Complimentary bottled water

I woke up at 9am+, showered and turned to my laptop to research about the area near the hotel. I'd wanted to look for a good place to have our first meal in KL and decided that Pavilion is the best place as there are many restaurants there. However, just like other trips, it was a tall task trying to wake P up and eventually we only got out of our hotel at 1pm.

We found ourselves at the popular mall Pavilion after a short walk from our hotel

After a short walk from our hotel, we actually found the Pavilion mall. Most visitors to KL will not miss this place. 

The many floors of the huge mall

The Pavilion was indeed really huge, I've shortlisted many recommended eateries, but P could not eat meat (except for fish) as it's Good Friday, therefore it limited our choices. 

KL Pavilion Din Tai Fung

Even though we always eat at Din Tai Fung, we finally decided on this place on the 6th floor after P made up his mind. We got our seats immediately, I ordered my usual dish and it was the first to arrived. The other dishes (dumplings, fried rice, honey fish) took quite sometime, we also realised that Chinese tea was not complimentary unlike in Singapore, although it did not cost much in KL and there was still unlimited refill. Personally, I felt that the quality of the preserved meat/pork dish tasted better in SG, the dumplings were also juicier and filled with more soup at home. P was quite okay with the meal, and we definitely paid a cheaper price as compared to DTF in SG with the same dishes, it came up to 87RM (30+ SGD) even though we ordered more dishes than usual. 

This came in a bigger portion but the preserved veg/pork did not taste as good as SG version

The plan for the day was to visit Genting, another place I had not visited since 2003. P had not been to the place, so we decided to combine it with the KL trip instead of making a separate trip there. I did some research online and found out that we have to get to KL Sentral on monorail, there is GoGenting buses there to send us to Genting Highlands. I was glad that the monorail station was just a few minute walk from the Pavilion, the weather was getting really hot and I got irritated with the hot sun (and at myself for forgetting my sunglasses). It was a short trip on monorail (5 stops) and we alighted at Nu Sentral. We found ourselves at a huge mall, and somehow we could not find the place to take the bus even though it was supposed to be at the basement. I was also feeling sleepy after the good lunch.  

It was 4pm and we were almost considering giving up when we finally found the part of the mall leading to KL Sentral, the place where people could get to other forms of rail transport (its a bit confusing as they had different types in KL). I also wished there could be better directions given in Nu Sentral, so that people will not get stuck and frustrated like us. We were walking towards the GoGenting bus counter when this Indian man approached us. I would have just ignored him, but P actually stopped and replied him when he asked if we were trying to get to Genting. He informed us that the trip to Genting takes 2 hour on the bus and next bus was leaving at 5pm, so it's going to be 7pm by the time we reach the place. He offered to bring us all the way up at a cost of 100RM, it was the normal rate from what I had researched and I also knew that taking the taxi will actually be more comfortable and saved us the longer traveling time. So we agreed.

Our first stop at the First World Hotel

Again, I fell asleep during the long trip, and the taxi went through many many turns up the steep slopes of the Highlands. It also rained heavily during parts of the journey, so I did not feel too bad about missing the chance to take the SkyWay. The weather also got cooler, I was really glad we left warm KL behind us, the driver could actually turn off the air-con and wind down the windows to enjoy the temperature. 

We stopped at the First World hotel and went to Starbucks to get some food after the long ride. Somehow, the hotel did not seem as big as what I've remembered. The indoor theme park was much smaller that what I thought it should be, and the big outdoor theme park was currently under renovation for the next one or two years. 

P was actually keen to visit the casino as there was really nothing much we could do at Genting. Somehow, it also looked much smaller than what I remembered after these 12 years, I also noticed that most of the visitors there were Chinese. P spent almost two hours there and won us some extra money to spend. Yeah! 

We were walking around the different hotels after that, and we decided to go back KL for dinner as we were not hungry yet. We walked all the way to Resort Hotel and got the concierge to get us a taxi to bring us back to KL, they quoted the price of 90RM and we agreed readily. The cabbie was a Chinese guy, he drove fast like most of them do at KL but he was very helpful. I found ladyironchef recommended seafood place on his phone GPS and requested for him to drop us off there. He was saying that it will not be easy to get a taxi to go back to our hotel after the meal, so he took the initiative to call the restaurant and check if they could help us get a cab after dinner. I gave him 100RM in the end as it was a really nice gesture of him.

The menu

Robson Heights is a Chinese restaurant sitting on the stretch near Thean Hock temple and it was really quiet at night. I found quite a few good reviews on the internet, and ordered two dishes from their house specialities on the first page of the menu, the claypot crab rice and the prawn with glass noodles. The server was actually quite nice and informed us that we might not be able to finish if we get two prawns, so we only got only one. True enough, the dishes came and both were huge.

Their specialities

The friendly server actually asked if I want to take a picture before she took out the crab

The crab claypot rice was cooked in sweet dark soy sauce with shallots and the rice tasted really good. The meat of the crab and the prawn was succulent and freshy, it was definitely a great treat. We could not finish most of the rice and glass noodles as it was really too much for us. The glass noodles had a herbal taste in the soup, and the prawn gave it some sweetness. The server was telling me sadly that the noodles was not cooked that well, as they had put a lot of noodles and it soaked up all the soup after awhile. As the prawn and crab was sold at seasonal price,  I did not ask for details so we were wondering about the bill. It turned out much lower than expected and we paid 120RM (~44SGD) for the whole meal. 

The prawn was really big and I enjoyed the glass noodles too

The staff were cleaning up the place for closing at 11pm when we finished our meal, one of the Malay staff approached us and asked if we needed a taxi after we footed the bill. Overall, it was a great experience eating there although the restaurant is only accessible when we take a cab. The journey back to the hotel took only 10min, and we saw the lighted up Petronas Towers and skyscrapers on our way back.