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.