b – wen – star

Only highlight of this blog entry would be the catching the bullet train to Narita airport, why? The train is nicer inside than any of our Australian planes.

Walking through perfectly clean streets the morning after new years eve celebrations. I do not know how they keep their cities so clean yet there are no rubbish bins anywhere! Me infront of the Hachiko. We weren’t able to grab a photo of this statue previously while we were here because there was always so many people infront of it! If you’re wondering that’s my snowboard wrapped in bubble wrapped by JAL airlines.

The awesome ‘NEX’ bullet train and they even had a place card at the back of each seat explaining each carriage, it such a smooth ride and took us to the airport with ease.

The plane we were about to board, little did we know about the delays that were upcoming. I guess the food they gave us on the flight was pretty good so we were satisfied with that, they even gave us ice cream!

We stayed in a hotel over night in the Kuala Lumpur airport before catching another flight back to Australia, the room was huge, as we were so used to tiny closet sized bedrooms in Japan. The bathroom was bigger than our previous room and bathroom in Shibuya so that was a big smack in the face. The view wasn’t exactly stunning but picked up a lovely sunset.

Photos from Malaysia, once again click to enlarge.

We took a shortcut from a main road to find the KL Tower, we stumbled upon this garden maze which we found very cool. Also a shot of Chloe in front of the Menara KL Tower.

What the view from the apartment looks like when it’s raining and not raining. We didn’t notice the mountains in the background until an hour or so before we checked out.

Going clockwise from top left. The KL Tower. Chloe standing next to a dressed up ‘person’ at the Pavilion shopping centre, everyone was taking photos with her so we decided to do so as well. Tiffany boxes and just a very small portion of the shops that were on one of the floors.

The genuine products that were available at BB Plaza; Chanel bags and Brembo brakes.

I think it was a famous Japanese model who was hounded by paparazzi and other people with fancy cameras. I decided to join the fun and also take a photo. Next photo is Chloe’s model face whilst eating.

A funny sign we saw at BB Plaza, three luggage bags for the price of one. Us at Din Tai Fun, we ordered so much food we could barely finish and it was still only less than $30 AUD.

Parked outside the hotel lobby. Stunning.

Yesterday we ventured out through the very humid day in search of the Menara Kuala Lumpur Towers. After wondering from our apartment and following the monorail we eventually made it at the bottom of the KL Tower. By this point Chloe was in her jeans for some reason walking for the past forty minutes she was definitely frustrated and did not even want to walk up monstrous hill and just wanted to head back home. Luckily there was a free shuttle, which took us up that was also air-conditioned.

Upon reaching the top we decided not to trek up to the summit of the tower as the amount of Malaysian Ringgits we have were not sufficient, in fact I think we only had $30 RM which was about $10 AUD. Satisfied by only having just being inside the tower and taking some tourist-like photos we caught the shuttle bus back down and prepared for our forty minute walk back home. Whilst walking back and waiting for the traffic lights we saw a bus, which loops around the city like the ones we have in Brisbane except, they weren’t free.  We only figured this out when we were sitting up on the top level of the bus in air conditioning and out of the 30+ degree heat and having the assistant climb upstairs and ask us for the $72 RM. We smiled and said that we didn’t have enough money and she acknowledged that there was a misunderstanding and said we could get off at the next stop… only for the next stop to be back at the top of the hill right in front of the KL Tower. By this stage Chloe had nothing to do but laugh in aggravation and complained as we lined up to get into the shuttle again and when it reached this stage I couldn’t help but just laugh and make fun as I was in shorts and loving the heat.

We finished shopping at the pavilion and decided to try some different foods. There was a store that just sold different types of jerky. There was everything; beef jerky, chicken jerky, lamb jerky, pork jerky, duck jerky etc. with a price of about $8 RM per 100grams I had nothing to lose! I love beef jerky so I decided to get some pork jerky but only decided to get 50grams in case the jerky involved diarrhoea. Turns out it was one of the tastiest and greasiest things I’ve ever eaten. If a vegetarian saw what I was eating they probably would have been disgusted at me for even buying it.

Today was our last day in Malaysia so we decided to head into town and check out the different shops and food there. We made way to a shopping ‘place’ called the Bukit Bintang Plaza. Now this place was somewhere I wanted to shop initially whilst in Malaysia as on the ground level there was just things spread all over tables, the floor and the walls. You could buy everything from counterfeit sunglasses to discount pharmaceutical items. Everyone second shop was an electronic shop and they either sold phones that didn’t look quite legit or they sold a whole range of electronics such as playstations, dvd players, remote control helicopters. The shops even jailbroke your playstations and installed a whole range of games for you!

Thirty minutes of shopping through this complex we finally had enough and wanted some fresh air, except we forgot how to get out. It took us another good ten minutes retracing our steps and working out there were more than one set of escalators, which lead you from floor to floor.

Heading back to our apartment I saw a set of fake Rayban Wayfarers that looked decent on some street stall on a street corner. I further inquired and asked him how much.

He responded, “Just for you, 75 ringgits”.

I said to Chloe, “That’s a bit expensive, Thank you.“ and proceeded to walk away.

He jumped in front of me and said, “Okay, okay. How much do you want to pay?”

Me:  “I don’t know? 20 ringgits?”

Him: “25 and we have a deal.”

Me: “Nah, 20 sounds good.”

Him: “Okay, 20.”

The woman that was also working with him commented, “That’s very cheap, you’re very lucky!”

I proceeded to look through my little travel wallet to get the $20 RM but could only find $18 in notes. I told him, “This is all I have sorry, I can’t afford it”.

Him: “How much do you have there?”

Me: “18 Ringgits.”

Him: “Okay, deal.”

I smiled as I put on my new $6 AUD sunglasses and tucked the other 250 ringgits away neatly into my wallet.

Only two photos this time:

A durian store which sold nothing that didn’t include durian and me eating some pork jerky.

I’m currently at the Malaysian international airport waiting for my flight to Japan. The cable to transfer photos from my camera to my laptop is in my bag which is checked in, so I will add more photos when I can.

Good news! The lost and found department of the Prince hotel found my iPhone and I proved the phone was mine because of the photos in the library. So that was positive start to the day. Spent a good portion of the day back at the Pavilion shopping centre to finish window shopping as we couldn’t finish the whole place yesterday. We were in heaven when we found the food court and was able to get a whole peaking duck noodle dish for $3 AUD! which is cheaper than the drinks.

At the Prince Hotel they pride themselves on great customer service that there are maids that clean your room two or three times a day. I was having a nap at 7pm and was woken up by a housemaid to see if we wanted our room cleaned. It seems like whenever we take a step outside of the hotel and come back everything is cleaned, folded and arranged.

There are quite a lot of Billabong, Rip Curl, Roxy and other Australian branded stores here but the prices of their products are ridiculous! I wanted to buy a pair of boardshorts to go swimming with and thought Billabong would be reasonably priced but only to my horror they were at a minimum of $70AUD each! I ended up buying some speedos which were less than half price and better quality.

Chloe and I just outside the Kuala Lumpur twin towers and a 21:9 aspect ratio TV, haven’t seen these before in Australia but it looks pretty damn good in person.

Kuala Lumpur twin towers, couldn’t get a good shot of them as they were so damn large.

Just some of the shops as the Pavilion, sneakily took some photos as cameras are strictly not allowed there. First shot showed how large the shops are, three leveled Prada, Gucci, Bvlgari, Chanel etc.

A bar in the middle of a shopping centre that had a ridiculous amount of Grey Goose Vodka and the free internet they also have in the middle of shopping centres.

White Playstation 3′s and White PSP GOs which look awesome. I thought Malaysia would have lots of cheap PS3 games but it seems like I’m wrong, couldn’t find many at all. Also a durian shop which sold cakes, drinks and everything else relating to durian.

Well turns out I lost my iPhone at the hotel lobby… I fell asleep waiting to check in yesterday and when I was woken up to go check in the phone must have dropped out of my pockets. Pretty devastated and I’ve given the hotel lobby and lost and found multiple calls to see if they can locate it for me but I think the chances of getting it back is pretty slim. I guess that’s what happens when you have very little sleep.

I had the worse sleep on the plane because I was sitting in the middle, between Chloe and a Malaysian man. A couple hours into the flight both people beside me were asleep… on me. So I had my girlfriend sleep on my left shoulder which was okay and a random Malaysian man with tattoos all over his hands on my right shoulder. Bit awkward but I managed to squeeze in a couple hours of rest on the eight hour flight.

Our plan today is to finish going through the shopping centre across the road from us which we attempted to window shop through yesterday. A seven level shopping centre that took us over four hours just to explore a a couple levels in full just gives an idea of how big the actual place is. Upon shopping around there were just ridiculous shops such as Versace, Prada, Tag Heuer, Rolex, Omega etc. which were bigger than Myer and David Jones here in Australia. To top it off and prove how ridiculous the shops are they didn’t have normal tagging security that we have back home. They have doormen which also double as security guards, they also had pump action shotguns on their sides as they patrolled the store. I wanted to take photos but they have a strict no camera policy at the shopping centre.

The whether here is also crazy, basically 100% humidity and rain. When it rains… it’s still 30 degrees so it doesn’t take down the temperatures at all! This screenshot is at 7:30am

Now for some photos (click to enlarge):

Above shows jack fruit prepackaged in a supermarket and a Malaysian Crumpler store.

Above going clockwise, first picture shows the Christmas exhibition at the centre of the shopping centre. 2nd photo is the toilet in our hotel, it has a shower head to wash yourself after you finish using the toilet.

Above is the banner for the michelin star restaurant Dim Tai Fung, the one that was seen on Masterchef I’m pretty sure. The picture on the right is the hotel lobby of the Prince hotel.

After an eight hour flight from Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur, we arrived in the heart of Malaysia only to be greeted with a lovely 26 degree temperature… at 6:00am. After getting out of the plane and waiting for our bags through the luggage area we only realised how hot and humid it actually was when we stepped outside of the airport to our awaiting taxi.

So now it’s roughly 8:30am and I’m sitting at the front reception of the Prince Hotel. We only realised how classy this place was when I first stepped outside of the taxi and seeing a Ferrari F430 parked out in front coupled with handfuls of Mercedes, BMWs and other luxury vehicles that are subjected to 100% tax.

One thing I forgot to bring was a camera cable or a memory card reader for my camera, so there are no pictures as of yet. I will have to settle into our room before I head out to the seven level shopping centre across the road to see what is on offer.