Asia Holiday 2013, August 22 (The Dark Tower)

I walked from my hotel, which I guess is in the shopping and entertainment district, down to the city centre or business district. This area has the large Masjid Jamek Mosque which looked interesting from the outside, but it was closed to visitors due to maintenance. I was still able to see some of it from the outside, across the other side of the river. Next was Merdeka Square, which was really unimpressive, it's just a patch of grass! I don't know why it's supposed to be a landmark of interest, the only other thing around was an old flag pole. The building with the octopus on the roof was more exciting.

KL Tower from the street.

Masjid Jamek Mosque.

Merdeka Square, now with more grass.

I visited the Central Market building next which has a terrific entrance, an old art deco style light blue. Once inside I soon found out that there were magnets everywhere, any kind you could want! So I'm not sure why Singapore and Malaysia had plenty of magnets and the other places had next to none. The market was close to Petaling Street, which is the China Town area. This was one of the better China Town's I have visited, a few good food places, and lots of fake Nike shoes and soccer shirts. There was also ANOTHER one of those Sri Mariamman temples which I didn't bother with, but also a Sin Sze Si Ya temple which looked cool so I stopped in there for a look around. At a bakery I finally decided to end my curiosity with the durian, with they call the "king of the fruits" around here. I got some durian puffs from a bakery, which had durian cream filling. At first it didn't seem too bad, didn't really have any remarkable taste good or bad really - maybe I didn't choose the right form of durian. After I'd finished eating them they had a slightly odd aftertaste, and it just stuck around for hours. I've concluded that durians are not actually the king of the fruits, and not really worth your time, I'll stick to apples, bananas, blueberries, strawberries and so on.

Central Market entrance.

The street alongside Central Market.

Outside Sin Sze Si Ya temple (maybe).

Inside Sin Sze Si Ya temple (maybe).

Petaling Street.

To the west of the city is the Lake Gardens, which has a number of attractions. Similar to Bangkok (a bit of a recurring theme, and not necessarily a good one) it was quite difficult to get from the city centre to the gardens on foot due to the odd layout of the roads and bridges. I ended up having to go a bit out of the way, passing by the old KL Station and KTMB HQ (the company that runs the train system I think), both of which have some historic architecture. There was also the National Mosque, which was huge, but it was closed to non-muslims, at this time of the day at least. I wondered if I could try to just walk in anyway, how would they know the difference, is there a special password?

National Mosque.

Also National Mosque.

I went down to the lake first, it was quite empty for a Thursday lunch time, probably a bit too far from the business district for any workers to be able to make use of it during the week, which is a bit of a pity. Besides the lake they had some Japanese gardens and lots of slopes with trees, felt more like a forest park than what you would expect near the city. There was a running track around the lake, and since I wanted to log an activity on my Garmin in each city I decided to jog around for one lap. It was quite a warm day, so it wasn't the best idea while carrying a backpack, and wearing a hat and sunglasses didn't help either.

Lake Gardens, the least imaginative name ever.

Back outside the lake, to the road that travels through the gardens, I passed a few of the attractions but didn't stop at any:

• Orchid & Hibiscus Garden
• Bird Park - they had a massive canopy to stop the birds flying away, which stretches across the whole park
• Butterfly Park

At the end of the road there was a sign for the National Monument. It didn't sound like anything good, and it wasn't on my list, but I invested a few minutes just to see what it was about. Surprisingly it was really good, just a monument surrounded by a water feature, but really well done and in good condition.

National Monument.

Other side of National Monument, seems like it should be facing the other way.

KL and Petronas Twin Towers from outside the city.

That was all I wanted to do in this part of the city, so I walked back to Masjid Jamek where I began the day, and hopped on the monorail to KLCC (convention centre). The station comes out at the KL Suria shopping centre which is massive, but like Pavilion shopping centre before it, surprisingly easy to navigate. Good job KL! I was dying of thirst from all the walking and running, so went through a Gatorade in under 60 seconds, followed by a self-serve frozen yoghurt! Yogen Fruz didn't have any good flavours, so I went to Tutti Frutti instead (I think they may have stores in Melbourne now) for a green apple flavour. I STILL desperately needed fluid, so I also went through a large blueberry smoothie.

The exit from Suria leads right into KL City Park. There is a small lake and fountain directly outside, and then if you turn around and look towards the sky you have a perfect view of the Petronas Twin Towers. They have marked out places around the park where you get the best view of the towers, and they also had a running track! The track was only 1.4km so I figured I would jog a lap of it too, but it was not a good idea since I'd just had so much to eat and drink, I was dying within the first five hundred metres.

KL City Park.

Suria shopping centre.

More of KL City Park.

Petronas Twin Towers.

After a short rest break I walked down to KL Tower. It's pretty easy to see because of it's height, but because of the confusing overhead walkways it was still difficult to get to. At the street entrance to the tower they have a shuttle bus up to the base of the tower, which I figured was just for lazy people. The walk turned out to be pretty hard going, because the path up is such a slow gradual incline to suit the buses most likely. The cost for the observation deck was RM 49 or you could spend RM 99 to go somewhere higher, I figured that one wasn't worth it. In fact I usually think these observations tower are a bit of a waste of time unless the skyline is particuarly impressive, but I had nothing else on for the afternoon. When you go to pay for your ticket they conveniently only permit credit card transactions for RM 50 and above, what a rip off. The view down was just alright, but I did get to see a lot of the places I had just been walking around earlier in the day. It was a bit foggy, or more likely polluted, which prevented a view of anywhere further in the distance, like Batu Caves.

Walking under KL Tower.

Observation deck at KL Tower.

I walked back to the hotel and discovered a place for dinner on the way:

• BETTER INGREDIENTS
• BETTER PIZZA
• PAPA JOHN'S !!!

The guy at the counter somehow did not know how to accept a credit card payment, how is that possible? I ordered a much more suitable size this time, actually the largest size was now appropriate for one person (with a good appetite). I walked around a bit more after dinner to work off some cheesy energy, checking out a few more shopping centres, since I was staying in the shopping district and all:

• Sungei Wang Plaza - Lot of small shops, almost like a market, but no directory!
• Imbi Plaza - Looked cheap and old, didn't bother
• Low Yat Plaza - Another IT mega mall, but again it didn't have any good accessories or collectibles

STEP-O-METER: 45313 steps