Day 4: Central Market

Starting off delicately

We all had trouble getting to sleep last night.  It took Tom till 10pm and us till after about 2.30am.  Matt then fell into a deep sleep and woke up at 8.30 with a very sore neck (maybe he slept too deeply) whilst I slept in 30 minute intervals until about 7.30 when I fell into a deep sleep and then had to be woken by Matt at 10 - when I was completely disorientated!

Needless to say, we didn't get out of the flat until almost 12.  Not a problem, we didn't have much on today.  We had decided to go to Central Market, so we hopped on the LRT and followed the crowd.  We haven't seen a huge amount of touristy stuff here to date, but today changed all that, we walked past stall after stall of heavily laden stalls selling everything from T-shirts, to 'hippy' clothes, batiks, bags, lanterns, wooden goods, silver, plastic tat, and everything in-between.  It's the sort of place you can spend all day and come away with a new wardrobe full of things and gifts galore.  We, however, aren't in full power shopping mode, as we have two internal flights to do yet on budget flights which don't have a huge luggage allowance (unlike on the way home where we can have 2 check-in pieces each, totalling 46Kg per person - which is probably more than my whole wardrobe at home!  So today was about remembering what is available ready to use up any spare RM when we get back from Borneo.  However, Tom found himself a groovy pair of sunglasses for only 6RM.

Working hard...

We had lunch (chicken, mushroom and rice for me and lemon chicken and rice for Matt - with Tom eating off our plates) surprisingly it was luke warm, but tasty enough.  I ordered some green apple juice and was given a glass of green water with thick green foam on top.  Lets say it didn't look appetising, but I took a gulp and it was surprisingly refreshing and tasted exactly like green apples.

After lunch, we had a look around the shops in the upper level and found Tom a very groovy blue batik shirt.  We have been wondering what size he is as children's sizes seem too small and adults too large.  Turns out he is an XXL child!  Unfortunately there aren't a lot of XXL on offer, but the server found him a lovely shirt (just as well as the only other one in the store was bright pink!)

Tom then decided he wanted to paint a batik - we had found a little workshop where they charged RM15 to have a go.  He chose a cat, and got stuck in straight away.  It was quite an intricate job as there were so many bits to paint, so Matt decided to take a walk.  He was gone quite a long time - we were almost finished when he returned.

Finished!

He had a story to tell, he had found a fish spa - you know, those places where you dip your feet in water and fish swim up and eat all the dry skin off you.    They were only charging 10RM for 15 minutes which seemed a right bargain considering we saw them in Tenerife for 25 Euros.  Matt took over whilst I got myself to the fish spa for a go, it is a really weird sensation as a ball of fish attach themselves to your feet and start nibbling away.  It feels like they are scratching you a little, but apparently they have no teeth.  Anyway, I have two blisters on my feet from wearing my flip flops for too long the other day, they were nicely scabbed over, but the fish obviously like scabs and pulled them off, then they started to tug quite viciously at my skin, so much so that I took my foot out of the water and then watched a trickle of blood run down my foot!  Oops!

In the fish tank

At this point Tom and Matt turned up, Tom having finished his masterpiece.  He wanted a go too, and even though he saw the fish and we told him it scratched and he saw my foot he wanted a go, so we paid for him, he sat down, put his feet in and smiled.  He didn't mind at all!  Sometimes I can't fathom the boy out!  But he made us proud, especially as there was a women opposite us who could only bare to put her foot in for about 5 seconds a go!

We all left with happy feet.  We then walked down through China Town and past some stadiums to a monorail station to give the boy a ride.  Bit of a mistake, it was searingly hot and the monorail was full.  We couldn't get on the first one and then had to literally barge our way onto the second one (they ran at 15 minute intervals).  Of course it emptied out at the next station - so it would have made sense to walk the short distance to the next station to get on it easily!  Oh hum!  You live and learn.  We were then a little sneaky and stayed on the monorail to the end station and then got it back again to our nearest stop.

Boys in their holiday shirts

We got home, had a blissful dip in the pool, showers and then headed to Madame Kwan's for tea - Malaysian fare today: Chicken and Mushroom Mee for me (noodles with lumps of chicken and mushrooms) and Beef Satay for Matt whilst Tom had spag bol off the kiddies menu and ate it super quick (we think he may be over the worst).

Then, back to the apartment and attempts to go to sleep at a useful time...

Oh, the answer to Tom's joke...are you ready for it...

Koala Lumpur!!!!!!