Day 1: Kuala Lumpur

Where's Daddy?

So we all had a terrible night's sleep - the jet lag got us all!  Went to bed at 11pm as we couldn't keep our eyes open, but we were wide awake again at 1.30am and although we tried every trick in the book to get back off it didn't happen.  Still we didn't get up till 8am, as we knew nothing would be open.

We did finally get up and ate our buns we purchased yesterday.  Matt was needing a coffee, there is a convenience store in the residences which is supposed to open at 8.30, he waited and waited but at 9am he gave up (not even sure they sell coffee) and we walked to KLCC where a nice lady directed us to a Malaysian coffee shop instead of the usual Western rubbish.  Matt ordered what he thought was black coffee, only to find that the default coffee setting here is iced, not hot, so he was somewhat disappointed (again - but it wasn't as bad as his 3 layer tea he ordered out of curiosity yesterday: bottom layer thick brown sugary gunk, next layer: condensed milk, top layer tea.  He said it was truly ghastly - I would agree, but I think that of all tea products!)

Happy Boy

We then went to explore the KLCC Park.  I had read that it had a splash park for children, so had Tom's trunks with me just in case.  Good job I did, the splash park was actually a large waterfall which you can walk behind, with a paddling pool in front and stepping stones.  Really lovely.  There were many many rules though, and dragons with whistles to shame you if you did anything wrong.  We, luckily took time to read the rules so were faultless but countless people were told off, main reason was for walking behind the waterfall in your shoes.  Another adult got told off for lying on a bench!  On closer inspection, the dragons also had truncheons, so you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of them.  Tom was a little nervous to start with playing in the water, but as he didn't get whistled at, he slowly got braver and braver until he finally went under the waterfall and got completely soaked.  I think he played in there for a good hour or so, he certainly was having fun, if only by himself.

By now, we were all getting a bit peckish.  Tom had his eye on a sushi restaurant he saw yesterday, so we headed in to go there.  On the way, Matt decided to look in the Sony shop for a camera lens.  He found it, he liked it, he loved the price, he bought it!  So much for travelling light with photography equipment - he now has the biggest lens ever to lug around with him.  Anyway, he was happy and he deserved to treat himself.

Upside down?!

We did finally get to the sushi place, it was a sushi go round and we had a very excited boy who just could not sit down.  The sushi wasn't the best quality (it never is in these places) but it was fun and only cost £20 for 15 plates plus a portion of ebi tempura and takoyaki.

Matt then went back to the apartment to off load his camera, we met up and walked to the Menara Tower not far from the apartment but in the opposite direction to the twin towers.  It was hot hot hot this afternoon, sunshine broke through the clouds, raising the temperature considerably.  Funny, when we looked at the weather forecast in the UK - it said rain for KL everyday this week - we are yet to experience any!  We got the lift to the observation deck and slowly walked around it to try to get our bearings.  We found our apartment block, the twin towers (of course) and a number of old colonial buildings which looked interesting (and dirty!)

After taking it all in, we got the lift back down and headed to a silly little attraction called the upside down house, where everything is upside down and you can take photos to make it look like you are doing silly things.  It was fun, as you can see from the pics.

Menara KL Tower

By now we were all wilting, so we walked back down from the hill to a coffee shop we saw on the way (after a long wait for the shuttle bus which never turned up!).  We restored ourselves with cold drinks and a chocolate muffin and then headed back to the apartment for a very lovely refreshing dip in the pool, which instantly restored us all back to 'normal' again.

We had showers, a little bit of down time and then we headed off to find a different shopping mall which has a Daiso in it (our favourite Japanese shop).  It wasn't that big though and didn't have a food section which was disappointing.  Believe it or not we didn't buy anything!  However, we were all very hungry again, so maybe that was the problem.  We decided we couldn't walk any further and had to have dinner there, we settled on 'Go Noodle House' and each had a huge bowl of noodles: Tom with ebi, Matt spicy (too spicy?) with belly pork and me with bursting meatballs (well it sounded interesting!)

Hanging around

Swinging

We then walked back to KLCC, did some shopping in the supermarket (beer, snacks and bready things for breakfast) before getting home.  Tom went straight to bed, good on him though he survived the day in relatively good humour on very little sleep.  Hopefully he will catch up tonight...