kuala lumpur (6 out of 22)

Kuala Lumpur 3

Today was moderately productive, from the hostel in the morning and VCR Cafe in the afternoon. I found VCR on workfrom. It's hip, spacious, with good coffee, good wifi, and abundant power outlets. Upstairs are floor-to-ceiling windows and a balcony (though, populated by smokers). The wicker chairs are comfier than wood. Coffee seemed kind of pricey - 9 myr for a small americano - but I don't know what's standard for the hip coffeeshop scene. About the same as chains, at any rate.



I ate lunch at Blue Boy, an indoor-outdoor set of stalls supervised by sullen staff serving excellent food. All vegetarian. I got fried flat noodles with vegetables (and requested no egg), a plate of not-pork, and lemon juice, for a thoroughly reasonable 10.50.



Dinner was on the pricier side, from Yuet Sum Hin, a Chinese vegetarian restaurant in Bukit Bintang. There was so much to choose from, and as I was half way through reeling off dishes the waitress warned me I was ordering too much. I confirmed that I could take home what I couldn't finish, and continued. For 44 myr I got sizeable portions of kangkong (water spinach), tofu in black bean sauce, and fried rice with salted 'fish', and a pot of jasmine tea. I finished about one third, and it was all delicious. The fried rice was my favourite.



I detoured through Times Square again on the way back. Surprised by how cheap clothes on the upper floors are for a mall. Initially I was just scouting so I have a basis to haggle at the market, but then I bought some light, knee-length pants for 12.

I wandered around a corner on the 9th floor and was confronted with... this...





There's a literal theme park inside the mall. And it's all quirky and space themed. Full blown rollercoaster. Actual craziness.

Took a wrong turn on the way out and accidentally found the thumping nightlife district. It was awful. Exited with haste. Longer route than anticipated back to the hostel, as my navigating-by-hotels is still not up to scratch, plus the chronic problem of being stuck on the wrong side of uncrossable highways.

🏷 food kuala lumpur times square travel vegan

Sat 3rd of December 2016 at 11:59pm (+08:00)

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Kuala Lumpur 2

(Friday 2nd December)

Woke up early, and caught up on internets in the hostel lobby. Researched some things to do. Concluded that buying a KL Pass was not necessary for the discounts it offered. It's probably good if you want to go to like loads of themeparks and shows and stuff, but even with the discount on the KL Tower it doesn't seem worth it for me. Wifi in the lobby was good until about 9am when the rest of the world came down for breakfast.

Headed out with E around midday in search of food. We went to Bakti Woodlands Indian vegetarian restaurant, a couple of blocks from the hostel. It was full of people who looked like they probably originated from India, and didn't consult menus before food arrived to them, which is a good sign. E ordered a Jain thali, and I had mushroom manchurian and aloo paratha. It was exactly the right amount of food, and so deliciously full of flavour. I'd say I'd go back, but there are a whole bunch of vegetarian Indian restaurants on the same street, so I'll probably try a different one.



I had planned to wander to a monorail station and get a travelcard, then take a jaunt to Titiwangsa park, and be back before dark so I could do some work. We wandered into the first train station we found, which didn't have the TouchNGo card available, so we just bought a one way monorail ticket. The machines issue a little round plastic token, which is interesting but inconvenient because it doesn't fit in my wallet like a normal ticket would (1.70 myr). Then we discovered the monorail doesn't actually connect at this station. So we took a train two stops to one that did. The monorail was packed. But still cool.



Next discovery was that the stationed named Titiwangsa is not that close to the park after all. And requires walking near a horrible, giant, smelly, under-construction highway. We stopped at Gloria Jean's for iced tea and a wifi break.

We finally made it to the park, which has big lakes, fountains, and a traffic park.. a place with pretend traffic lights and junctions and crossings, where you can practice driving and rent little pretend cars to zoom around in. Hah. After lapping the lakes, we exited the park in a different place and found ourselves on the wrong side of the highway for returning to the monorail station. So we figured we'd walk in the general direction of the city center until we reached another station. On the hospital grounds, we chanced upon a free GoKL bus, and hopped on board. We didn't know which line it was though, and the fancy screens inside the bus weren't displaying anything useful, and nor was the onboard wifi working. So we thought we'd wait and see. We waited, and saw it loop all the way back around to Titiwangsa monorail station. Oops. We got off, and got on another... turned out to be the same line. This time we got off in Bukit Bintang, figuring we'd check out Times Square, a giant shopping mall amongst giant shopping malls.



On the way we got distracted by a diner where the seating booths are cars. The sheer delight on E's face was enough to go in and order potato wedges. Also the ice cubes were guitars.



By the time we got to Times Square it was closing up. The security guard let us inside to use the bathrooms, and we had a quick look around. Shops...

We walked the rest of the way back to the hostel. My feet were tired again. Taking today off from walking around.

Runkeeper trace from monorail, walking and bus.

🏷 kuala lumpur travel vegan

Sat 3rd of December 2016 at 10:31am (+08:00)

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Kuala Lumpur 1

My flight landed in KLIA2 just before 7am. The line for immigration was short but slow. Fingerprints, but no forms to fill in. The terminal is huge, and I wandered around thinking about checking out one of many mifi options, and deciding where to change money, for a while. I didn't get a mifi, but did change $50 for 202 MYR. Not a particularly good rate, I think, but no fee with CIMB Bank.

Anyway, I found the buses on level 1. I bought a ticket for Star Shuttle, having learnt from wikitravel this was a good option, from a very generic looking ticket counter which seems to cover all of the many transport options. I caught the 8 o'clock, and took the approximately 1.5 hour ride to Puduraya for 11 MYR. From there I walked about five minutes to Explorers hostel near Chinatown. I'm in a 6 bed dorm on the third floor. Aircon in the lobby and rooms; wifi only in the lobby. Movies playing on a TV in the lobby 24 hours a day; high brightness, so James Bond and Star Wars look like low-budget action flicks. Free breakfast - coffee, tea, toast, peanut butter (yay!). Lockers in the room.

I rearranged the contents of my bag on my bunk, then met a roommate, E. She's been backpacking around for a while, and just came from Penang (where I'm going next). Together we wandered through the nearby market, and bought sweet bao (lotus, sesame, yam). The heat squashed my appetite for most of the rest of the day. We reached the KL Tower, which is surrounded at the base by a small patch of indigenous jungle. There's a rope bridge through the tree canopy, and forest trails. The base of the tower is full of souvenir stands and overpriced food. There's an upside down house. A house in which everything is upside down. Also the house itself is upside down. Okay. We didn't go inside.

The tower itself is pretty expensive to go up, at over 100 MYR to the very top. Having said that, it's about the same as towers in most major cities. Maybe I'll go up anyway. But we didn't yesterday.

Continued wandering until we reached the Petronas towers. Enjoyed the aircon in the enormous shopping mall for a while. This rebooted my appetite, and we ate in the food court, which included a vegetarian place called Simple Life Healthy Vegetarian. I asked the server to pick a noodle dish for me; it was a large portion, deliciously savoury and slightly spicy; vegetables, mushrooms, a little tofu. Plus a black sesame soy milkshake, came to 20.70 MYR. Not bad.

Inside the shopping mall we found an Asian contemporary art exhibition, free to enter, with some really interesting pieces. There's also a petroleum museum on the top floor, maybe for another day. Behind the towers is a park with a big lake and fountains that do interesting things. We crossed the street to another shopping mall, and discovered that the H&M there doesn't sell underwear. In case that piece of information is useful to anyone. We spent some time in Muji (which does sell underwear) and I amused myself with the quirky signs, descriptions, and packaging. Less amused by the prices.

It was raining by the time we emerged, so we hopped on the free GoKL bus. There are several free bus routes, which is kind of nuts, but also awesome. Except we hit it at peak traffic hours (or maybe that's all the time, I don't know yet) and we travelled like two stops in one hour. Mostly sitting still. I napped. Then we got off, because staying on was kind of silly, and walked back to the hostel. I bought a dragonfruit for 6 MYR; I think I might have been ripped off. Still cheaper than Wholefoods though.

My walking and bus route on Runkeeper.

🏷 #justgo kuala lumpur Malaysia travel

Fri 2nd of December 2016 at 11:02am (+08:00)

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Thursday the 1st of December 2016

7:59am

Star Shuttle KLIA2-KL

11myr (€2.32 / $2.47 / £1.95)



🏷 bus kuala lumpur transit travel

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Kuala Lumpur to Denpasar ✈

Leaving Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 10:30am (+08:00) on Tuesday the 28th of February 2017 and arriving in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia at 1:25pm (+08:00) on Tuesday the 28th of February 2017



Plan made or recorded at 4:47pm (+09:00) on Tuesday the 25th of October 2016

🏷 air asia #justgo kuala lumpur plane travel

Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur ✈

Leaving Tokyo, Japan at 11:45pm (+09:00) on Wednesday the 30th of November 2016 and arriving in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 6:30am (+08:00) on Thursday the 1st of December 2016



Plan made or recorded at 3:56pm (+09:00) on Tuesday the 25th of October 2016

🏷 air asia #justgo kuala lumpur plane Tokyo, Japan travel