2 days in KL -Part 2

Two posts in one day? "That's MADNESS" you say! I noticed I have an awful trend of beginning each of my entries with an apology for taking so long to update. That must be really annoying for many reasons, mostly because it's horribly monotonous. So, sorry about that...and sorry for apologizing again. Gah. What a horrible cycle. BACK TO THE TOPIC AT HAND. Here I am sitting in the KL airport waiting on my flight back to Bali and I'm writing a post about the past 48 hours, how prompt of me! After my adventure with Herman, things at the Bali airport went swiftly and after a 3 hour flight I found myself safely at KL airport. **Warning** I'm about to talk about bodily movements, so if you have a problem with that, kindly skip to the next paragraph. Anyway, I had a slight urge to pee but immigration awaited so I found a spot in line. One hour later and FINALLY through the long and seemingly endless wait, I beelined it to the nearest bathroom. There were four stalls in total, the last two were ajar but there was a woman waiting in line so I fell into the "follow the herd" psyche and waited behind her. She finally got her turn, but things got serious on my end so I went to solve the mystery of the last two stalls. THERE WERE WOMEN IN EACH ONE. WHY didn't they shut the doors?! It was SO awkward and they looked at me like I was the weird one for pushing the door open farther. Thinking that perhaps the locks didn't work, I investigated the situation afterward and NOPE, both stall locks were fully functioning. Come on ladies, get your shit together. Regardless, this was the least of my worries because I then found that my relief station was in fact just a hole in the floor. A hole. In the floor. So many emotions ran through my head. Things just got weird. This is when I knew I was not in Kansas anymore. Don't get me wrong, I've been a lot of places but when the first thing I encounter when landing in a new country sends me into shock mode... I get nervous. Of course I was dehydrated and thirsty as a mule the entire trip so I had to get used to these holes. (I refuse to call them bathrooms) After I got over the whole urination situation (like what I did there?) I made my trek to KL city center and began exploring. KL is a really cool city with interesting architecture (See: Petronas Towers) and INSANE shopping. If you look on tripadvisor for things to do in KL, I think 8 out of the top 10 things to do are shopping related. Im talking 6 story malls with stores ranging from Gucci and Prada to smaller chain stores and boutiques. There is literally something for everyone. I was swept away when I walked in and saw Tiffany's immediately to my right. I apologize to my credit card for giving in so easily, but that bird's egg blue gets me everytime. After spending literally hours inside ONE mall, I thought that maybe I should give my wallet a break but oh wait, it was raining! ...on to the next shop! Finally, I made it outside during a break from the rain and walked around KLCC park which is conveniently located right outside of the mall I was in (I'm telling you, everything revolves around shopping) and got some amazing views of the Petronas Towers. I would have loved to go up and walk across the skywalk that connects them, but it's no longer free and the mall had run me pretty dry. I did however master the art of the solo shot with the towers in the background. You learn to take pretty decent self shots in general when you are traveling alone. The few times I did ask the random stranger to take a normal picture of me with whatever backdrop they NEVER spoke english. Just my luck. It's pretty easy though to show the button on the iphone so it worked out alright. The funny thing was though that each person wanted a picture with me afterward for their own personal collections. I really stuck out like a sore thumb and apparently seeing a blonde girl (for those of you that know me, the brown hair has been gone for about a year now...) on her own in an asian country is a bit like spotting bigfoot. I'd estimate that I'm now in at least 5 asian families photo albums. No autographs, please. Later that evening I went to the Bukit Bintang area for...wait for it....MORE shopping. This time it was much lower scale shops and a lot of street vendors. At around 7 pm a bunch of people set up shop on the sidewalks selling fake designer watches and other wares. I stoppped to assess the situation and found it absolutely hysterical when a man tried to tell me the rolex's were real. Okay dude, I'm never going to believe you OR pay 250 RM for it. (RM= Ringgit Malaysa and its about 3 RM to each US dollar) This shopping excursion was as a result much kinder on my wallet and I made it back to the hotel for a quiet night in with my many pillows. I went a little crazy with the complimentary pillow menu... but there were EIGHT options! Who wouldn't want to have their own pillow satisfaction test? I slept quite well, thank you very much. Day 2 has basically been just a quicker version of day 1 and in reverse seeing as my flight is scheduled for 8:25 pm. Transport to and from KL airport is really convenient (AND cheap) and none of the nonsense that was airport transport in bali. Next time I find an internet connection where I can understand the blogger.com language I'll tell you (family, friends, and stalkers) all about the boat trip from Perth to Bali (teaser- suffered a slight concussion from some unfriendly rogue waves) and all about my time in Bali in general. Instead of apologizing for the delay, I'm telling you now that it's probably going to be a while. Until then, Terima Kasih for reading! (google translate that)

2 days in KL- Part 1

I realize it's been WAY too long since i've updated this but I promise I have an extremely valid reason. The reason being that I don't speak Indonesian. This is a problem considering that when I access the site in Bali, where I've been since June, it is entirely in Indonesian. See? I told you, major issue. Anyway, there's much to update on- so, so much- but this post will just be about my 2 day stint in Kuala Lumpur, which I am finishing up as we speak (/type?). Basically, we have been on the boat in Bali so long that our extended visas have even expired so in order to stay each one of the crew has had to leave the country for a day in order to re-enter with new visas. Keeping costs down, I ended up being shipped off to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (the closest out of country destination) for an overnight stay, for which I am not complaining at all. Any travel I can get always excites me. Wednesday morning I was meant to fly out of Bali at 6 am. This means that I had to be up at around 3am- not ideal, but it meant a longer stay in KL, so it was worth the sacrifice. I was all set up with a cab to arrive at our dingy marina at 3:30, from a friendly driver named Herry. Herry assured me that it wasn't too early and I would see him bright eyed and bushytailed, ready to take me the 20 minutes to the airport. Herry is a big fat liar. I sat and waited 20 minutes, all the while being eaten alive by mosquitos in the dark. When the lone security guard offered to call another cab service, which I initially declined because afterall Herry had seemed so trustworthy, I was very thankful. Once again however, I was left waiting as mosquito bait with no sign of transportation. Finally, with less than 2 hours until my flight was scheduled to take off, the kind security guard insisted that he take me on his motorbike. Herman, which I found out later was the security guard's name, had offered this option before but having luggage in tow and wearing a maxi dress made it seem undesirable. Well, screw desirable. I hiked up my maxi dress and hopped on the back of that motorbike and clung to Herman for dear life while we weaved through the streets of Bali in darkness like two bandits, all the while thinking "dear god my mother is going to die if she ever finds out, but at least I'm wearing a helmet". Images of the movie "Taken" were entering my mind as I left my fate in the hands of Herman the security guard. In the end, Herman ended up saving the day and even walked me and my luggage all the way to the international departure gate, which if left on my own, probably would have taken me a good half hour to find. Thank god for Herman. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to save the details of my time spent actually in KL for the next post because its time for another taxi adventure back to KLIA airport. Wish me luck. But seriously, wish me luck.