On Friday I went to Genting Highland to experience Malaysia's Skyride and The casino, hotels and amusement parks that are situated at the top of the hill.

However, prior to heading out to Genting Highland, we stopped off at Yip Kee in Kuala Lumpur for lunch. I enjoyed a 5 Spice Beef stir-fry, which was really good!

Afterwards we headed to Gohtong to a friend's apartment so we could drop off our overnight bags.

We then dashed off to the cable-car, known as Skyride, so we could begin our ascent to Genting Highland.

The Skyride was nerve-wracking, however I had some amazing views of the surrounding valley, the vegetation beneath and a beautiful vista of Kuala Lumpur in the distance.

As our ride undulated over the hills as we ascended the mountain, new wonders unfolded and we caught a glimpse of a monkey perched atop a tree and on the summit of one of the hills was a really interesting plant that I'd never seen before ... Which, by all accounts, looked huge!

We arrived safely at the summit of the mountain and disembarked our pod and headed straight towards the hotels, casino and amusement park.

The hotels are really impressive, and now that it's Chinese New Year, they are dressed with Chinese Lanterns, Cherry Blossoms and other amazing decorations.

We wandered around a bit, me taking as me photos as I could, before we stumbled upon a Starbucks!!!

I had to leave that behind so we could continue exploring the rest of the complex and we headed towards all the Arcade games an other amusements.

There are so many varieties of games and it seems like one receives tickets once the game has finished, which can then be redeemed for cool, hard cash!

We headed through part of a mall area were there are reproductions of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Statue of Liberty and other world-famous landmarks.

We stopped off at Flavours, under Big Ben, for lunch. There was a wide variety of food to choose from and they even combined some of the choices, which was great.

I chose a "spicy" chicken stir fry with rice, vegetables, chillis and fresh fruit. I even tried some authentic Chinese Tea, which was aromatic and really enjoyable.

After lunch we headed towards the amusement park and then went through the Doraemen World exhibition.

After wandering through the exhibition, we headed back to the hotel and sat in Starbucks enjoying a coffee. I ordered a Cafe Mocha, which is my usual poison of choice, however there was a difference compared to hat I'm accustomed to in the UK.

It was great to see that Starbucks also accept the Starbucks loyalty card and that I could even use the Starbucks app on my iPhone to pay for drinks!!! Yay!

Afterwards we headed to the casino so I could wander around. It's a really depressing place ... Watching people gambling all their hard-earned cash away!

It is also quite impressive with all the decorations, etc.

The casino area is massive and it took a while to wander around and slide past the masses of people wandering around.

I had taken a photo of one of the chandeliers because it was so impressive, however, one of the security guards grabbed my arm and demanded that I delete it, which I surely did.
(Turns out my friend's iPhone syncs automatically, so I should still be able to get the pic and post it up at a later date.)

Some of my friends were still hungry, and it was about 1:30am, yet all the eateries, coffee shops, etc. we're still open.

They popped in at a McDonalds, so I tried a Big Mac. It was almost exactly the same as we get in the UK, and probably anywhere else in the world?!

We eventually returned to the apartment we were staying in and got to bed at 3am. I woke up shortly after 12pm and prepared to return to Kuala Lumpur.

I spent the afternoon at Denny and Philip's house, before going with friends to meet some of their relatives.

It's 3:45am now and I'm packed and ready to head out to Penang for the next few days.

Hope to post more photos and thoughts soon.

'Til next time ...
Ciao,
Michael