Saturday/Sunday July 24th-25thà Off to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Jenn safely arrived yesterday from Melbourne and stayed the night at my flat (now that flat 130 has a spare room… but not for long!)She arrived pretty late, so we pretty much said hi, caught up quickly on our Aussie lives, and then went to bed.The next morning we headed to Garden City (shopping mall) to pick up some last minute items for our trip.Who knew that this little errand would end up with Matt and Rune furnishing our flat balcony!Long story short, we passed a garage sale sign and I suggested that we go… next thing we are paying $15 for a set of upholstered lazy-boy style chairs and a coffee table!Now we have an epic balcony for those beautiful spring days that are just around the corner.(We also bought a sweet elephant hat from Thailand for kicks, and it cost us a whopping 50 cents!)

In the evening, my flatmates and I decided to have some of the new villagers over for a few drinks.Jenn and I were planning to leave around 10pm for our flight that was scheduled to leave at 1:20am, but we received a text informing us that our flight was running behind schedule and would be delayed until 3am!Luckily, we hadn't left for the airport yet, so we continued socializing at the flat.We eventually left with Rojesh, Sean and Jake for the airport only to arrive and be told that guess what…. delayed further!We didn't leave until around 4am!"Oh but here, have a free drink voucher!"Delays are just one of those things that you learn to accept the more and more you travel.

The flight to KL was okay.We were fed our meal around 5am.Nothing like a full dinner first thing in the morning!For some reason I found it hard to catch much sleep, which is strange as I am usually KO'd on long plane rides.The flight took about 5 hours, putting us in Kuala Lumpur just after 9am.After picking up my luggage, we headed to the KLIA express train, which took us from the airport to "Sentral Station" where we caught the Light Rail Transit for two stops.The public transit in this city is wonderful!I can't wait for Hamilton to get a LRT system in place!Next, it was only a couple blocks walking to our hostel "Back Home".We checked in and plopped our packs down.I tackled the fun chore of filling out the online application for my working-holiday visa, which was the whole reasoning for this "mandatory vacation"!it was then off to explore the city of KL.

The hostel location was pretty central, without being directly in the city centre; it was only 2 stops to reach the downtown area.We did a bit of a wander taking in the sights of the Petronas Twin Towers and various skyscrapers.Then we headed to the Traders Hotel, which offered a Sunday special at their Skybar on the 33rd floor.We sipped a few cocktails, ate the best chicken satay I have ever had in my life (sorry mom, I love yours too!) and went for a dip in the pool all whilst being 33 floors up with an astonishing view of the towers and parkland.Now technically, only guests of the hotel were supposed to swim in the pool, but Jenn worked her magic and talked to the manager who agreed to let us swim!I couldn't think of a better way to spend our first day in KL, especially considering our lack of sleep!

After spending a good 3 or 4 hours at the skybar, it began to pour and guess who left their umbrellas back at the hostel?!Luckily, the Traders Hotel is attached to the convention center, so we wandered through and eventually into the mall at the bottom of the Petronas Towers.Malaysians sure love to shop!The mall was at least 5 levels, and full of every designer and product you could imagine.I even managed to find my Osprey day pack that I have been searching for in Canadian AND American outdoor stores... who would have thought I would find it in Malaysia, for half the price!?!You don't understand how happy this made me!Ask Jenn, she probably thinks I'm crazy to be so excited over a backpack, but if you are an outdoor-gear nut like me, you'll understand!

After our shopping expedition, we ventured through the rain back to the hostel where we met our roommates, Sara from Switzerland and Anton from Sweden.We cleaned up a bit, hoping that the rain would slow down so we could grab some dinner, but it didn't so we opted for some Indian food just around the corner from our hostel.Welcome to Malaysia… two white girls walk into the Indian restaurant and just stare at the menu like… ummmm English?!I guess we must have looked a tad bit lost because the waiter came over and began ordering for us!I'm not really sure what we ate, but I sure can tell you it was anything but disgusting!A little spicy, but that never hurt anyone!It was a vegetarian place, so I'll eat anything they give me!We topped off the meal with freshly squeezed apple and mango juices!DELICIOUS!!!

After dinner, I returned home to the hostel to find out that I had been granted my Australian visa!A total pending time of 6 hours (it can take up to 2 weeks to be processed)!Man I love being Canadian!With this peace of mind, my vacation REALLY begins!