Tour De Malaysia

I’m back from Malaysia! Yupz, was away at Genting/Kuala Lumpur for a total of 5D4N, and I must say that it was real fun!

Ok, let me do a brief recap. First day was pretty tiring because we were on our way to Genting. Initially, I think the scenery was nice, but after some time, they were all too repetitive (all the oil palms and rubber trees). Ha, some parts of it were also reminiscent of a place in Singapore as well! But when we got to Genting, it was really good. Apart from the long winding mountain road up to the resort (it was so like Mt. Akina in Initial D) which offered brilliant views of clouds and rainforest, we also got to see plenty of other interesting sights such as their theme park and the First World plaza mega mall. Ok, most of our time there was spent shopping and exploring (oh, the Kenny Roger’s over there sucks!), as well as attempting to enter the casino (wah liew, they so niao, check passport! But abh heng went in).

The weather there was shiok. Really cool and misty, and I got a feeling that I was in a temperate country (like Japan). Its really a cheap and good getaway if you just want to experience that type of cool weather which Singapore never has.

Ok, Day 2 was spent in the theme park. Well, most of the rides there were pretty mild, except for the Free Fall, which I particularly enjoyed! Reminds me of my Taiwan days too! And of course, shouting from the top was really shiok! Ooh, I wore contacts too, so the whole scenery was literally unbelievable beautiful (you get the feeling of being in heaven because of all the clouds around you). Oh, their flying coaster was good too, its like a simulation of what you will be doing if you are flying a fighter jet.

I guess the highlight of the day for me was trying out the Sky Venture or a mini simulation of skydiving. Cool, floating above air, experiencing all the strong winds, I must say it was indeed a memorable time. Looks like maybe next time if I got the chance, I should try out skydiving as well. Haha.

We left for KL on the 3^rd day and we took the cable car down from the resort to the base. Waah, the view from the cable car was fantastic, and we were lucky that it wasn’t raining. You could see the whole thick foliage of vegetation all about us, as well as see the various mountaintops and clouds swirling. It was just great!

Well, we reached KL at around 2 and I guess our hotel there was disappointing compared to our expectations. But nonetheless, it was still really good (its like a mini suite with its own living room). Anyway, we spent almost the entire afternoon shopping around Times Square (which happens to be the shopping center below my hotel), and I must say that it was humongous. 10 whole floors of shop space (thankfully only about half were filled up), a theme park (wasted man, the others just want to shop and so we never got a chance to play there but I must say it has a mean roller coaster), interesting shops with lots of people (hence lot of chiobus), I must say that it was really big.

We walked to Hard Rock Café for dinner (thanks to some poor directions from the hotel staff), and it was a really long 20 minutes walk. However, it was good caused we actually saw a lot of the Bintang area (their Orchard Road), saw their Planet Hollywood, got to see a lot of their hotels (like Shangri-la), as well as get to see their version of MS. Ha. Anyway, we had a good time over at hard rock Café, celebrated Jared’s and David’s birthday there too. Oh, the service staff there was excellent, so much more better than those at Genting’s. Indeed, we had a good time there.

When we got back to the room (after me and David were literally running about trying to find a bottle opener), we had a long time playing cards and drinking. Hmmm, seems to me that bottled beer can only be that ‘good’. Those brewed ones are certainly much better.

Day 4 was spent sleeping and a little bit of walking about Times Square. After that, we took their LRT and train (ya, its not interconnected!) to KLCC to shop. Well, KLCC was large, but it wasn’t that exciting for me since I have been there 5 years back. Of course, the Tamiya shop still left an impression on me, but you can say that I was more fascinated with A&W! Yea, that extinct fast food restaurant actually exists over there. Haha, as expected, we had our lunch there.

We were all tired from the past few nights of insomnia, so we went back to the hotel to rest. Our original plan was to visit Jalan Petaling in the evening, but as it was raining, we decided to dine first before making any other plans. So we ate at a pretty posh, and decently good Japanese restaurant in Times Square. Wah, I had scallops and oysters and boy were they nice. Their hot sakae were also nice, and I must say we had a good dinner, possibly our best in Malaysia.

Since the sky cleared, we hopped over to Jalan Petaling by my most favorite mode of transport – walking. Ha, ok la, we saw something like our Bugis area, but I must say I was disappointed with Jalan Petaling. Its like we failed to see all the food stalls that we have heard from other sources! Well, the shops there were a lot like Bangkok’s, with all the clothes, VCDs and DVDs, shoes, bags, I must say just like a typical night market. Well, we walked back after that to the Bukit Bintang area, and then we detoured into a pub over there to have a drink as well as rest our legs and watch soccer. Ha, yup, we ended up crossing into 2006 over there, but at least we still saw the fireworks! After a short stay there, we just went back to our rooms. This reminds me, we had to spend quite a few days attempting to correct certain army jargon like bunk and rooms, batch and group, etc.

Ok, the last day was free and easy for all, so some of us went to Sungei Wangi to shop (as well as amazed ourselves with their quality of piracy), while others went to Lot 10 to buy clothes. A fruitful day in terms of shopping I guess? Oooh, I met yen over there too. Ha, ended up shopping for DVDs with her as well as having lunch together too.

Our trip in Malaysia finally ended at around 3 plus when we boarded the bus back to Singapore. Even though it was short, I still enjoyed it and of course I do hope to go traveling with the guys again in future. Possibly June? Go Taiwan? Haha.