Day 1 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Friday, June 07, 2013

It's my second time out of the country, the first one of which I don't remember that much. The only detail that remains vivid until this time is when we were oblivious of how to pay in the Hong Kong bus that we handed our payment to the driver... Shivers. Being older and more knowledgeable about the world, I can attest that during my second trip out of the country, I was not too oblivious of our destination and knew (a bit) of what we are supposed to do and most importantly, eat.

But I'm not an expert so our foodtripping in Malaysia is exciting and surprising.

Before our first day in Malaysia, our Cebu Pacific flight was delayed - apparently refueling for quite some time and then getting stuck in runway traffic - and so we were probably an hour late when we arrived at the budget terminal of Kuala Lumpur. I was looking at the tall building with the interesting roof and wished the airport would be there but since we were flying Cebu Pacific, we have no choice but to take in the 'budget' interior of the budget terminal.


Yes, we were off to Imigresen. :)

The people were nice enough, including the immigration official, who let me go back to the celcom booth to activate my Cebu Pacific Malaysian SIM card. The card was preloaded with 5 MYR (I think), which allowed us to call our hotel to say that we're going to arrive late. I also bought a top-up card worth 10 MYR, which came in a strip of paper. Amazing since it isn't wasteful compared to our plastic wallet-sized cards.

Right after we have gone out to look for the buses (or Bas as they call it in Malaysia), I instantly sense the old/cabinet smell. I'm not sure if it's the terminal or something else. There's also an Indian/Malaysian restaurant nearby, where I smelled curry. We found our bus going to City Centre and by past 6PM, we're on the road.

We noticed it was still bright outside like it's 5:30PM in Manila. The ride was devoid of traffic and off the bus went for I think almost two hours before we reached City Centre. We saw the Petronas Tower peeking from afar as well as the KL Tower poking out of the towering buildings and we feel that yes, we are in a different country!

The first thing I noticed when we got out of the bus was that the traffic was smoothly flowing and people are crossing the streets calmly haha. There were also few people out on the streets though, unlike in Manila where the night is alive all the time (read: BPO companies). We were quite hungry and thankfully our hotel was just near the bus station. 



Mayview Glory Hotel


View outside our hotel room


After we settled down, we were hungry and needed something to eat so despite my mom's suggestion of eating somewhere familiar like the KFC store nearby, I suggested to eat in the Tom Yam seafood eatery near our hotel. At first we have no idea what to eat and my mom was getting frustrated at not understanding the menu so the best way was to ask the waiter. In the end, my sister and I ordered nasi goreng with chicken and squid and my parents got noodles, fish in sauce with ginger, and rice. 

Nasi goreng with squid. So spicy!


Nasi goreng with chicken. My dish.


Nasi goreng is 'fried rice' and the two dishes served to us are spicy. Although the one with squid on it is hotter. The cut of the spring onion is quite large but I enjoyed it very much. It was quite a lot and I thought, oh no, carbs. Haha. The waiter, cook, and well - everyone on the restaurant were men and they all looked Indian to me. I saw another staff behind the bar making tea or coffee and was 'pulling' the tea, which was amazing. I later discovered that it was called teh tarik for tea and kopi tarik for coffee. 

After our filling meal, we went back to the hotel and when we were arranging our stuffs, a parade was happening outside - probably a religious festival since there are a lot of Buddhist/Hindu gods statue on floats.  Too bad we didn't know the occasion but we were too exhausted from our flight so we just let them be. 

Ok Day 2... next!

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