KL

Not a place I ever imagined I would visit. Although ever since the trips to Chile, the air hostesses on Malaysian airlines sure gave a good impression. Well last week I was lucky enough to get a brief taste of Kuala Lumpur, now I can tell you all the pretty ones are in the planes. Nah, the people are cool, and it is a great city, incredibly clean and organised, hot, green and the people are very gentle and helpful. It feels like a serious city where work is done, it is modern and feels quite happening, and good thing is that KL seems to lack the hustle and bustle of the big cities, the part that is normally responsible for just wearing you out. The city centre is all about tall buildings, although one doesn't feel like it since they are all dwarfed by the telecoms tower and the Petronas twins. Despite the tallth all around one, there is a lot of green. The climate makes one think that if you stood still long enough something may just sprout out of your shoes. Hmmm, or that may just be the joy of hotel showers. Here's a green tall building view from our very own tall hotel, you can see the monorail heading through the city.

Malaysia seems to be quite beeg on shopping. I have come across large sprawling malls in South Africa where space isn't at a premium, but large 15 storey malls is another story. These places are massive, and what do you do in that little open space in your mall void? You put in a roller coaster!

You can see some of the bottom shopping floors below as the ride goes by. It's a clever move, the screams of excitement drown out the screams of horror from credit card abuse.

One of the grotty corners of KL houses a prison and there is no confusion about their public relations.

It wouldn't be a blog about KL without some serious buildings, the Petronas towers, first the view from the base of the towers looking in the other direction.

Turn around and look up...

That's 88 occupied floors and 452 m of bling, there are two towers, that's probably were bling bling comes from. They used to be the tallest in the world until the Taipei 101 pipped them, though they are still the tallest twin towers.

This seems a more appropriate representation of the city, lush flowery KL along with the man-made.

We managed a quick visit to the skybridge, 170 m up on the 42nd. Things on the ground are quite small from up thar.

It's a cool city, and we had some great food, but the Asians really need to work on their desserts, that goo that they put colouring in just doesn't cut it.

Wishing you some warmth with great food.