We arrived in Kuala Lumpur
after a pleasant night aboard the train.
The kids slept like rocks and, while Ana and I both woke up frequently,
it was still a pretty good sleep and we were feeling ready for action once the
train pulled up to its final station.
We made our way through the
subway system and found our hotel, another lovely place complete with a pool
and wifi. Our mission for the day was
modest – find a laundry were we could wash our clothes, and as luck would have
it, there was a coin-op laundry in a hotel only a few blocks away. While we waited for the clothes to wash and
dry we wandered around a nearby shopping area, had a coffee, and played cards
with the kids. We then returned to the
hotel and the kids went for a swim while I did some poolside reading and Ana
packed away all the freshly cleaned clothing.
We decided to make the most
of the day so head out in the late afternoon and explored the colonial area
where we visited a museum where they had an amazing scale replica of the city
of KL enhanced with a multi-media show which showcased the city’s achievements
and plans for growth, which are ambitious to say the least. It is quite obvious that they have a strong,
capable, and well functioning government here in the city to be able to grow at
the rate they are growing, which is turning KL into a major Asian hub. Spending time in Asia is really highlighting
how poorly some things work in comparison in North America, particularly
transport. Having a well functioning,
affordable, comprehensive public transport system is so clearly the key to
building a great city that it is hard to understand how we manage to cock this
up so badly in Canada. For example, we
have been able to transport the four of us up and down and across this country
for so little money, that the cost of it is practically an afterthought. In comparison, the last time we checked the
cost of transporting our family from our home to Ottawa (approximately 6 or 7
hours by train) it was around $850! Are you
kidding me?? So because it is so
incredibly expensive, we are forced to put our lives on the line by driving our
vehicle down the dangerous highways, further cluttering up the roads, making
fewer trips than we otherwise would if the public transport was affordable.
We then headed over to
Chinatown to find some food and check out the deals….and yes, we found
both. In fact, Ana restrained herself magnificently
and limited her purchases to a Cartier watch (knock-off) and earrings
(knock-off) while Magnus bought a laser pointer (genuine) and Stella bought a
nice little Lego set (genuine?), all for a fraction of what they would pay at
home. I finally decided to shell out and
drink a few beers, as the atmosphere was amazing in the densely packed,
rollicking, multi-cultural, fragrant series of streets which made up Chinatown.
We took the subway back to
our hotel and finished up our first day in the big city by watching a terrible
movie called “Anaconda – The Search for the Black Pearl” or something like that.
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