My trip to Malaysia Part 1: an eye opening experience

April 29th Thursday

Left this morning for the airport. I was super excited, but at the same time complacent. Upon arriving I met up with Erika (whom I was very glad to see) at the new and beautiful International Terminal at the Sapporo airport. It was just glistening white. My new favorite airport. Anyways, today was the beginning of my trip to Malaysia. We rode on Cathay Pacific and first arrived in Hong Kong for a 1 night layover. The hotel we stayed at was absolutely beautiful with views of the beach and ocean. Hong Kong is an island country so it was just a bunch of hotels/apts mini cities built on islands connected by bridges. Very interesting to see. The shower was wonderful, though it had blinds so you could open them when taking a shower....lol

April 39th Friday

Got up this morning, bid our beautiful hotel goodbye, and left for the airport to Malaysia. Upon arriving in Kuala Lumpur we immediately noticed how hot and, in particular, humid it was. We got ourselves a nice airport black taxi and headed into Kuala Lumpur city, the heart and capital of Malaysia. Our taxi driver was excellent. He gave us all kinds of information on the city and kind of gave us a mini tour. So we finally arrived at our hotel and realized that we were in the more un-touristy area of the city. If you want the real Malaysian experience, ya gotta come to Chow-kit. That`s where we were. It was quite uh....real. I mean the area is not for tourists as it`s surroundings and decor and traffic are not attractive to the average tourist. Our hotel, Hotel Sahara, was adequate for budget travlers. Clean and conveniently located near all the big sites and attractions. But the bathroom was quite interesting. The sink, toilet, and shower were not separated. As in, there is no set shower area. The shower hose hung between the toilet and the sink. So when you took a shower you basically got the whole room wet, including the toilet...lol

Anyways, a bit of interesting info for those who don`t know much about Malaysia. Malaysia is a Muslim country. But the main population (particularly on the east side) consists of Chinese, Indian, and Malays. So there`s alot of languages and religions going on here. Moreover, they used to be a British colony up until 50 years ago so everyone here speaks English and everything is written in English. So Erika and I had no problems getting around whatsoever. Now, speaking of the religion part/tradition/culture, I noticed something very interesting that really opened my eyes.

The Malaysian women, being all Muslim, wear beautiful scarves around their head that only covers their hair and usually wear pants and long sleeves. Then there are the more strict Muslim women who cover themselves from head to toe (literally) in black cloth and only allow their eyes to show through, like the women we`ve been seeing in the American media in Afghanistan, etc. Only, these women walk side by side with skimpily dressed Chinese girls and tank top wearing Indian girls. It`s very interesting to see because the conservative Muslim women don`t seem to mind being friends with/or being seen with/being near to the other women who aren`t so covered up. Everyone`s content with one another. However, for couples, you always only see Chinese and Chinese, Indian and Indian, or maybe Chinese and Indian, but never Malaysian and Chinese/Indian. The Malaysians also only go for other Malaysians because of their religion. If you want to marry or go out with a Malaysian girl/guy you have to convert to being a Muslim. So all these people will walk side by side, but are never really integrated. You`ll see all three races shopping in the same clothing store, but for different clothes. That was very interesting to watch.

The Muslim women (the strict ones included), however, seem perfectly happy with their lives and the men treat them quite well it seems. The women are actually free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn`t go against their religion. They don`t have to walk behind their husbands, they carry designer handbags of all flashy colors, and seem to be able to wear whatever they like as long as it covers majority of their body. Meaning no show of legs (sandals/flip-flops are okay to wear though) and no tank tops or sleeveless tops. Then again, this is Malaysia where I`m sure is not as strict on these things as the countries where the religion originated. Oh, and there are mosques everywhere.

Anyways, back on track. After arriving in our hotel and taking a leisurely walk around the surrounding areas of the hotel we went to Chinatown. And there, we shopped, got stalked by a creepy Indian man trying to make us go into his shop, and ate wonderful nostalgic (well, nostalgic for me) food. No Malaysian food yet, just Chinese food. But it`s authentic Chinese food that I haven`t had in forever and I missed it terribly. I didn`t realize how much I missed it until I popped the sweet roast pork (Cha-shu) in my mouth. Man... Oh and the fruit! Man, the fruit juice was excellent there. Way good!

That night, after returning back to our hotel, we walked around our area for a bit. It was quite shady to say the least and dirty. Coming from beautiful clean Hokkaido Japan, Malaysia was pretty disturbing. But that`s how all the Southeast asian countries (besides Singapore) are compared to Japan. Live like the locals do I suppose.

May 1 Saturday

Today we took the Monorail to the Golden Triangle area. The monorail broke down and we gave up and just decided to walk to our destination, which wasn`t far. I had wanted to head over to Bukit Bintang area for some shopping. So we broke down at the perfect stop. We entered the Sugei Wang plaza, which is this giant giant shopping mall. Like bigger than any I`ve ever been to. We walked around for a while, realized that none of these clothes would fit us and just kept walking around. My feet, for some reaon, started to get really tired and sore real fast. Boo. Anyways, after that, we walked over he Berjaya Times Square, which is a higher level mall complete with the largest indoor theme park in all of Southeast Asia. It was awesome...though we didn`t buy too much. haha.

From there we went to KL Tower which looks like the Stratosphere. I had reserved us dinner there at the restaurant on the top of the tower. The view from the top was breathtaking. Absolutely. The restaurant revolves giving you a full 360 degree view of the city. The food was great and I was stuffed. We spent 2 hours in the restaurant revolving until we came back around to where we started. And then left to go back down. We had wanted to go to Little India, but it seemed to be already closed. So we just headed back to our hotel and chilled.