Just a few more pictures from the trip to Kuala Lumpur. There were motorcycles everywhere. We see them in Dubai, but mostly as delivery vehicles. In KL, they were clearly a personal vehicle of choice.
At intersections, the motorcycles collect at the front of the lanes and when the light turns green there is a roar as the crowd of motorcycles are the first to take off.
So, some ask if it was safe in KL. There are warnings about purse snatchers and pickpockets, but we did not see or experience any theft. DaddyBird walked through the neighborhood late at night and felt safe. 
I was concentrating on taking this picture and DaddyBird was wondering where I had wondered off to. I didn’t see him in the photo until later.
Apparently, Dubai is everywhere and you can’t escape it. This is an AirAsia advertisement in the central train station.
We were tempted to break our “no McDonalds” rule and have the double prosperity burger, but we ran out of time and were eating a lot of other food, as you have seen previously.
This is the banner ad for the messy burger (in Day 3 post). Notice that it is 90% pure meat. Not sure what the other 10% might be and I’m not asking.
Here we have an unauthorized use of Mickey. I’m not sure why he has green gloves on, but it is probably best not to think too hard about it.
Now, we get to a cultural difference item. There were normal public toilets with the bowl, tank, seat, etc., and there were squat toilets, basically a small basin in the floor that flushes over which one squats. The public toilets on the street were kind enough to have both and signage so you would know what you were getting. However, apparently some who are used to squatting attempt to do this with standard toilets — hence the need for this warning sign. (And, yes, this particular toilet had footprints on the seat.)
Our last sign was in the airport. I think there was supposed to be a comma or break in there somewhere. Ah, the importance of punctuation!
Let’s start with obligatory restaurant chef image. This one is giving a big thumbs up, which is fine if that is a good thing in your culture.
Next, we have a version of Nefertiti. In Dubai, we’ve seen many spelling variations of this, too. Considering that Eqyptians of that period wrote in pictures/hieroglyphs, spelling is all arbitrary anyway.
He’s not just Mr. Paint, he’s Mr. Paint Man!
When you don’t want just any ol’ shoe, you want a hypershoe.
Eat at the Fun N Cheer restaurant. Always a good time!
There were 7Elevens everywhere. In Dubai, our running joke is “look! a mosque!” In KL, it was “hey, a 7Eleven!” We are also glad that the K K Super Mart, stopped at just two K’s.
Reject Shop, that’s appealing, isn’t it?
With that I will take a break. More pictures of signs to come.
Our last day in Kuala Lumpur we had to check out of the hotel by 10 am, but our flight was not until 7:30 pm, so we put our bags in storage and had some more fun. We still had 37% of the money we budgeted for the trip, so I went shopping! It was nearly impossible to find clothes our size, so we went into Gulati’s Silk House and bought 35 meters of various material (cotton, linen, satin, chiffon). I have my year’s worth of sewing cut out for me.
Then we took the train to the Central Market area. There was some amazing graffiti along the river. 
In the China Town area we came upon Petaling Street.
It is lined with stalls selling cheap handbags, sun glasses, and illegal DVDs. We did not buy any of the above.
We met up with Adrianna and Andrew for beef noodles.
We each had a bowl of beef with rice noodles and egg noodles and a bowl of soup for a whopping 8RM each. (approx. $3.00)
It was very tasty. I really like Cantonese cooking, because it is very savory without being spicy. Very yummy!
By this time it was afternoon and we needed to head to the train station to retrieve our luggage and get on the express train to the airport.
Kuala Lumpur, Day Five, Part Two
The rain began while we were at the bird park, so our plans to also go to the butterfly park were rained out, literally. As you can imagine the butterflies head for cover, so there is no point in looking.
We took a taxi to the shopping center connected with the Petronas Towers to have a late lunch (around 4 pm) at a restaurant Adrianna recommended – Madam Kwans.
It began with Prosperity Salad (judging by the price, it’s the restaurant who prospers). It was tasty, but also fun. The plate was brought to the table with all the ingredients neatly in separate piles. The waitress then added the spices – pepper and cinnamon, and the sauce. We then joined in with our chop sticks and helped her mix it up.
Paul had nasi lemak. This is considered the national dish. It started as a breakfast meal, but is now eaten any time of the day. The ingredients may vary at times, but is usually rice (steamed in coconut milk), curry chicken, spicy sardines [correction: anchovies - I knew it was little fish], cucumbers and a hard boiled egg.
I had some nice, unspicy broccoli & mushrooms (with a considerable number of garlic cloves).
We spent some time in the mall looking in vain for some things we wanted. We then took a train out to the suburbs, so to speak, to meet Adrianna and friends for dinner. (Only four hours after our late lunch.) The first stop was to purchase some bak kwa, which is a thin layer of pork (or chicken) in a sweet sauce.
Next, we had a couple of drinks. The bottom layer is palm syrup (I think). Next up is a layer of various and sundry things like corn, gelatin, peanuts. I’m not really certain what all was in there. The top layer was shaved ice and fruit. My drink was coffee or carmel flavored (I’m getting old and forgetful). I don’t know what the name of this is, but will call it the Kitchen Sink Drink. It was cool and refreshing and tasted better than it probably sounds.
This is the place where we got the Kitchen Sink Drink. I’m not sure what to call it. It is a large area with a floor and roof, but no walls. Down each side are small kitchen areas and in the center is a common seating area. It seems to be the step in between street fair booth and stand alone restaurant.
Next was a full blown dinner at a Cantonese restaurant.
Six people ate (with plenty left over) for 120RM ($35.50 approx.).
Here we are with our lovely food guides – Adrianna, Liy, Mai, and Laine.
It’s not over, yet. We went to another place to have more. This is another layered drink, all liquid this time. The bottom layer is palm syrup, then milk, then tea. Mix it up and it looks like the one in the background. Very tasty.
We were thoroughly stuffed by this time and it was getting late, so we called it a day.
Clearly, it was peacock mating season because every peacock in the place was strutting his stuff. This one puts on quite a show, but the hen seems unmoved.
Kuala Lumpur Day 5, part one
We went to the bird park which claims to be the largest free flight, walk-in aviary. It is quite large, so I tend to believe them. It was expensive by KL standards – 42 ringgits per person (approx. $12.50), but it is worth the price if you like flora and fauna at all.
There is a large variety of birds, this is just a sampling of what we saw.
I did not notice the official name of this bird. I assume it is a type of stork. The one below was relaxing, although that position doesn’t look very relaxing.
I think this is one of the yellow breasted starlings, but his back is turned to us, so it is hard to tell.
The most spectacular bird was the Scarlet Ibis. This picture doesn’t do the color justice. They were very bright red.
This is the other spectacular bird. So spectacular that they weren’t even pictured on the signs to tell us what they were. Measles bird? The Jackson Pollock? (no, too much of a pattern for that name.)
The owl on the right was doing a little dance right up until I hit the record button. They look almost as much like rodents as they do owls.
There were, of course, plenty of parrots and lovebirds.
This is the Southern Cassowary.
And, last but not least, beware the dreaded Junglefowl!
We had a busy day. We went to the bird park. We got rained on. We ate a lot of food and had a lot of fun. However, I’m going to ask you to wait for a couple of days. I’ll get the rest of our trip posted on Saturday. Tomorrow we must be up early and out of the hotel, so there will be no time for posting now.
Day four was physically difficult with not much pay off.
We went to the food court at the mall across the street for brunch. I had some lovely fried chicken, Swiss chard, spinach, cabbage and an interesting flat bread. The bread was round and had a sweet glaze on the outside. When I pulled it apart it had layers that were dripping with butter. How these people eat like this and don’t all look like Sumo wrestlers is beyond me. It must be the constant heat and humidity that burns off the calories. DaddyBird had nasi lemak, which is traditional breakfast food here. It usually includes rice, spicy meat, fried egg and cucumber.
We took the monorail to the central train station. We did find some lockers where we will be able to store our luggage on Friday, because we have to leave the hotel by 10 am and don”t fly out until evening. One productive item for the day.
We then tried to find out how to walk to the National Museum, which according to the map is a short distance away. HOWEVER, there is a highway between the two, so we gave up and got a taxi (teksi) for a whopping 7RM (less than $2).
We enjoyed the museum, although I was very footsore by then and also rather put out that there were no benches in the museum to provide a place to stop and rest.
We then tried to figure out how to get to the park where there is an aviary and a butterfly area. This, again was within a short distance, but across a major roadway. This time there was a pedestrian overpass. It involved a long set of stairs and the escalator was not working. So, we hiked up the stairs. Below is the view from the top of the stairs.
The first part of the park we encountered was the planetarium where we found Stonehenge. It was one of several recreations of ancient astrological observatories.
We eventually found the aviary, which it turns out is the largest free flight walk-in aviary. It was only 30 minutes until closing and it cost 42RM, so we decided that tomorrow, we will cut to the chase, take a taxi straight to the aviary, skipping the trains, walking and stairs, and get our money’s worth.
We took a taxi back to the hotel (20RM/$5) and I took a little nap. Around 9:30 pm we thought maybe we should get another meal under our belts before bed. We ended up at a hotel restaurant, which did not make Daddybird happy, but most of the restaurants open that late were serving spicy food that I cannot eat. Most of the meal was passable. Daddybird’s duck appetizer, pictured below, was beautiful, but tough and tasteless.
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