Kuala Lumpur

This past week was spring break for one of the schools here in Malang where 2 of my friends are teachers. We had been planning on doing a little trip somewhere while they are on break and ended up finding a really cheap way of being able to go and stay in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It's amazing how inexpensive it is sometimes to get to surrounding countries here. A part of Malaysia is actually connected to one of the many islands of Indonesia, but we went to the part of Malaysia that is connected to Thailand. We stayed there for a few days and it was amazing to explore the city. I had no idea what it was going to be like there and expected it to be a lot like Indonesia. Not at all! The city is so modernized and is a pretty big business hub, especially with the Petronas Towers being there. It was really easy to get around the city with the train system they have and is a huge walking city--they even have sidewalks!!! that's very different from Indonesia :).
My favorite thing about KL was how incredibly diverse the culture is there. The population is a mix of people from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and China. These influences in KL, of course, also mean AMAZING food. I think I got Indian food almost everyday. There is also a lot of tourism in KL which brings in a lot of Europeans and Americans. It was refreshing to not get stared at for being a different race, because there are so many different races there. For the most part people there speak English, but Malay is a lot like Indonesian, so we were able to use our Bahasa Indonesia there, which many people thought amusing.
Here are a few photos from our time there:

We went on a walking tour that was on a map we had and there was a lot of beautiful architecture around the city. This is one of the buildings that was built during the times of colonization there.

Like Indonesia, the major religion is Islam. This is the National Mosque in KL. It's kind of hard to see from the front, but it's massive!

We learned that KL isn't a very cheap city(well... in comparison to Indo), but this place was free! The nation's flower is the Hibiscus and there was a whole Orchid & Hibiscus garden. It was gorgeous!

Why yes, it's true. I do love KL!

From the bottom of the Petronas Towers. So cool to see! We didn't get to go to the top though :(

Just hanging out at my new house...they had a place to "look into the Malaysian culture" and there were all types of houses to look into.

The only picture of Esther and I together from the trip! Oh, long story short, because of some hiccups and miscommunication with Indonesian Immigration, our friend, Dee, couldn't leave Indo. We missed her a lot!!

This just made me laugh, when I walked into a convenience store. Why wouldn't you have an instant mashed potato machine next to the coffee??

It was really fun and refreshing to be able to take a few days and experience another culture and part of Asia. Malaysia is such a unique country that was completely different than any expectations I had!