Kat and I recently put on our “tourist hats” and checked out more of the attractions here in Kuala Lumpur. It’s not usually our thing, but the KL Butterfly Park was a breath of fresh air in a Zen environment, and was as much botanical garden as butterfly haven. But there were plenty of those too, including the biggest butterfly I have ever seen, called the Rajah Brooke birdwing, which is actually the national butterfly of the country! With a six inch or so wingspan, when we first saw them we thought they were bats or birds. And when we saw one up closer, the wings fluttered, like a hummingbird, probably because they HAD to move that quickly to keep it in the air! With 120 species of butterflies, and a minimum of 6,000 beauties, it was a nice place to visit.

For a very reasonable price of less than $7.00 (cheaper than many attractions), it was a pleasant break, and they also had framed displays of beetles, scorpions, moths, and other winged and armored insects.

Since the butterfly section was located within an even larger city park, called Lake Gardens Kuala Lumpur, and since there was a lot of beautiful places to walk, we found ourselves in front of the Planetarium Negara. After contemplating for a few seconds, and recognizing that I had not been to a planetarium show since the seventies (!), we decided to check it out. It was free to enter, and they had loads of fun space and astronaut exhibits, and with a price of less than $3.00 for the planetarium show, it was a no-brainer.

The show was good, although pretty elementary, seemingly geared towards kids, which was proven by several classrooms of 10 year olds or somethings that showed up at the last minute and acted like—well, kids. THEY enjoyed the show, we enjoyed the comfortable seats and AC, so overall, our tourist day was a solid winner