Our first night here did not go as planned since our room which we had reserved for 2 weeks was not to our liking. It was a more run down and older than we feel comfortable with and there was an air conditioning issue. Long story short, we walked around the neighborhood looking for alternatives, had lots and lots of choices, and found a room that was twice as large for less money in a much nicer neighborhood! We also were able to negotiate a very significant discount since we committed to 30 days, so be sure you use that in your traveler’s tips toolbox!

We were also able to get most of our money refunded except for the night we stayed and the service charge, so to me that’s a win-win.

So far, Kuala Lumpur is showing a lot of promise! It’s quite civilized and modern, with lots of amazing food options, and fairly high English usage. I did a food tour for almost 5 hours, hit a dozen places, and got a good overview of Chinatown and a lot of the local dishes. Kathleen did her own exploration and found some of the most extraordinary shopping areas, along with some killer deals that beat American prices hands down. I see KL as being a combination of the classiness of Singapore, along with the vibe of Bali, only busier. The people have been quite cordial and our US dollar is very strong in some things, moderately strong in others. The highest prices we’ve seen are alcohol, which seems to be quite common over here, probably due to religious practices.

And they have two of the tallest buildings in the world! We will surely visit the twin Petronas Tower, no longer in the top 10, but still pretty tall at 452 meters (1482 ft), but the NEW number two, called Merdeka 118 (679 meters/2227 ft), is “done,” but not officially open for tours yet. Major bummer…. I guess we will have to come back later this year! Yet there is a THIRD tower, the Menara Kuala Lumpur (KL Tower for short), and that one is 421 meters (4th tallest TOWER in the world), so, no slouch there. It seems that this town has the most “tall infrastructures” in Asia, with 241 of them, easy twice the next two on the list. NOT a town for acrophobics…

We also jumped on a Hop on/ Hop off bus for a few hours to get a feel for the city. They offer two different routes and we paid a senior price of–get this: $6.32 USD. Overall the town is working it’s charms on us. We also hit a pretty serious grocery store, got a lot of things we needed, and paid about $25