Another Busy Week

Randy can't be kept down. Each day she does the dishes, laundry and tidies. We have decided to keep her here and Canada will have to do without. She often gets to the pool for a swim and follows us to the gym where she ties herself into a pretzel in the yoga class. On Wednesday she and our friend, Pam, went to the Malaysian Craft complex in KL and they walked all over the place for about seven hours. On Friday she and Kim went to Mid Valley Mall and walked the entire thing. It is the largest mall in Malaysia with some 5 km of corridor. They were looking for a dress or ideas for a dress for Kim to wear to Andrea's wedding. They came home with Christmas cards.
On Saturday we rented a taxi for the afternoon and travelled to Putrajaya, the administrative centre for Malaysia. Randy dressed for the pink mosque, as did we. We travelled on to the Batu Caves and climbed all 272 stairs. We have photographic proof that Kim and Randy made it and I took the photo (kind of like Ten Sing and Edmund Hillary). The cab driver was a very nice man but not such a great navigator. We saw numerous sections of KL that we had not intended...some of them twice. At the end he was to drop us off at Bukit Bintang but some missed communication (I know that's hard to believe) caused us to have him drop us at the LRT whence we took the LRT and Monorail to Bukit Bintang. We met friends Pam and Steve who took us to their favourite Indian restaurant (Chazal) for a wonderful meal. Afterwards we left them and we wandered off to explore a very crowded and fascinating shopping section. In short order we realized how long the day had been because the malls were closing. We weren't sure that ever happened.

We took a taxi back to the condo. We'll have to return to BB for a proper tour at another time.

On Sunday we thought to get an early start and head up to the Genting Highl;ands. We didn't. We got to KL Sentral about 12:00 and could only book the bus to Genting for 2:00. We took off for Bangsar (sort of the Yorkville area but larger). We had lunch and while I read the paper Randy and Kim toured around. They found a number of bridal shops so a return to Bangsar is also on the cards. Speaking of cards, we found a kiosk representing two companies that print wedding invitations. We have their business cards and we'll be in touch with them as well.

We caught the bus and rode forty-five minutes into the hills north of KL. The elevation change is significant (ear pop and everything). The vision that became Genting Highlands Resort must have seemed almost impossible in 1965. Today there are three large hotels (6000+rooms) two large theme parks and a gigantic casino perched on a mountaintop. The temperature is moderated from the lowlands and we almost recognized the feel of early autumn. From the lower bus depot we took a 3.4 km cable car ride the top. Bill was disappointed that it didn't end in snow. The views, though, were well worth the ride. After a couple of hours looking around we'd had enough smoke. Everywhere is a smoking zone and many people take advantage of it. By 6:00 we all had burning eyes and throats. We hopped the cable car back down and headed for home.