Malaysia Trip - Day 2

The jellyfish is back! This post is about Day 2 out of my 4 days in Malaysia. :)
Please enjoy reading! Or alternatively, click on the following links to navigate!

Day 1: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.com/2019/12/malaysia-trip-day-1.html
Day 3: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.com/2019/12/malaysia-trip-day-3.html

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Day 2: From Genting to KL

0730h: A beautiful Thursday morning starts off with a nice scenic morning from the First World Hotel. Not as much fog as the previous day, but it sure is a good view from the Highlands. :) The 2nd day was plan to start with a final morning at Genting Highlands, followed by a short trip to the Premium Outlets, before moving to the main MY area.

We started off the day with a Dim Sum Breakfast (thanks SY for searching) at a restaurant in RWG. A-la carte dim sum, not buffet, and the prices are kind of are quite ok. Not really cheap, but definitely not as overpriced as tourism prices.

Some of the dishes were quite nice, such as the paus. They had a good amount of filling and they tasted nice. :D I think all of us enjoyed those. Some tasted quite normal / tasteless though, such as the porridge. The overall good thing I guess is that we get to sit down at a place in the early morning, have unlimited refills of tea, and talk about anything we like. :D WJ was sharing some of his encounters with people during both school and work, and how he managed to overcome the difficulties. It was rather interesting, and one could definitely see the difference between business people and sci / engine people. =P

We had a bit of spare time before moving out of the hotel, and so we took a short walk to the external carpark area. Indeed, a much clearer sky in the morning, and not as cold as the previous day. Perhaps the cold was due to the rain? Hmm. Anyway, we took some photos with a rather large durian infrastructure and the Hotel.

For some reason, the colour of the hotel actually shocked me. The exterior of the other hotels look quite nice, grand, but the First World Hotel just looked very worn out. Perhaps its because of the old history, but wow some design revamp is definitely in order… >.<

At about 10.30am, we packed our stuff and left the hotel after returning the key through the auto checkout process. Still amazed by how the hotel could handle the large number of tourists that can potentially fill the 7000+ rooms. XD

We then proceeded to take the cable car down to the Premium Outlets. It was quite cheap at about 10RM(?), and definitely faster than taking a GrabCar down. I am not a fan of cable cars, and was mostly just closing my eyes throughout the ride. SY and WJ enjoyed it though, with the cooling air and nice scenery outside. =P 

It’s about a 10 minutes ride before we got out at Awana station. The cable car did stop at some other stations along the way, but I have no idea where those stations lead to. A short walk out of the station led us to the Genting Highlands Premium Outlets (GHPO) entrance.

GHPO seems to consist of a number of high end / popular shops, consisting of many fashion and sports products. The design is quite similar to the SF counterpart, but shaped more vertically than horizontally. Many shops offered their items as “factory prices” items, but I think the shipping cost apparently didn’t get a discount… =P So the things there still look expensive, but somehow looks slightly cheaper than the versions in SG…

Unlike my experience in SF, none of us actually bought much items. In fact I think I was the only one who bought a notebook for RM15. The shopkeeper told me that they had a buy 1 get 1 free offer, and I took another notebook. He was then nice enough to gave me 1 extra notebook as a gift. How nice is that! :D WJ wanted to buy some clothes / accessory, but dismissed the idea eventually. =/

The view is really nice up there. GHPO’s elevation is halfway between the main MY area and the highlands, and thus the air is still quite cooling, but the view of the city is much clearer.

The final item before leaving Genting was to have lunch at a takoyaki shop. They had a variety of items including takoyaki, japanese noodles and crispy “fish” pastries. The prices are not really cheap (20+RM for a set of takoyaki and noodles), but the amount of sauce and taste is actually quite good. The noodles remind me of the ones sold at Taka B2, but this time served on a hot plate. Takoyaki was quite nice, the fish pastries tasted quite normal though. It’s like a flaky crossiant, but a bit thin. ><

A nice lunch was followed by taking a Grab down to Batu Caves. We had a few extra hours before we can check into the KL accomodation facility, so we decided to visit the attraction first. Batu Caves serves as a shrine for Indians, and is apparently famous for its long stairs and cultural touch, something which WJ is dying to visit. After an hour’s ride, we reached the exterior of the location.

The Grab driver shared a very interesting story though. He mentioned that wishing for something in the Batu Caves could be dangerous as a person has a high chance to get what he wished for, but the amount of thanks and offerings to be returned could be a large amount, and hence difficult to fulfill. Thus he advised all tourists to be respectful to everything in the caves, and not to wish for anything. I think we were quite stunned by that advice, but heeded the advice anyway.

Woah damn, what a sight of the colourful staircase! Beside the staircase stands the statue representing god Lord Murugan, and the height seems to be taller than half the staircase vertical height. The shops at the ground level would sell a bit of food / drinks, and more importantly flowers / offerings for people to bring up to the caves.   

A nice way to distract myself from the tiredness would be to count the number of steps, and I realised that there were 16 flights of 17 steps each. Does anybody know if this specially designed or actually has no great purpose? Me and WJ took 8 mins to climb the whole flight, and it was certainly a great achievement. :D The view from the top deck was definitely nice!

The Batu Caves consist of a small convenience shop right at the cave entrance, a main dark area with shrines and cockerels, and a mini flight of stairs (steep!) which leads to a higher and brighter part of the cave. Quite a number of visitors admiring the structures and the sheer height of the area. The brighter part of the cave even has a narrow shining area illuminating the area. Reminds me of a Maplestory map with big spiders in a quiet water cave…

Perhaps what was more interesting than admiring the beautiful limestones were the monkeys. =P I think the monkeys are targeting visitors for any exposed food / drinks / plastic bags, and would approach them hoping to get some goodies. We saw a monkey trying to get a water bottle from an ang moh, damn cute. =P

Nothing can be better than coming down from the long flight of stairs. Damn, I look rather happy in that photo haha. After the visit, we went to check into our accomodation facility at the KL city area. It is quite a nice apartment, with a nice bed and sofa bed. Rather spacious and just a couple of points below the Brisbane accomodation. =P Kudos to WJ for finding this. It is quite nice to the twin towers, KLCC, and various shopping facilities.

We went for a short walk before dinner at the shopping areas. Quite a number of people walking around, even at the slightly more atas malls (e.g. Pavillion). A lot of shops can be found at SG too, but the prices seem to be slightly cheaper? Pizza Hut for dinner (lots of laughter by F4), and that’s when JJ helped to check my TOPIK I results. =P

(Insert TOPIK I results --- available in Google Drive)

Damn, that’s really awesome! Well done to myself! XD The results were actually very difficult to check, as it requires an extra software, it requires a specific browser, and everything is in Korean. Thanks JJ for the effort! Hope to get Level 4 in future, perhaps a few years later? :D

Another walk after dinner, and this time to the famous Petronas Twin Towers. There is a nearby KLCC park for people to hangout and admire the beautiful structure. It's really beautiful, with a small water stream and even showcases a fountain performance at night, a good place to date. :)

9pm: Went back to the accommodation facility, but not without an ice-cream cone from the convenience shop before going up to the room. XD The facilities are rather nice, with a gym, pool and reading room. It's almost like a proper hotel. 

With that, ends a nice transition Day 2. :)

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If you would like to read more, please click on the links below. :)

Day 1: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.com/2019/12/malaysia-trip-day-1.html
Day 3: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.com/2019/12/malaysia-trip-day-3.html