KL and Around, 19th July 2007

The reality hit me!

It’s morning time. During breakfast at the rooftop, we got the chance to meet another fellow traveler.One German guy, a bit older then me, he is in his thirty, I guess; quite dominate the whole talk there in the table. There’s always this type of person.

Then after a while, more people show up. And this is when I thought to myself “oh, so this is what it’s felt like to be a citizen of the world”.  During my busy day with IfVenue, a collective room which I run with some friend in Bandung; we occasionally host some overseas artist who had an exhibition for their artwork in our mini gallery or some overseas band that use our place as their showcase gigs. So, “foreigner” are not ‘alien” things for me. But to be in that place, where a couple of people coming from different part of the world, sharing the same plain taste white bread, and an unflavored jam, the sense is quite different. By that time, the reality hit me. I love being on the road, travelling, live in the journey!I think I swear to myself, that this stuff; backpacking stuff, is something that I’m going to cherish forever!

During our breakfast time,there's a funny moment though when i tricked my fellow travelers. They were like head over heels about mangosteen, most of them were just introduce about mangosteen here, since the fruit is a native of tropical fruit. So when i told them that i can do "magic" that could tell  how many seeds that one particular mangosteen would be. So goes on the trick for almost 5 minutes, end up with me "guessed" all correctly. When i finally reveal the "the-not-so-trick" was to count the bottom ofthe fruit, my new friends has learned a new mangosteen 101.

Waited for the bus

Then we met with Susanna, a kindy teacher from switzerland. She's on her summer break and doing 1 month travelling through South-East Asia. And then, there's Camile. A nice guy from French who we met coincidentally. We're agreed to go to Titian Wangsa garden, since me and Q didn't have any fix plan for that day. We were waiting for the bus that could take us there,and we got ourself a 1day ticket for only 2 MYR, and we could hop and hop any RapidKL bus within KL city. How convenient.

Titian Wangsa garden, an oasis in the middle of KL

People were queuing means it's a good thing served

When we arrived there, it's almost lunch time. And there's food stall display a local delicacies. For me,the malay food is not really big different to "Padang" cooking from West sumatra, they are share the same spices and taste. But Susanna  were eager to try, so we stop there and have our early lunch, since we really not sure whether there will be another available stall when we get further inside the garden. since this garden is reallyyyyy hugggeeeee,i'm no kidding.

She's getting ready!

And Susanna, a total daredevil she was, without hesitate , trying to eat 1 "eye" of "Petai:" aka "Stinky bean". I already gave her some heads up about what taste it's gonna be like.I said that most Asian loves to eat petai together with sambal and hot rice. The petai is actually taste a bit weird, even for my self, there's sort of a sweet-bitter taste but the highlight is; they're stink!The stinkiness will stay there for some time, in your breath and your pees. that's gonna awful for the novice :D But Susanna didn't budge, she said, "when can i ever try it again" so she gonna gave it a go. She peeled 1 "eye" and a 10 seconds hesitation at first, and my digicam were ready to record her!Starting with a long sigh, she just chewed the whole bean with both eyes closed and  trying hard to preserve her self  not to spit it out. And yet, the other 3 were sat there and feeling giddy, LOL. The verdict? after finished the whole bean in a 2 minutes, she said, she felt like she's not brushing her teeth for  weeks, that's kinda feeling. Ahaha. Susanna: You're getting your crown!

The Orchid entrance

Those loud monkeys!

After we finish our lunch time, we started to stroll around the park again. It's a bit far into the core of the park, but the weather is nice, the trees are tall, gave us the needed shades to block out the KL fierce sun, so we're not complaining. There's even some monkeys screeching and hanging up in the tallest tree. We stopped trying to locate them up there. We also passed by a bird park, we thought we gonna inside to appreciate the beauty of the colorful fur kingdom, but after saw the ticket is quite hefty, we decide we're just going to pass it, and go straight in to an orchid park, which is free. 

There's one huge orchid, we took a picture of it. And then, Q, were so lovely enough to realize that these 2 ladies were fond of their pictures taken, LOL. So he took some pictures of me and Susanna near the fountain area.

Some orchid collection

Three of us cheering :)

A Chinese couple who we were helped them taking pic

The Planetarium Negara

 I really don't have any plan for KL sightseeing after all, so when Susanna told us "Let's go to Planetarium Negara"  which locate in another side of the park. Like puppy, we just follow her around. In a good way. And I felt so happy that we did, because we had so much fun spending almost 1 hour there.  Well, 1 hour seems like a zap of course, but actually, we were there when actually the planetarium  was ready to close, yet, the staff guy were supppppperrrrrr NICE to let us in, even for FREE!God bless you!

The stairs up to Planetarium Negara, it's tiring, really, after you across hundred acres of titian wangsa garden!

If only we could use this for time travel!

so when we're inside, we just scanned the whole area, found something amuse you, you scanned them a bit longer, like 5 seconds more :p But then somebody got the best part!it's a zero gravity zone. Super cool!we're not floating per se, but we got the sense of it a bit. We try different type of position, i even try to lend my back down, and i felt like trinity in the matrix.haha. More funny pictures taken.

   

and then when we're finish scanned all the things that we can found in our science book, the staff guy asked us, if we 'd love to see KL from top of their tower? are you kidding? WE'D LOVE TO!3 minutes later, after finish our last stairs, we're on the top of the world! We can see bukit Nanas tower in the other way. A super way to seal the day.

The complete cast, with camil join us the later