Day 14: The Capitol

Monday morning I woke up at 5am and enjoyed the most beautiful sunrise as we took the ferry from the island of Penang to mainland Malaysia.

We got our speed walking on to get to the train station, which was a sight with all our luggage strapped to our backs. The first time Dr. Perumal tried to buy tickets for the train they told him it was full. Just as we were about to leave they said there was an opening for us. The six hour train ride was awesome. It was a good time to catch up on my blog, study, sleep and see the countryside going into Kuala Lumpur, the Capitol. 

Photo credit: Dr. Perumal 

"The Capitol"

From the train station we walked to our hotel, the Swiss Inn, self described as an "international hip hotel". It is literally in the middle of Kuala Lumpur's China town and was so neat to be in the middle of all the action. Each floor was a different color of the rainbow and we were on the bright green floor. 

There was no vegetarian food on the train so we had survived, since 5am, on Mrs. Looi's fruit and curry pastries she sent with us. They were very delicious, but by the time we arrived at our hotel at 3pm we were ready for "lupper", or lunch and supper. We walked out of our hotel a little "hangry" and ate at the first vegetarian chinese restaurant we found.

When we finished the boys suggested we walk to the mall (yup the boys, not the girls) to check out the indoor amusement park. While everyone grabbed their rain panchos, I worked on getting my boarding pass for my flight on Thursday. The website and wifi were against me and I thought the group was going to leave me by the time I finished. In my rush to meet the rest of our group I forgot to grab my own rain pancho. As we headed out it began to sprinkle, as a warning for the downpour that came minutes later. Thankfully Jenna had an umbrella and a pancho and let me borrow her umbrella. During our thirty minute walk to the mall, the rain was so strong that the umbrella only protected the top of my head. As my pants got wet they got heavier and longer. Pretty soon I had to tie up my pants as we walked through the rain, accompanied by lightening and thunder. 

Once we wrung ourselves out we took a look around at one of the biggest malls I've seen. It was at least twelve floors! Our first stop was to get boba at Chai Time. I got passion fruit and it was so delicious! Then the boys decided to go to the a sumner park which was on the 5th level. They had roller coasters, bumper cars and all sorts of rides right there in the middle of the mall. The rest of us didn't want to spend our money on the amusement park so we hung out and explored the mall. The higher we went the cheaper the quality got. I was exhausted and didn't want to spend my money in a mall so I was happy when we all met up two hours later to walk back to the hotel. 

The walk back didn't rain at all and we arrived to our hotel at 9pm, happy and tired. I had wonderful intentions of studying, blogging and reading which all ended up turning into sleeping.