A Day In Malaysia OR A Day At The Airport???




I just boarded the plane to KLIA (Malaysia)!

 
Friends!  I made it on my first adventure and back.  I bet you are all waiting in anticipation to find out if I ventured out in Malaysia or stayed at the airport!  Well, wait no longer!  Well maybe just a minute longer.  I want to tell you about my flight first.  On friday I arrived at the Incheon International Airport with much time to spare before my 11:20 flight.  I got off the shuttle bus (which conveniently stops near my apartment so I had no issue getting on) and walked into the massive airport.  I found my check in right away, exchanged my Korean Won into Indian Rupees and Malaysian Ringetts and proceeded to my check in.  There were so many other foreigners I felt like I was back in the USA.  Turns out my good friend Nadine happened to be flying to her home country (South Africa) for her break and was taking a midnight flight on the same date as my departure!  Now, I have not told you much about my new friends here yet, but remember I am still working on catching you up.  Nadine is a great friend of whom I have been studying God's Word with for the past few months.  Prepare to hear more about this in the future.  Ok, back on track now.  Nadine found me in the check in line and we wondered around together to find a place to eat.  It was GREAT seeing her and sharing a meal with her.  At this point in my journey I was already dropping things all over (I did do a great job packing though), I had strapped my flip flops to my pack and one fell off.  Nadine told me to be careful or I might loose them!  (Keep this in mind)
We said adue as I remained calm and collected not worrying about the time at all to find my gate (fabricated truth, I think so).  She headed to South Africa and I headed for Malaysia. 

If you have never traveled by yourself I must recommend trying it at least once in your lifetime if you have a chance.  It really is not something to dread.  Turns out I really enjoy it!  I made it through my six hour flight, with no sleep, sleeping on flights is almost impossible for me :(

I was aching to get off the plane and feel the warm air.  Oh wow, was it warm.  I arrived at KLIA at 5am and it was already 24 degrees C!  Now the time has come to find out what I did in Malaysia.



The City of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia



Here it is, I stayed at the airport....FOR TWO HOURS out of the ELEVEN I was there for, where I searched for an information desk but found nothing.  I did find a man who was willing to give me a "great" deal of approx. 100.00USD taxi ride into the city, which I kindly refused!  That is expensive.  I ended up finding a bus into the city of Kuala Lumpur which was a one hour ride there and back, for about 5 USD now that was a deal!  I bought a ticket and focused so much on making sure I could get back that I failed to inquire about where I bought a ticket to in the first place.  So..I baorded the bus full of excitement that I would be able to say I left the airport and tried to forget that I did not know where I was going.  Now the adventure of Malaysia has officially begun!
 


My Kuala Lumpur Adventure Buddy

I arrived at KL Sentral, a huge building located in the central of the city.  I got off the bus and was  

KL Tower

immediately being ushered by a group of malaysian men onto another bus.  I of course was cooperating in  my obliviousness, thankfully a nice foreigner (keep mind I am a foreigner myself so when I refer to someone as a foreigner I am referring to someone that is native to a different country than where we are living) who is  also teaching in  Korea kindly directed me against it.  Turns out I would of been getting off a bus and getting right back on one to the airport!  Phew, close one! The kind stranger would be my Kuala Lumpur Buddy for the day!  He had a nice itinerary
and we explored the city!  We went to  a Mosque, walked A LOT, took a few taxi's, waited for a subway that never came, found the KL Tower, saw the Petronas Towers in the skyline, and I took a cab back to KL Sentral and had a nice detour through KL"s Chinatown!


This fella helped lead me in the "right" direction,
so many people here rode this awesome motor bikes






I thought this tree was so beautiful. 
The branches were like spiral slinkies.
I wondered what type of tree it was..
Alec?  Auntie?  What do you think??

It was quite the adventure and one I almost missed out on, totally better than staying at the airport.  I made it back,only missing my flip-flops, and checked in for my flight and was filled with so much excitement to tell Jesse and Teresa about my adventure, when I would meet them in India.  Now that I made it through Malaysia I just needed to get to India and figure out how to get to the hotel where Jesse and Teresa would be waiting for me.  Adventures in India coming soon.....


Yes!  This is me, in the National Mosque in KL.
What an interesting experience! 
You can not enter unless you are covered,
thus, what I am wearing ;P