Tuesday, June 08, 2004

KLCC




KLCC?

Better known as Kuala Lumpur City Center. It's a city within a city. The highlight of KLCC are the Petronas Towers, a landmark of Kuala Lumpur and at 452 meters tall (one thousand four hundred eighty three feet), until this year, the tallest buildings in the world.

Now, the newly built Taipei 101, a rather ugly building boasting a daunting 508 meters (one thousand six hundred and sixty six feet), has captured the title.



Maybe they've lost the title of the tallest buildings in the world, but I assure you, the beauty of these 88 story buildings, even at night, cannot be surpassed by the Taipei 101 (sounds like a language course).

These majestic buildings are surrounded by Suria KLCC mall, a six-level, crescent-shaped shopping mall that boasts one million square feet (93,000 square meters) of which over 80 percent is actively leased. 'Suria' means sunshine in Bahasa Malaysia language. This awesome place is filled to the brim with specialty shops, clothing shops, food courts, cafés, landscaped walkways, skylights, 864 seat concert hall and ample parking. I damn near got lost in the place, looking for Annie's workplace: The California Pizza Kitchen, where I ordered a delicious Cheese steak pizza.



Here's a good shot of the sky bridge. This awesome structure hangs a daunting 170 meters (558 feet) above ground and I was lucky enough to secure a free ticket for a tour of the bridge, which offers some great views of the KLCC 50 acre park and surrounding city suburbs. This structure, which connects the two towers, was built in South Korea. It is 58.4 meters in length (192 feet) and weighs 750 tonnes (826 short tons).



This is a good view from the sky bridge, of the fifty acre park surrounding Suria KLCC and the Petronas Towers. Actually, I saw very little of the fifty-acre park, mainly because I chose to stay inside the wonderfully climate-controlled Suria KLCC mall, as it was damn hot and humid in Malaysia that particular Thursday when I visited Annie at her workplace. I did follow her suggestion and walk out to the small bridge in the park to get a good picture of the towers.

I shopped around for awhile, ate at a couple little food stands and then nestled myself into a comfortable corner at Chili's, ate some tortilla chips and salsa and bought a Kuala Lumpur Chili's polo shirt. I wasn't there an hour when the sky literally opened up and the torrential downpours famous in Southeast Asia, took over. Later that evening, Annie and I went out to eat at the Hard Rock Café in Kuala Lumpur, where you can't get real bacon on your hamburger. Actually, in KL, you're hard pressed to find pork anywhere.

Those pesky Muslims?

All-in-all, I loved my experience in Kuala Lumpur and my trip to Malacca. I can't wait to return! Stay tuned for my next posting, which shall reveal the truth about the mysterious Straits of Malacca's mud-sucking, human-eating shorelines. (I know you're grinning Annie!)

-Jeeem-



(Sorry 'bout posting this a fortnight late, y'all, I was in Poland raising hell. Leastways, that's *my* excuse...Chris.)

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