Kuala Lumpur - December 2007

My family and I stopped over KL last December. We arrived close to midnight and prepaid for a taxi (less than RM 70) to take us to Bukit Bintang. The hotel (Corona Inn) was average but given that we were going to be out most of the time, I was not fussed. It was close enough to the shopping and the food. (Apparently there were "ladies of the night" operating around the area - according to my fellow travellers who were jet lagged). Sights along the way:

	Transitting at the Changi Airport - We stumbled upon this sunflower garden in our bid to find "fresh air". I have never seen bigger sunflowers in my life.
	View from the Skybridge at Petronas Twin Towers. We arrived before 8am but still had to queue for almost 2 hours to get our free tickets (limited) to the Skybridge.
	Instead of chartering a taxi, we took the hop-on-hop-off bus which took us to the various tourist spots in the city. It stopped for 5-10 minutes at every stop which is long enough if you only wanted to stop for pictures.
	Tugu Negara (or National Monument) - dedicated to the heroic fighters in the cause of peace and freedom. Each of the bronze figure symbolizes leadership, suffering, unity, vigilance, strength, courage and sacrifice. (Memories of school lessons coming back now...)
	Istana Negara (or National Palace) - royal guard. We were lucky the bus stopped long enough for us to witness the changing of the guard ceremonial as well. I have always thought you only have such ceremonial at Buckingham Palace.
	Malaysia's national flower - Bunga Raya (or Hibiscus) at the Hibiscus Garden with Lake Gardens.
	Sultan Abdul Samad building in front of Dataran Merdeka (literally Independence Square). It was good to see the actual building, rather than from books and postcards.
	Dragon's Beard Candy - This candy deserves a mention. I've been looking for it since I last had it in 1996 and I finally found it in Sungai Wang Plaza. It is basically candy (repeatedly stretched and folded, and covered in glutinous rice flour) wrapped around crushed peanuts. It would have been fascinating to watch the process, but the stall only sold the finished products that day.