Somehow I got day 35 and 36 mixed up. I actually had my shipping problems on day 36. On day 35, I had no problems. I actually got Birkenstocks and a Montblanc wallet, both fake but for a combined less than $20 USD, it was a pretty solid buy. My brother is actually still using the wallet to this day (he knows it’s a fake). The birks lasted me for the rest of my trip, so very satisfied with both of my purchases.

So after my gift shopping and shipping fiasco, the rest of this day was mostly eating related. I went to a few cafe’s this day, one of them being a hookah cafe, and met up with Tarun and his wife Nat for dinner at G3 Kitchen & Bar, where I was convinced to order a hot dog. It was the most gourmet hot dog I’ve ever had and delicious. Can’t go wrong with what these two suggested throughout my KL trip!

Finished the day off with a usual stroll around my neighborhood, which was still Chinatown, and ended the night watching some Sherlock on Netflix while packing for my next flight.

Before I begin, I just want to say hi to my first reader, Davey, who is only here by accident. I let slip that I was writing a blog. Hi, Davey! Also, note: this is the longest post I’ve written to date. It’s pretty much a stream of consciousness write up. If you stop reading half way through, I won’t judge you. Although, there is a great surprise at the end.

While traveling, I inevitably became a consumer, whether for gifts or myself. Myself mostly. Problem is, I really didn’t want to carry anything else during the trip. If anything, I was actually tossing stuff, mainly undershirts and old socks. I specifically brought old undershirts and socks just in case the scenario came up where I would have to discard items. I thought if I liked anything enough to buy it or send as a gift, I’d just ship it to the states and not have to carry it around. Would shipping something really be an issue? Turns out, yes, if you don’t know anything about what you can and cannot ship.

I spent a good amount of time looking around the KL markets and liked some of the things I found. Plus, I had bought some things from Luang Prabang and wanted to ship all of it to my brother. I ended up getting a bunch of little things, that of course, no one used, but whatever. I was most excited about a package of honey. I love honey. I picked out something else that was also organic, but can’t remember right now. So I bought everything, went back to my hotel, picked up other items, and came back to Central Market to ship everything. Turns out, I’m quite dumb for thinking I could send organic material overseas. Also, attempting to poke at whether or not it could “accidentally” be packaged without being mentioned does not fly well. Nor does trying to provide extra funds to put extra items into a package…

This lead me to have to return the honey and organic item 2, which we’ll just name “peanuts”. Returning items should be pretty easy, right? No. I had to haggle to get my money back even though it was only an hour after I purchased the honey and peanuts. It took me a lot of hand gestures since they all of a sudden forgot how to speak english. I think I got a 90% return. Good enough for me since they were already a sunk cost. This is the only term I remember from Economics. Probably explains why I failed.

Damn, I’m writing a lot today. I’m not even half way through my day yet. Okay, let’s just fly through the rest.

Of course, I visited Petronas Twin Towers, after having watched Entrapment the night before. (Love that movie. And Catherine Zeta Jones.) I really enjoyed this tour. I realize that it’s the same as taking a tour to go to the top of the Empire State building, which I always thought was so stupid cause why on earth do you care about a top of a building? But really, it was cool. I loved all the facts and views and elevator rides. I shall never judge anyone waiting in line to visit a building ever again.

A lot of my free time during this trip is spent planning only a couple weeks in advance so I can purchase transportation and accommodations. I usually wait until the day before or day of to plan what my day to day is going to be. So a lot of times, I just sit at cafes, bars, wherever to people watch and plan. It was stressful at first, cause I worry all the time about future things, but as I got more comfortable with planning on the fly, it became much more enjoyable, especially when having company of a hookah. (Funny story about hookahs here.)

Sometime during this day, I watched John Wick 2. This movie series is one of my favorites and I cannot wait for John Wick 3 to come out this summer. Then I hit up another bar, spent some time to plan more, and headed home to get some shut eye.

If you made it all the way down here, you were looking for a surprise. Where’s the surprise you ask? TL;DR: There is no surprise. Ha, sucker. I’m talking to you, Davey.

The other day, as I was scrolling through my pictures, I thought one of the days had low volume of photos. Now, if you guys know me at all, you know I’m a picture whore. Whatever. I thought it was a big strange but thought “hm, maybe i got sick of taking photos that day” and moved on.

But now that i’m on this day, I know for sure I’m missing photos. On this day, I visited the KL Bird Park and Aquarium with MinKyung. Both places were a lot of fun, and I especially love aquariums. Somehow, I only have 17 photos! I don’t get it. Some days must not have uploaded properly. I am bummed. But oh well, moving on.

So like I said, I met up with MinKyung to visit these couple places. It was recommended by one of Charlie’s many friends, Tarun. We also had lunch at Lot 10, another place that was recommended by Tarun.

I only have ONE picture from the aquarium. Isn’t that weird? I think that’s so weird. Or maybe at the time I thought I didn’t need to take pictures of animals since there were tons that were better on google? Dunno. Anyways, MinKyung and I split ways after the aquarium. I think she had a flight to catch the next day.

I had some time to kill before meeting Tarun for dinner at Merchant’s Lane, so I went to Uniqlo to do some shopping. I don’t remember what I had to buy, but I remember thinking I was so happy to be able to go to a Uniqlo. I’m probably such a consumer, that I just thought I needed stuff, when really, I probably didn’t need it. I have to stop being so much of a consumer and instead be a producer. Make shit. Anyways, dinner was delicious! I had some fried chicken dish and it was so good. I loved every place I ate at in KL, even the McDonald’s.

After dinner, I checked out the rest of Chinatown and the Central Market. I love walking around these areas. I suppose it felt like I was just killing time, but it’s nice to walk around without an agenda. I almost liked this time better than the rest of the evening, which I spent at Changkat Bunkit Bintang. I think that was the bar name or the location I went to. Either way, I realized that drinking isn’t as much fun as I remembered it, especially when you’re drinking alone. So kids, if you’re going to drink, drink with friends.

Drinking is so fun. Morning after is not so much. Technically though, Charlie and I didn’t even get to sleep until 7am. Apparently we had a 2 hour long discussion from 5 to 7 in the morning. I don’t recall this conversation or why it happened at 5am, but it did. We got to sleep in till noon and then had to leave since our Airbnb time was up. Charlie headed back to Saigon, and I went to my next hostel spot, Hotel China Town 2. It was a bit tough to find because the street that the entrance is on becomes a market during the day. I walked passed it a couple times, but eventually found it cause I’m awesome at directions. And Google Maps. I love Google Maps.

I remember booking this place and thinking it was so freaking cheap. Once I checked in, I found out why. There were no windows! But I didn’t care at this point. Having no windows means it’s pitch black at any time. I don’t fall asleep well with light, so this was actually quite perfect for me. Got to nap for about an hour.

When I awoke, I was kind of hungry but kind of not. You know that hangover mode where you feel like you should eat, but you’re still a bit queasy? Yeah. I couldn’t decide on anything, nor craved anything at all, so I got McDonald’s. I think this is the second time I had McDonald’s on this trip. You can always count on Ronald. After MickeyD’s I passed out again.

You’re thinking I had a waste of a day, BUT I was able to get up and get some Din Tai Fung with MinKyung, who also happened to be in KL at the time. We had dinner and caught up from our last meeting in Bangkok. We got to try this dessert spot, Miru, and got a green tea latte with a side of crepe layer cake. It was fantastic in my opinion. Not as good as Lady M in NYC, but close enough!

I love Kuala Lumpur. It’s only behind Singapore in the list of cities I’d consider moving to in Southeast Asia. The city has culture, great food, surrounded by nature (which sadly, i did not get to see), majority of the population understands english, and there’s a lot of flights in and out of KL.

When eating there, I highly recommend going to Lot 10. It’s a shopping complex with a food court, and it’s not just any food court. The creator, Dr. Francis Yeow, bought this complex and invited the best of best hawker stands to open a location in his complex. There’s so many options here, you’d need quite a bit of time to try it all. I only went a few times and every place I ate at was delicious. I can’t remember what I ate, but here’s a picture. Go find it, eat, and enjoy.

My trip to KL was planned for these specific dates because Charlie was going to be in town. It’s always good to be around Charlie cause he somehow has friends in every city. We met up with a bunch of his friends and had dinner, drinks, more drinks, and night time food. It was all awesome until Charlie and I got into a drunken stupor argument. We worked it out though, so don’t worry. I was wondering how we got so wasted until I came across a picture of his buddy walking around with 4 beers and a shot of who-knows. My blurry memory recalls us all doing the same. I love alcohol prices in Asia. The meal at night (bottom right picture) looks like puke, but i swear, it’s delicious.