On top of the world!

Last night, we listened to another guest lecturer. He was a blind Malay composer. He works for a mobile company and works on ring tones. He told us about his struggles being disabled in Malaysia. They are not nearly as advanced as they are in North America when it comes to helping the disabled. For example, they don't have seeing eye dogs here because there is no space for them in a crowded LRT for example. Also, since there are no cross walks, he has to listen to find out if it is safe to cross the street. It was all quite interesting.

So we did it! Jessica and I got up and were ready to go by 6 am to explore the world famous Petronas twin towers!  We were warned that this is a tourist hot spot and you have to get there early to secure your spot in the tour. We had to wait in line until 8:30 because that's when it opened. The first tour was at 9 but we decided to have a little brunch and then have our tour at 10. Everyone told us that the tour was free but we had to pay- it was worth it. Following are some pictures of us waiting...

#16 in line! So excited but so early in the morning!

Physical proof that we were there

Scale model

Chai Latte

Yoghurt, granola, fruit and honey for breakfast

 There is a fantastic mall in one of the towers. As you can see, it is about 6 stories high and had all of the high end designer stores like Gucci, Fendi, Coach, Tiffany & Co and many more that I could only look at and not go in. The Petronas towers contain many offices and employ many expats (foreign workers that work overseas for a number of years). It was a really fancy and shiny building. It was full of people dressed up in fine suits and high heels, ready to go to work. This is the kind of atmosphere that I hope to work in one day.

The mall

View of the towers from the ground

 We met back at 10 to prepare for our tour. We were all given visitor passes and had to go through a security check. The then gave us a brief introduction and we entered a large elevator that took us to the 41st floor. This is where the skybridge is located. The skybridge connects the two towers and is 170 meters high. It has two levels- the top levels for workers needing to get accross and the lower level for tourists such as myself. We were given about 10 minutes to take in the view. At this point, I finally realized that my camera's battery was low. Therefore, this was the last picture I was able to make. Jessica forgot her camera too so we could not document the next part of our tour. I'll just have to tell you about it...

View from the sky bridge- 170 meters high off the ground

 After walking around on the skybridge and taking in the view, we gathered the group together and got on another elevator. This one took us to the 83rd floor. From there, we had to take another elevator which would take us to the top- floor 86. There are two more floors but I don't know what's up there. At this point, we were on the observation deck, 361 meters high in the sky! We had a 360 degree view of the whole city. I could see the hills all around us and the city within the limits of the hills. There were lots of videos and scale models around the observation deck. There were also some stationary binoculars which we used to spy on random people swimming in a rooftop pool or having a meeting in an office tower! (haha, we had to do something since we couldn't take pictures) We got 20 minutes to walk around the observation deck. After that, they rounded up the group again, took our tags and placed us in the elevator. We went all the way from the 86th floor to the ground floor in less than 30 seconds. You can guess how bad my stomach felt after that and how much our ears were popping. When we got out of the elevator, we, very strategically, landed straight into the gift shop. And that was our tour of the Petronas towers, the worlds tallest twin towers!


After the tour, we got a taxi back to our apartment. It was super cheap and cost less than $2 in busy traffic! We had some time to nap and get ready for work. We worked from 4-8:15 and did 4 presentations at two different locations. Mr. Christopher brought us more food today and this is one of my favorites!

Snack time at work. Two kinds of Kaya (coconut jam), one regular and one not regular.  We had it with this hard, dried bread, like biscotti. mmm!

After the presentations, the school's school bus driver offered to drive us home. This was too good to be true because he was a terrible driver. He kept pumping the break instead of breaking smoothly so we both wanted to throw up after we got our of the small bus. After work, we grabbed some supper at a traditional chinese street restaurant. It was soup base, pork pieces, rice and various toppings. Not too bad. Now it's time for my bed again!!