A Few Days in KL

We had to fly through Kuala Lumpur to get to Borneo from Bali. Our last visit to KL was pretty much just 24 hours of non-stop rain but I had fallen in love with a bowl of noodles while The German had fallen in love with a hotel, so it seemed like a no-brainer to stop over for a few days.

Our typical routine upon arrival in most major international cities involves dropping our bags at the hotel and immediately going in search of cheese.  Though it had only been a few weeks since Melbourne, I was definitely suffering from withdrawal.  It took a couple hours of wandering around before we located an expat-oriented grocery store with a gloriously large selection of imported cheeses.  We ultimately returned to the hotel with our spoils, and spent the first night devouring goat’s cheese, triple cream with truffles, and aged gouda in our large, modern apartment/hotel. 

(Believe it or not, this place was $85/night.)

Kuala Lumpur felt arid after Bali and we actually managed like to walk around without immediately sweating through our clothing… it’s amazing how a slight change in the humidity can make such a huge difference!

While the streets of Bali were flanked by dogs (that may or may not randomly bite you), Kuala Lumpur is a cat town.  It seemed like there were kittens everywhere! They were obviously strays and a little skittish, though many businesses put our cat food in the evenings so people must be happy to have them around.

Kuala Lumpur isn’t exactly scenic… the cityscape is a mix of skyscrapers, malls and cramped apartment buildings. During mealtimes, the sidewalks are taken over by stalls selling food:

The pride of the city is the Petronas Twin Towers (which we saw last time). Otherwise, there’s not a ton of things to do. We got the impression that people mainly come here to eat, drink, and shop, which is mainly how we spent our time, too. 

I visited my favourite vegetarian food stall daily for my $2 bowl of curried noodles with fake meat:

And we also visited a local coffee shop a couple times for lattes, cakes, and kittens. 

Since this was the largest city we will visit over the next month, we also took the opportunity to sort out a few necessities.  (ie. The German got a haircut while I picked up some new glitter nail polish.)

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Atmos D-Box

There are over 30 malls in Kuala Lumpur, so it wasn’t surprising to find plenty of modern cinemas.  One of them advertised something called  “D-Box seats”, which were described as “immersive motion”…  “The signal is then sent to the actuators that act like little robots under your seat.”

The German wanted to see Logan and I wanted to see anything that involved a robot in my seat, so off we went.

The D-box seats are kind of like a gentler version of movie motion rides you would find at a theme park. They vibrate, tilt, and rock independently and each seat has its own control for adjusting the intensity.

At times, it was fun – when the characters were driving on a gravel road, you experienced the same sensation. At other times, it was distracting – when you were watching several people fight from an external perspective, there was no need for the chair to be moving.  I thought it showed promise but needed refinement. The German hated it from the start and immediately switched it off.

The German enjoyed the movie (but hated the seats) while I loved the seats but was lost through parts of the movie, having not seen any of the prior X-men films. (I didn’t even realize it was part of the X-men franchise until we got to the theatre.) Regardless, it was a fun way to spend a few hours, and it’s always interesting to see the unique aspects of going to the cinema in a different culture.

Do these types of seats exist in the US someplace? I am not sure if these types of experiences seem new to me because I rarely went to the movies in SF, or if Asia is advanced when it comes to enhancing the cinema experience…

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Off to Borneo

Next we are off to Borneo for some wildlife adventures in the jungle! Expect lots of orangutan pics in my next post!