Country #2: Malaysia

So, in the blink of an eye, our time in Japan has ended. We spent the final day not doing too much, in anticipation of a big last night. We found a club in Shibuya that was relatively cheap, and played hip-hop. Headed down there around midnight, and were witness to an enormous number of young Japanese people drunkenly cavorting in the streets. They sure do know how to party, and how to work. We found the club, got in, and then proceeded to dance all night, since the subways shut down from 12-6. All of a sudden, we looked up at the clock in the VIP room, where some new friends had taken us, and realized that it was 6:30 am, and we had a 10:30 am flight to catch. "Oh shit," was the phrase on both of our lips. We rushed back to the hostel, got our stuff, managed to get the train to the airport, and arrived at the check in counter at 10:10 am. Luckily, we made it to the gate at 10:15, just as our flight was finishing boarding. The 8 hour flight was restless and uncomfortable, although Malaysia Air is one of the best airlines I have been on.

Upon arriving in Kuala Lumpur, we were greeted by temperature and humidity both 85, certainly a shock coming from chilly Tokyo. We got a bus into downtown Kuala Lumpur,
and caught the monorail to Bukit Bintang, the neighborhood where our hostel is. Problem was, I had done a really poor job copying the map off of the hostel's website, and thus we got lost for the next hour and a half, walking the streets of some fairly unsavory adjacent neighborhoods in search of ours. We finally found it, put down our stuff, and then got a tasty and filling indian meal for about 2 dollars a piece. Heaven on a plate for shoestring cheapskates like ourselves. We have spent the last two days checking out different parts of the city, going to a huge mega mall yesterday, where we bowled a couple of games. I almost beat Micah in the second game, after rolling 3 strikes, but the pressure of the Malaysian guys who started watching was too much, and we tied. We also went up the KL Tower, the 4th tallest in the world, which afforded a beautiful view of KL at sunset. Also awesome was the fact that we saw monkeys for the first time. They were every bit as ragingly awesome as I ever could have hoped. Today, we went to chinatown, the epicenter of pirated-bootlegged-fake everything. I bought a soccer jersey, an designer t-shirt, a diesel belt, and two computer games all for about 20 dollars. We also went to a beautiful orchid garden. It is hot, humid, dirty, diverse, and loud here, vastly different from Tokyo but really cool in its own way. I am going to try to put up a mass photo post a little later, so stay tuned for that. Until then,

-Jack