30.03 - Day 2 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Monday 30th March 

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Temperature Min 26, Max 35

22,306 steps

The time difference to Sydney means I'm awake from 3:00am while the others are also good to go by 5am. Sunrise isn’t until 7:15am so it’s still dark when I go for a walk at 5:30am.

Nothing much of note going on - it seems a late rising and late finishing kind of city. 

It's already warm and humid though. 

As much as Seb & Sienna want meat-on-a-stick and some fruit from a street vendor (as per 2024 Southeast Asia), the expansive buffet breakfast at our Journal Hotel instantly wins them over. All that remains is for us to be reminding Seb to slow down with his eating of yoghurts, pastries, sausages, egg, toast, hot chocolate, juices. I'm though the one called predictable for getting involved in the curry, rice, chicken topped with peanuts and dried fish. 

By 9:30am we’re walking out the hotel and 20 minutes to the base of the Petronas Twin Towers and into the sprawling shopping and convention centre. On level four we’re one of the first into the Science Discovery Centre. 

The energy capsule is up first, a five seater pod that has Sienna hopping from foot to foot with anticipation and excitement. It's a slow moving trundle charting the invention of fire through to the impact of AI - all a bit cheesy but Sienna and Seb ask to go around again. Instead we enter the Discovery Centre proper. 

After two hours we find our first map and realise we've only been through 3 out of the 12 exhibits. It may even usurp the Children's Discovery museum in Bangkok as Sienna and Seb’s favourite museum. 

From creating your own 50 frame movie with plastic animals, to four player air hockey, to guiding a ball through hoops supported by a jet of air, to writing AI prompts to design a keyring that is then 3D printed for us, to raising chairs we sit on to illustrate pulleys, flying a tennis ball into the ceiling pushed by compressed air, to sitting on an earthquake shaking bench, to a Speed section meaning pace of a throw, to pushing a ball using calm thoughts to F1 racing in (it is all Petronas sponsored after all). 

It's all hands on and, as important, not busy. We glide quicker through Space and Dinosaur exhibits but by now we're having to encourage Sienna and Seb to leave. A big success. 

We drop down three floors to a food court for lunch, a mixed crowd of office workers and tourists. We head out into the park in front of the Towers, though the kids play park is closed for an upgrade, maybe fortuitously as it is really warm in the cloudy sun. 

Instead we wander back to the hotel and flop into the rooftop pool on level 11 to cool off. 

As seeking out our next food is never far from the top of the agenda, everyone is happy the Journal Hotel has Afternoon Tea from 3pm to 5pm where we graze on fruits and lightly fried mushrooms and crabs. Shots of jelly are what keep the kids going back. The playing cards also return for rounds of Chase-The-Ace and Sevens. 

A soundtrack is provided by an intense storm that rolls through at 4-ish (as it does frequently in the afternoon). It is very wet and wild, the flashing lightning and cracking thunder occurring seemingly simultaneously.

After some downtime in the room we cross the road to Lot 10 mall (there are malls a plenty in Kuala Lumpur), a broadly Japanese selection of shops and grab a small dinner of sushi and noodles.  It's been a long day so Sienna and Seb are happy to turn in by 8pm.

I venture out at 8:30pm back to the Petronas Towers to catch a fountain + light + music 10 minute show that occurs three times nightly which is the smartly lit impressive backdrop of the Towers which is an easy 15 minute walk away. There's a smattering of people but certainly not busy.

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