A Day of Derailed Plans
posted at 9:40 am
on Sep. 19, 2005
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Today, we planned to go up the Petronas Towers. We set our alarm especially early, rushed through the buffet breakfast (I only went back once!). Fretted about the long lines in the metro—and when I say lines, I mean it, this was the most orderly rush hour scene I’ve ever seen.
When we got the the tower, we discovered that Monday is the day the towers are closed to visitors.
We went over to the Menara KL TV tower, which was not free, and had a great view of the city, from which vantage point I spotted the Hard Rock Cafe. Back at ground level, we wandered around in a wide circle and finally discovered that, in addition to being hard to reach by foot, it was closed until 11 a.m. What a drag.
We waited in a nearby hotel until it opened, then headed back to the hotel to check out, and let Susie prepare for her media interview.
When she left for that, I tried to get to the nearby museum, but was completely blocked from doing so by foot—and I didn’t have enough money to do so by taxi.
When it started to rain, I headed over to the bird park to rendezvous with Susie. She arrived, and we discovered that, in addition to being very expensive, it was a cash-only attraction. Also, we didn’t have enough money for a cab back to the hotel.
I struck up a conversation with two German girls, who were also similarly stranded at the bird park. Together, we pooled our $$ and headed back to the KLSentral station.
There, we spent 20 minutes looking for an ATM so we could get out enough money to pay back the girls, trying four before finding one that worked.
We then decided to kill time until we could head to the Carcosa colonial residence, where we had reservations for tea. We were one of the last couples served (interesting side note: I think James Brown’s background singers were at the table next to us!). And when we wanted to leave, no taxi would come get us, so finally the residence’s van drove us back to the hotel.
The rain had stopped, and we caught the Express Train straight from the hotel to the airport—the hotel porter actually transported our bags across the street and through the station right up to the gates of the train.
Finally, our airplane was delayed by 40 minutes and we’ll be arriving in Singapore quite late indeed.
For a day filled with delay and disaster, it was quite fruitful and full, and enjoyable. Lots of new friends, adventures and so forth.
