Kuala Lumpur

About a month ago, just a few days before we left Malaysia for our vacation, Jeff and I flew to Kuala Lumpur for a weekend getaway. I can't speak for Jeff, but I really think Kuala Lumpur was my favorite "big city" that we have visited thus far. It was incredibly clean, easy to get around, and had absolutely amazing shopping!

We flew in late on a Friday night and checked into the JW Marriott Hotel. Since Jeff has Platinum status at Marriott we were upgraded to an incredible suite, which was so comfortable! For those of you who don't know or who haven't yet realized, I kind of have an obsession with finding Catholic Churches and Irish pubs in every city we go to. So after checking in, we wasted no time and headed straight to Finnegan's Irish Pub and Restaurant just down the street.

We relaxed with a few Kilkenny's before turning in for the night.

Saturday morning we headed out to the Kuala Lumpur Craft Complex, which was truly a unique experience. The complex is a collection of huts rented by different artists. You can walk through the grounds and stop in the various huts to see the artisans creating different pieces. Of course they also had all of their artwork for sale.

We spent several hours here and purchased some really unique pieces of art. Our favorite by far was a painting done on silk that is semi-transparent (so when you hold it up to a light the light shines through and illuminates the painting). Now all we need is a house to display it in!

We returned to the hotel, dropped off our purchases, and cooled down with a drink in the executive lounge, where we had an incredible view of the Petronas Twin Towers.

Then we took our map of the city and went on a walk to see some of the historic sites. We saw some really cool Mosques, a super unique fountain that is shaped like a tree with elephants coming out of it, the first Christian Church in Malaysia, and Merdeka Square, which is basically the Malaysian Independence Square.

As we were passing through Merdeka Square, the skies opened up and we got soaked. Luckily we were able to find a bus stop not too far away to shelter us a bit. After the rain subsided a bit we headed to another shopping center.

Later Saturday night we decided to check out some more of the Kuala Lumpur night life. We went to this really cute Mad Hatter themed jazz bar. It was a great day to relax after a busy day! We also went to another funky outdoor bar that was amazingly relaxing despite the fact that it was basically on the sidewalk!

On Sunday we spent the day around Petronas Towers and the KLCC. We shopped our hearts out at Suria KLCC, walked around the park, went to the aquarium and went up to the bridge connecting the two towers.

After two busy, but very fun, days we had to fly back to Kijal Sunday night so Jeff could get to work nice and early Monday morning! Little did we know that Jeff would be released from the job on Tuesday and we would be off for a month long vacation!