Malaysia 2006: Day 8
Off to Templar Park (for the forest!) and then to Batu Caves (for the shrines and artwork) in the morning. The original plan was for the driver to drop us off at Templar Park, then take the bus to Batu Caves, then another bus back to Central Market to meet up with Sophia's aunt and cousins. It turns out Templar Park was closed, so the driver turned around and dropped us off at Batu Caves, where we walked past a massive gold statue and climbed the 200-odd steps to the top to enter a massive natural cave. Easily half of the significance was probably lost on me as we wandered around, so the pictures will have to speak for themselves. Simply portraying the size of the caves is difficult enough.
The pile of coconuts we saw at a drink vendor at the bottom of Batu Caves and ordered a fruit slushee of some sort looked tiny in comparison. =P
Cassandra actually picked us up as she took off early from work, and we went to Mid-Valley Mall, where her coworker need to go and Cassandra was supposed to meet some friends later, so we had lunch and wandered around the mall. We stumbled upon a small trade show of some sort in one part of the mall, and some lion dancers. Lunch was in the food court, and included a plate of the candied fruit we'd seen but had yet to try.
We did a bit of shopping, then left Cassandra to meet her friends and took a taxi back to Central Market to do more shopping and meet with Sophia's aunt. Naturally, it started raining as we got there, and at the country club with Sophia's aunt, we got to enjoy the pouring rain and some snacks from the protected cover of the patio. =) We met with Sophia's cousin, her husband, Sophia's uncle, and some other relatives for dinner at a mama's (sp?) in Petalang Jaya, where we had interesting fruit drinks and a variety of food-- Indian, Malaysia, and Chinese. We were exposed to a different side of life, the ex-pat side of things at the country club, then a very familiar feel of the masses that we had been exposed to at dinner. It made for a very relaxing evening, although figuring out how to navigate back to Kean's dad's old house that night to drop us off was also fun. *grins*
(then again, I am a geography dork...)
