Thursday

I landed in KL yesterday afternoon, made it to the hotel and caught up with Jorden over a 45 minute phone call in the afternoon. Dan, Yuji and I went out for dinner at a local restaurant. It was nice to have some non-Chinese food. We walked around Petronas towers, then called it a night. We all felt like having a quiet night and catching up on sleep.

Today I went for coffee at VCR and read some more of War and Peace. Dan came to meet me and we chatted for a while. Then I went off to RexKL, stayed for the light & art show, and now I’m at Transparent Coffee in Kampung Attap.

At night we went for a cocktail before our degustation dinner at Dewakan (supposedly the best restaurant in KL, and a Michelin star one at that). It all started so well. The meals were all naturally sourced in Malaysia, and delicately prepared. The flavour left us a bit wanting however.

Then it got to the old dairy cow. The waitress literally described it as “not premium beef”, and how it’s basically a used up dairy cow repurposed as food. So we weren’t set alight by that, even more so when we saw the bill of $1,004. Incredible that they serve such subpar meat to clients paying such money.

We went to Vér cocktail bar afterwards and clawed back some respect to the night out – even given the subpar food at Dewakan it was still an enjoyable night to remember.

Friday

Now I approach the final week of the trip. It’s been incredible, another truly fantastic cultural, historical and culinary experience, which broadened my knowledge and horizons, and left me with memories for life. It truly adds lasting value to your life and makes you a more interesting person.

Today we grabbed coffee at VCR, went to the Batu caves, unsuccessfully tried to visit the eco park, and had some thosai (crepe) in the afternoon. After a nap in the room we were back out for some durian, my first ever experience of durian. Now we’re at a shopping mall and tonight we’ll head to Chinatown for a few cocktails.

Saturday

Friday night was great fun – we went out for a few cocktail bars and got home around midnight. Today, we went to KL Forest Eco Park and did the canopy walk. I bought a football jersey for Dad, and in the evening we found another fantastic cocktail bar to finish up the time spent together in KL.