Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

 

On Wednesday 23rd November we flew from Milan to Kuala Lumpur, via Singapore. Unfortunately our flight out of Milan was delayed due to a medical incident, which meant we missed our connecting flight from Singapore to KL. Luckily Changi is my all time favourite airport, so it wasn't too much of a hardship having to spend an extra hour or so there, especially since the airline provided us with some food vouchers! Eventually we arrived, and took an Uber to our accommodation.

We were staying 3 nights with Stephen and Kate Abery, and their son Bear. Steve was head of Art at Bearwood College while I was there, and Kate taught Drama at another local school. As I've mentioned before, it was pretty social times at Bearwood, and Steve was usually to be found in the thick of things! Case in point is this pic below taken in the common room after one of our formal staff dinners, circa 2009. That common room was the scene of some rather raucous staff parties! Not long after I had started seeing Will I had to inform him that I was disappearing to Scotland for three days on Steve's Stag Do!  I'm sure Will wondered just who he was getting himself involved with... In the interests of equality, I also attended Kate's Hen Do.  

Steve and Kate are teaching at the British International School in KL and live in a spacious modern apartment not far from the school, in the Bandar Utama area. It had been two years since we had seen them last, so it was great to catch up. Bear was only three last time we saw him, so he had obviously grown up a lot since then.  

That night Janice, a friend of Steve and Kate's came round and we all headed out to a local bar/restaurant for a Malaysian meal and some ice cold beers. After three weeks of autumnal weather in Europe, the heat and humidity of KL was quite energy-sapping.    

On Friday Will and I headed to the KL City Centre to meet one of Will's colleagues, Hanim. Will was Hanim's doctorate supervisor at Victoria University, and since then she has returned to her native Malaysia and picked up a lecturing job at the National Defence University, Malaysia. 

We arrived about half an hour before the allocated meeting time, so Will and I spent the time exploring the park right next to the KLCC complex

After lunch we spent a bit of time wandering around the huge KLCC mall which was all decked out ready for Christmas.

We then took an Uber to the 1 Utama shopping centre which is the biggest in Malaysia, and seventh biggest in the world! The scale of the place was almost overwhelming. We met the Aberys' there and headed home with them.

Saturday was a big day of sightseeing, led by our local tour guide, Janice! Unfortunately Will had too much work on to join us, so stayed at the apartment for the day to catch up. The rest of us started with a local roti place for breakfast where I had an awesome roti pisang (banana roti). We then all shared a HUGE roti tissue.

Suitably fed and watered, the next stop was the Batu Caves which is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India. It was bit of a shame that the huge gold Murugan statue was undergoing restoration.

To get to the main caves you need to walk up the large flight of stairs you can see in the pic above. That was pretty tough going in the heat and humidity! However, there were monkeys along the way which made a good excuse to stop for a photo op (and breather!)

The main temple cave was rather impressive with several small shrines.

Bear fancied a go on my camera so the photo credits for the following pics belong to him...

And here's a pic of the photographer himself. Bear took a liking to Will and I during our time in KL, barely leaving our sides!

Here are a few more pics of the cave and shrines.

When we got back to the carpark we refreshed with a young coconut each before hitting the road.

Next up on the sightseeing tour was a visit to the Thean Hou Temple. First we wandered around the garden featuring statues of the twelve animals depicted in Chinese astrology. Some of the snake's supposed attributes I would agree with, but probably not artistic or unpredictable.... I like the intelligent bit though!

The temple complex was impressive with incredibly ornate shrines. Janice showed us how to read our fortunes by asking a question, shaking a container of numbered sticks until one pops out, then going to a drawer that corresponds to the number and taking the small piece of paper with your fortune written on it. My question was whether I had to go back to work, but the answer was a bit vague, so I suppose I had better...

Here are a few more pics...

All this temple visiting had worked up an appetite, so next stop was a late lunch in a cheap and cheerful Indian place which was absolutely heaving. Luckily we didn't have to wait too long for a table. Afterwards we walked off our lunch and Janice showed us her temple where she worships which was close by.

On Sunday we headed out for a flash all you can eat/all you can drink brunch in one of the big hotels in the city centre to celebrate Kate's birthday. Steve and Kate went for the champagne option, but for the sake of our budget Will and I 'slummed it' with the sparkling wine option. I figure that after the first few glasses you can't really taste the difference anyway! The food was unbelievably good, especially the seafood. It was the perfect way to spend our last few hours in KL.

Once we had eaten and drunk to our heart's content (or more to the point, run out of our allocated time!) we headed back to the apartment to finish packing up our stuff. Then it was an Uber to the airport, ready for our flight to Singapore.

Milan, Italy

On Saturday 19th November we flew from Stuttgart to Milan. I had booked a rustic 1-bedroom apartment through Airbnb for our four night stay. I hadn't made it to Milan on my previous visits to Italy so it was exciting having a new city to explore.

The apartment was a couple of minutes walk from the Colonne di San Lorenzo and the Basilica San Lorenzo Maggiore.

It was a cool area with cobble-stoned streets and lots of little cafes and bars and boutique shops, plus a very good supermarket only 5 minutes walk away.

They certainly have a unique parking style in Italy!

Our apartment was also easy walking distance to Milan's centre piece, the Duomo di Milano.

The Duomo is a very impressive building, the fifth largest church in the world. The detail up close is quite incredible.

I gave the leg of one of the statues on the intricately carved doors a rub for good luck. You can see where the bronze has been worn right down.

I don't quite know how someone deemed it appropriate to erect a billboard running advertising on the side of the Duomo!

It was all happening in the Plaza in front of the Duomo. There were hundreds of people holding banners, chanting and setting off flares. I didn't know what was going on and was slightly concerned there might be riots... It turns out it was football supporters for AC Milan and Inter Milan who were playing each other that evening in a local derby.

The other very impressive building on the plaza was the Galleria Vittorio Emanuel II which is essentially a high end shopping mall. 

Unfortunately our luck with the weather well and truly ran out in Milan. It was freezing cold (I lived in my down jacket the whole time), and we got rain most days, some of it torrential! However, the rain did mean that the next time we visited the Duomo Plaza it was quite a bit quieter.

The rain and reduced crowds also meant I was able to get near the 'lucky bull' on the floor of the galleria, as it had been absolutely heaving with people on my previous visit. Legend has it that if you
spin around three times on the bull's testicles with the heel of your foot you receive good luck.

I did feel slightly sorry for the poor bull!

While wandering around Milan we did come across a very cool Bialetti shop. I've been travelling with a Bialetti stovetop espresso maker which I bought in California, once I realised pretty quickly how poor the American coffee actually was. If I didn't already have one I would definitely have bought this super-cute little red single-serve version...

On Tuesday Will was supposed to meet a colleague of his who was on sabbatical in Pavia, about an hour away by train. However, his colleague had the flu so ended up having to cancel. The weather was atrocious, so not having to travel that day was bit of a blessing in disguise. Instead, we went to the Palazzo Reale to check out the Escher exhibition which was visiting.

The exhibition was great. We weren't allowed to take photos of the over 200 woodcuts and lithocuts, but there were several interactive areas where photos were allowed, including Escher's classic 'impossible cube'.

I've always loved his 'Metamorphosis II' so it was very cool seeing it in person.

That night we were taken out for dinner by another of Will's colleagues, Pier Luca. He is a classic Italian charmer and we had a most entertaining evening. The food was excellent, even if Pier Luca insisted on ordering far too much of it!

That was the end of our Italian, and in fact, European adventure. The following day we were on a plane and Asia bound.