I feel like I blinked and it's already mid-October. I don't know where the summer went! But somehow I fell behind on keeping my blog updated so I'm beginning to rectify that now.
I didn't do any weekend getaways in August worthy of their own blog post (I spent multiple Saturdays in museums, hiding from the heat and humidity), but I did do a couple of fun day trips: one day in Busan and one day in Gangneung, on the northeast coast.
Jean-Michel Othoniel's Narcissus’ Theorem at the Seoul Museum of Art
In a hot salt room (with a mirrored ceiling) at a traditional Korean spa
Downtown Busan from the Lotte Department Store overlook
Jalgachi Fish Market in Busan, the largest in Korea
Korean War Memorial & Museum
Having coffee on Gangneung's famous Coffee Street, a beachfront road lined with cafes that roast their own coffee beans
Coffee cup art on the Gangneung Coffee Street
Exploring Songdo Central Park in Incheon (one of the filming locations of Psy's Gangnam Style music video)
Songdo Triple Street in Incheon
Laveniche March Avenue in Gimpo
At the Gangwha Luge Park. Had to share my terrible video because I nearly crashed trying to get this meager footage but this was seriously too much fun.
Despite the unpleasantly humid weather, it was a great summer, as I'm sure you can tell. Towards the end of it, I also got to hop over to Malaysia for a long weekend.
The Korean harvest/ Thanksgiving holiday, Chuseok, was on September 10 this year, so we got Friday and Monday off from school so that it was an extra-long weekend. I've written before about my quest to get to Japan, and I kept hoping Chuseok would be the time I'd get there. No such luck, unfortunately, so I'm holding out hope for Lunar New Year. But since my Japan plans didn't work out, I was perusing Skyscanner one day in August and stumbled across a flight from Incheon to Kuala Lumpur. The outbound flight was on Saturday morning at 7am, but the returning flight was an overnight flight on Monday, meaning I'd have to land and go directly to school from the airport on Tuesday morning. But the flight was only $310 and it's an almost 7-hour flight, so I sent a screenshot of it to my friend Ailbhe and said, "Do you think I'm crazy if I go for this?" and she responded, "I wouldn't, but you do you, girl! YOLO" so I booked it.
I spent most of that Friday that we had off from school relaxing in my apartment, aside from when Ailbhe and I attempted to go to a sandwich place for a nice lunch that turned out to be closed so we ended up at a chain around the corner. After dinner, I hopped on the subway to Incheon. A taxi from my apartment to the airport that early in the morning (before the subway is running) would cost me an arm and a leg, so I booked a cheap Airbnb near the airport for Friday night. I set an alarm for 4:00am Saturday morning and took a 15 minute bus ride to the airport.
My flight to Kuala Lumpur was blissfully uneventful, and I landed around 2pm. I found the airport signs very easy to follow and hopped on a train to the city center. I had to transfer to a different train line, so between that and getting through the airport, by the time I got to my hostel, it was about 4pm. I set my stuff down, washed my hands and face, and headed out to sightsee.
The hostel I was staying in was a great and affordable place that was also in a great sightseeing neighborhood. I started by trying to go to Masjid Jamek, a gorgeous mosque just up the street from my hostel, but I got turned away at the gate because I didn't have anything to cover my head. So I walked over to Merdeka Square instead.
"Merdeka" means Independence in Malay. The square is so named because it's the first place the Malaysian flag was raised after Malaysia won their freedom from the British Empire after a 9-year war for independence.
The Sultan Abdul Samad Building, originally built to be the offices of the British colonial administration.
The Masjid Jamek, the oldest mosque in Kuala Lumpur, sits at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak Rivers. They call this area the "River of Life."
Petaling Street Market, in the heart of Chinatown. In addition to shopping, Petaling Street has a few famous street food vendors. I made my first food blunder here when I went to the famous Kim Soya Bean stall and ordered soya bean milk instead of their renowned soya bean pudding. Oh well. The milk was quite refreshing so at least there's that.
I walked to a different neighborhood for dinner and promptly got myself into food blunder number 2: I tried to order nasi lemak, the national dish of Malaysia, and got this spicy noodle thing instead. It was genuinely delicious but unfortunately, I have absolutely no spice tolerance and suffered through half a plate before I gave up and essentially ordered a second dinner.
Successfully ordered nasi lemak the second time, which is rice cooked in coconut milk and served with sides. The one I had above came with roasted peanuts, anchovies, cucumber, and a hard boiled egg. Admittedly, I was underwhelmed by the nasi lemak. I think it's one of those things that people love because it's versatile, so if you really knew what to order I could see it being really enjoyable, and I just clearly didn't know what I was doing.
After my two dinners (thank God for Southeast Asian prices because it still came out to like $10), I took a short walk to the Jalan Alor night market to see the hustle and bustle while I ate some famous coconut ice cream.
Coconut ice cream at Jalan Alor, which I enjoyed more than either of my dinners
I then found my way over to the bus stop for my tour: a city lights night tour on a double decker bus to see the city lit up. It was just as enjoyable as it sounds.
City Lights Night Tour. Clockwise from upper left: KL Tower, National Palace gate, Petronas Twin Towers, and the National Palace.
I ended my night by walking to a former helipad-turned-cocktail bar. The entry fee was the equivalent of $22 (and included two cocktails that I frankly didn't want) but the view was definitely worth the sticker shock.
I could have lived without the server who asked me—twice—if I wanted to smoke a hookah with him after his shift ended, but overall I enjoyed.
Before I booked this trip, I did a little research to make sure Kuala Lumpur is safe for female solo travelers (and read that it is) so I really put that to the test my first night there when I walked a mile back to my hostel by myself. Strangely, I saw very few people out and about, despite being a Saturday night, and the few I did see totally ignored me in a good way, so clearly the rumors are true.
The following day, I had an action-packed full day tour booked. The first part was a city tour, which did repeat some of the stuff I'd seen the day before but was still a nice start to the day.
National Palace in the daytime
The National Monument, which "commemorates those who died in Malaysia's struggle for freedom, principally against the Japanese occupation during World War II" and the war for independence from the British Empire, according to its Wikipedia page.
National Mosque of Malaysia
Selfie at Merdeka Square from the other side
We then left the city and continued on to Batu Caves, one of the biggest Hindu shrines outside of India.
At Batu Caves
View from the top after climbing 272 steps
In the running for the sweatiest I've ever been. It was 87°F/30°C and the humidity was 83%. It started thunderstorming while I was in the cave so I got to walk back down the 272 steps in the rain, which was a real treat.
I don't have photos from the inside of the cave because it was mostly too dark for any decent photos, but there were also many Hindus there making offerings and praying, so it surely would've been rude to take photos, anyway.
Our next stop on our action-packed day was Putrajaya. To explain Putrajaya, I'm going to steal from Wikipedia: "Putrajaya, officially the Federal Territory of Putrajaya, is a planned capital city which functions as the administrative capital and the judicial capital of Malaysia. The seat of the federal government of Malaysia was moved in 1999 from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya because of overcrowding and congestion in the former, whilst the seat of the judiciary of Malaysia was later moved to Putrajaya in 2003. Kuala Lumpur remains as Malaysia's national capital city per the constitution and is still the seat of the head of state and the national legislature, as well as being the country's commercial and financial center." So basically what I had read was that you don't go to Putrajaya for the culture or even the food but you go for the architecture, and I was very glad I did.
View of Putra Square from the Seri Wawasan bridge
Perdana Putra, office of the Malaysian Prime Minister
Putra Mosque
I was fortunate enough to actually go in this one because they have robes that tourists can use (including a hood to cover my head)
The pink dome from the inside
We then headed to our final stop for the day: Kuala Selangor, a town on both the coast and the Selangor river. Our first stop was a silvered leaf monkey feeding, which I was absolutely not about and avoided as much as possible, before having a riverfront dinner and taking a boat ride to see some of the millions of fireflies that live on the banks of the Selangor river.
View of the Indian Ocean from Bukit Melawati
Gotta love dinner with a view
When we went in the boat to find the fireflies, our captain understandably turned off the lights, and rocketing upstream in a speedboat in the dark was an experience I won't soon forget. It's impossible to capture with photos or video but I tried, so enjoy this terrible quality video of the fireflies on the river. It was less of a novelty for me, since fireflies are a dime a dozen in Pennsylvania, but I enjoyed the reactions of so many people on the boat with me who had never seen them before.
That was finally the last stop and we made the hourlong drive back to Kuala Lumpur.
On Monday morning, I slept in and laid around in my hostel until I had to check out at noon, then grabbed some brunch from a nearby café before continuing my sightseeing.
Sin Sze Si Ya Taoist Chinese temple
Masjid Jamek from closer up
Suria KLCC is an five-story mall at the foot of the famous Petronas Towers, full of luxury brands and expensive stores. It also has restaurants, so I went for lunch and had chicken satay and fresh orange juice. The peanut sauce was to die for.
Petronas Twin Towers (451.9 m/1,483 ft), the tallest building in the world from 1998-2005, and currently still the tallest twin towers in the world (and already was even before 9/11, in case anyone else was wondering like I was).
I also went to the Central Market that day, which is the oldest market in Kuala Lumpur and has been operating since 1888, but I didn't think to take any photos, which is a shame because it's in a beautiful powder blue Art Deco building, so my bad.
The last thing on my to-do list before I went to the airport was to get some good Indian food, since Kuala Lumpur has a great reputation for it. I found a great place around the corner from my hostel and enjoyed every bite, especially the garlic naan.
I then grabbed my stuff from the hostel and hopped on the train to the airport. I had enough Malaysian ringgit left to buy myself one last juice while I waited to board the plane, and then had the misfortune of sitting next to a petite Korean woman who couldn't sit still and kept me from getting any decent sleep on the overnight flight. But thankfully the timing of everything worked out and I made it to school on time on Tuesday morning, so no regrets!
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