Went back to Kuala Lumpur to get my passport and applied for visas.

View from the North South Express way

Malaysia is the second biggest exporter of Palm oil trees in the world after Indonesia

Dropped by the Kuala Lumpur twin tower skybridge. Finally managed to go up the skybridge after more than 10 years of waiting.
Skybridge

View from the bridge

Morning in KL

Weather in Penang and Kuala Lumpur is hot and humid especially in recent days. It’s around 34 C during the day. Just around a month ago I was in Ulan Bator, Mongolia and the weather there was -34 C.

Chinese Embassy in Kuala Lumpur looked completely different compared to the previous time I went there. The place is re-renovated and is quite efficient. It only took me 30 minutes to submit my application with 50 people in line before me.

This is how the visa application center looked like around 1.5 years ago, the last time I went.

For single entry visa, the visa fee for US citizen is 430 and for locals it’s just 30.

I am trying to apply for a 2 year multiple entry Chinese visa (120 Ringgit~USD$35) and hope to get it in 4 working days.

A typical breakfast meal at an Indian restaurant, Mee Goreng and Teh Tarik (5 Ringgit~USD$1.7).

Went back to KLCC. Even though I have been to Kuala Lumpur many times, but I have not get up the sky bridge before. Unfortunately, the sky bridge is close on Monday.

View from KLCC

Met up with a friend for lunch and found out that he is working at a Blogging advertising company. Just signed up with Nuffnang and the advertisement on the left bottom side of my blog is in partnership with Nuffnang.
NuffNang office

Chinese new year decoration at Pavillion mall

Goodbye Kuala Lumpur

Went to Taiping to visit some relatives. Taiping is around 200km from Kuala Lumpur and it was a mining town many years ago. It’s one of the wettest place in Malaysia with rains occasionally. Taiping is a very quiet place.

Taiping Lake Garden

Going north from Taipng towards Penang, will get out from the Juru Toll. Autocity is just beside the toll exit. Went to AutoCity to meet some friends. Autocity is located just right before the Penang bridge and has coffee shops, bars and clubs for those that don’t want to go all the way to Penang Island.

Crossed Penang bridge (7 Ringgit~USD$2) back to Penang Island.

Drove to Kuala Lumpur (4 hours drive, 350km) for a wedding, visiting relatives and friends, as well as applying for visas for my next few destinations.

Crossed Penang Bridge again

Some typical Malaysian Chinese wedding dishes

Baked piglet

Got on a boat across the Pearl river from FangChun port

Old colonial building

Kicking a bird feathered ball, a type of Chinese sports

Got on bus 208 to the east train station. Passed by the main city center to TiYuGuangChang which housed most office buildings.

Took bus 175 to BaiYunShan (White Cloud Mountain).
Flower exhibition at BaiYun park

BaiYunShan is the most famous hill in Guangzhou. The highest peak is 382 meters high. Usually I prefer to go on foot if possible but because of time constraint, got on the cable car up to the hill (25 Yuan~USD$4).

It will take more than an hour to get up the mountain on foot and 15 minutes by cable car.

The words are saying BaiYunShan welcomes you

View of Guangzhou from the mountain

The weather in Guangzhou was quite warm. Took another car back down from the mountain (20Yuan~USD$3).

Took tour bus 1 from BaiYunShan to Chen Clan Academy. Chen Clan Academy (ChenJiaCi, in Cantonese it’s pronounced as ChanKaQi, 10 Yuan~USD$1.40)

This is very well preserved architecture from the 19th century. It used to belong to a wealthy family by the name of Chen and now houses many articles including ivory sculptures and artistic statues. Again, my camera ran out of battery so I wasn’t able to take photos inside the building and had to steal photos from the web.

Chen Clan Academy

Got on the metro

to FangChun bus station and took the 5.30pm bus (22 Yuan~USD$3, 70 minutes ride) to BaiYun airport located around 30km north of the city.

Got to the airport at 6.40pm for checking in.

I booked an AirAsia flight from Guangzhou to Kuala Lumpur about a month ago (837 Yuan~USD$120). That’s why I had to rush my trip around China. My original plan was to travel overland from China all the way to South East Asia but because of Chinese New Year, I decided to fly back to Malaysia first for Chinese New Year celebration and continue the journey later. Another reason is that my current passport is quite full and I will need to get a new one.

AirAsia is a low cost airline company based in Malaysia and has flights to destinations around South East Asia, a few cities in China, South Asia and flights are rapidly expanding to destinations further away.

Wiki page about Airasia

Currently there are flights from Chengdu, Guilin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Tianjin to Kuala Lumpur for around 800 Yuan if book early.

Got on the 8.45pm flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Dinner on the aircraft (20 Yuan~USD$3).
Nasi Briyani (A kind of Indian cuisine from Malaysia)

The flight was delayed and landed at around 1.20am.

Malaysia is a multi racial and multi lingual country.

This year, Kuala Lumpur was ranked as one of the top places to visit under New York times.

Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia and has a population of around 7 millions.