KL - Work

My tourist activities effectively ended once my work obligations started. Nonetheless, here are some additional observations from my time in KL:

* KL reminds me very much of a developing version of Singapore. The mix of ethnic Malay, Chinese and Indian make for a very rich culture that benefits greatly from its diversity. The food alone is a testament to this.

* Similar to Indonesia, the motor scooter is an extremely popular form of transportation. The hum of the engines is a constant of the environment. And at seemingly every major stoplight intersection, a mass of motor scooter collect at the front, bypassing the stopped cars, and take off in a wave of organized chaos once the lights turn green.

* The afternoon thunderstorms are brutal. One day I was in a car when one of them hit and in some spots there was literally a foot of rushing water flowing through certain low-lying streets within minutes. And all of the motor scooter drivers would stop under the various overpasses to wait out the thunderstorms.

* Yellow watermelon exists. In my 30+ years on this planet, I had always assumed that there was only the red variety. And this made me wonder what other worldly assumptions I’ve made that will ultimately be disproved. For the record, the yellow version tasted exactly the same to me. But that didn’t stop me from getting both the red and yellow versions each morning for breakfast.

* In addition to driving on the left side of the road, the same apparently applies to escalators (at least in the hotel that I was in). This led to some interesting moments as the escalators didn’t run continually and instead started once you approached them. Had I approached the proper side, this wouldn’t have been an issue. However, I routinely went with my instinct (i.e., right side) and had to back-track on multiple occasions after inadvertently trying to walk up an escalator that proceeded to move in the opposite direction.