Wild Asia!

1/23/2008

Our second day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was spent touring. We toured all day! We went to the Batu Caves and saw a bunch of monkeys. We went to the pewter factory and saw the world’s largest beer mug. We went to the Kuala Lumpur tower. It’s the world’s third largest communications tower. The Space Needle doesn’t even come close to being in the top 20! We rode the elevator to the top to check out the 360 degree view. After all of the touring we ate at the Hard Rock café.

Stairs to the Batu Caves.

A Hindu girls carries offerings up to the Batu caves.

The world's largest beer stein is made of pewter. Photo by J.A. Atwood.

Sporting my local band tee at the Hard Rock. Photo by J.A. Atwood.

Yesterday, we lounged by the pool, went to the butterfly park and then the bird park. The butterfly park was fantastic! There were all sorts of butterflies just fluttering around me and some would even rest on top of me! Some were tiny while others were as big as birds! I spent an hour and a half following the butterflies around with my camera.

The bird park in Malaysia is the world’s largest! It was kind of scary at first because there are a lot of birds flying around you and walking next to you. Some birds were in cages but a lot were not! Some of them were very large too! At the bird park, I got to feed an eagle and I was able to hold owls, eagles, toucans and other species that I can’t even name! At this point I was more comfortable and decided I wanted to touch all of the birds! One of the owls kept trying to eat my park bracelet!

At the bird park! Photo by J.A. Atwood.

On one of the nature trails in the bird park, there was a guy smoking something out of a pipe I had never seen before. That was weird. Jim said it was probably opium. Eww.

As we walked down the road from the bird park we saw a lot of monkeys running around. Some of them were eating packets of chili sauce. The kind you might get from Taco Bell. They would open the sauce packet, suck out the contents and toss the empty packaging on the ground. It was not attractive. Someone should fine those monkeys! We also saw two monkeys mating. Again…not attractive. They should get a room…or at least a banana leaf!

Today, we left Kuala Lumpur for Singapore, Singapore!

1/26/2008

Our first full day in Singapore was spent at Underwater World. It is an aquarium where the main exhibit is the glass tunnels. You walk through the tunnels and the fish swim all around the glass. So, while the tunnels allow guests to walk along the bottom of the tanks while staying dry, we chose to get wet. We signed up to swim with the sharks! We were put into full SCUBA gear and given a quick lesson on how to use it before hopping into the tank. It was one of the greatest experiences in my entire life!!! We got to pet eagle rays and even hold some of the sharks! Hold the sharks! The sharks were actually kind of cuddly! They let us pet, hug and hold them. The eagle rays kept following us around because they wanted us to rub their bellies. We saw and pet other creatures but those were my favorites. Once you are in the tank you are like a celebrity. Everyone walking through the tunnels kept taking our pictures and blowing kisses and stuff like that. In the end I would have liked to do a little less posing and more fish petting but I still had a great time!

Ready to hug sharks! Photo by J.A. Atwood.

In the tank! Photo by J.A. Atwood.

I should probably suggest to my readers that you don’t cuddle up to wild sharks. The sharks we played with were captive and used to human contact. Not to mention, we were under the constant supervision of the staff.

After the sharks, I cuddled snakes! Photo by J.A. Atwood.

After the sharks it was time to relax with a different kind of fish at Fish Reflexology. Here, you can spend 20 minutes with your feet in a pool of fish that eat dead skin. They also leave enzymes on your feet that are supposed to keep the skin healthy. It tickled A LOT but I was satisfied with the results. All that touring can give you rough feet. These fish can help you smooth things over. After putting your feet in the tank the staff gives you a foot massage before sending you on your way. I never thought I would actually want an animal nibbling on me. Turns out I was wrong!

Yesterday we did our dolphin swim. The dolphins we swam with were pink dolphins. They are born grey and then turn pink as they mature. We learned hand signals and made the dolphins do tricks. One of the dolphins painted a picture. It was a very fun experience.

Petting a pink dolphin. Photo by J.A. Atwood.

After that we went to the luge and sky-ride. For the luge part of it, you sit on this little go-kart like thing (no motor) and just roll down the track. Fast. At the end a big ski lift takes you back up and that’s the sky-ride part. Their tag-line is “once is not enough”. They were right! We went down three times!

Today we are leaving Singapore for Bali, Indonesia.


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