The big cities

It was getting closer to Chinese new year so we headed for Kuala Lumpur, which is known to have a big Chinese community, hoping to see some fireworks. By the time we made it to China town we one only saw a handful of Chinese. There were Chinese signs everywhere so it was clear we were in the right place but all restaurants and shops were closed and no Chinese. It turned out (almost) all Chinese leave the city to celebrate year of the horse with their family and friends in more quiet places. China town is closed for 2 weeks and we booked a room in this deserted place. Maybe doing a bit of research sometimes has it's benefits. But we didn't, so; no party, no fireworks, no delicious Chinese food but a good time.

KL is a modern city with metro, monorail and lots of skyscrapers. With the most famous being the Petronas towers. The two round towers over 500 m tall which are halfway connected by a sky bridge. They are on every picture of KL and probably the first thing you think about when you here the city name. 

Standing on the foot of the towers is amazing. It's an awesome view. We like!!

On the bottom of the towers is the most luxurious mall we've ever seen with brand shops of stuff we can't effort. Here we found the wealthy part of the missing Chinese community. After spending some time between chic shops we wanted to get more of this vibe. We found a sky bar at a 5 Star hotel near the towers. As we reached the top we were speechless, it had a swimming pool and a superb view over the city.

From KL we went straight to Singapore by bus. After a few hours drive, our bus driver just kicked us out in the middle of the city. We had no idea where we were, looking around for a street sign or a metro sign and then we run into a Subway restaurant It is unbelievable how excited we could get for a proper bread with cheese and ham. After the best sandwich in months we stopped a taxi to bring us to the hostel we had booked. As we were cruising through the city we realized how clean and organized Singapore is. We think we have never seen such a clean Asian city before. Also the hostel we stayed was super clean and modern. They even had waterfall showers! Next to the hostel there were some food courts, serving mostly Chinese food. Caro was so happy to get her favorite soup again, WanTan soup.

After a comfy night in our hostel we went to the famous Singapore zoo. It took us almost 2 hours to go there because the city is just huge. We don't have to tell you what we did in the zoo, it is pretty obvious  ;). After walking around for hours we almost reached the exit, one of the last “attractions” was the leopard. As we passed by, a big stork fell out of the tree directly in front of the leopard. The predator was so surprised that it just looked weird while the stork had probably the most exciting minute of his life. The animals looked each other in the eyes when the stork spread it's wings to defend itself. The moment the puma started the attack, the bird, who still looked disorientated, was barely fast enough to fly away.

During an evening walk through the city, we found out you can cross Singapore via its 1 mio malls, not seeing the outside of the buildings. We exited the mall-infrastructure an were suddenly standing on a river front. A long the river were lots of beautifully decorated restaurants. We walked for awhile next to the river, till we reached a big square. Due to the Chinese new year everything was decorated with a lot of giant Buddhas. In the middle was a stage where kids were dancing a ballet. In Singapore they also have the highest Ferris wheel in the world. Of course we had to try it. It was pretty expensive but it was worth it, the view over the skyline was stunning.