Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Today was a fun day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We sailed from Penang overnight to wake up in a huge, beautiful and clean city full of sky scrapers like you wouldn’t believe! As Malaysia's capital and largest city, Kuala Lumpur serves as the cultural, financial and economic center of Malaysia. It is also home to the Parliament of Malaysia and the Istana Negara, the official residence of the monarch/king of Malaysia.

Kuala Lumpur has a population of 8,621,724 and is one of the leading cities in the world for tourism and shopping and the 6^th most visited city in the world. It is also home to 3 of the world’s 10 largest shopping malls. It's official religion is Muslim (practiced by more than 60% of the population) followed by Buddhism around 20% with the remainder is Christian, Hinduism and various other "isms."

Today's excursion began with a drive to see the National monument followed by drives by the old railway station, the national mosque, Independence Square and to the iconic twin skyscrapers Petronas towers, the tallest buildings in the world which took 6 years to build.  https://thetowerinfo.com/buildings-list/petronas-towers/ The towers are 88 floors high, 5 of which are underground.

 

entrance to Istana Negara

dome of Istana Negara from a distance

old railway headquarters

Petronas Towers - tallest twin towers in the world (note sky bridge)

 

Independence Square 

 

Independence Square marks Malaysia's independence from British rule in 1957. It is also where the British flag was replaced by the flag of Malaysia (on a 311 foot flag pole). Celebrations are held here each year on Independence Day. Prior to 1957, the British used the square as a cricket field. Looking at the photo above, the long building to the left is the Sultan Abdul Samad Building which is now the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture of Malaysia (copper dome).

After a buffet lunch at a downtown hotel, we visited the Royal Selangor company where we learned about the importance of tin mining in Malaysia and how pewter is made from silver, copper and tin. Of course there were opportunities after our tour to see and/or purchase some of their amazing pewter products. I had actually been there perhaps 25 years earlier when I visited Kuala Lumpur with Ronnie on one of his business trips. He was working of course but I had the opportunity to tour the factory at that time. The tour and showroom has changed a lot since my previous visit.

Royal Selangor Visitor Center

overlooking pewter manufacturing floor

breakdown of pewter

Royal Salangor - founded 1885 by immigrant pewtersmith Yong Koon 

guide explaining history of Royal Salangor

Star Wars pewter chess set

scraps are melted and re-used

hammer, hammer, hammer

pewter factory prefers to hire women

 

Our last stop of the day was at Central Market which was originally built as a wet market in 1888. I wish we had had longer there, as it had many booths and shops selling jewelry, clothes, art, home accessories, gift items and just about anything you could think of. 

Ronnie doing his favorite thing - shopping (not)

entrance to Central Market Kuala Lumpur

one of many colorful booths in Central Market

area around Central Market entrance

our gaudy tour bus (window swags complete with fringe)

in fact, they all were!

a few of Kuala Lumpur many, many sky scrapers