Day #3 - 28 August 2007

I woke at 7am. VERY early for me but I promised ISP I will take them up to the Twin Towers bridge today.While eating my breakfast, I debated silently whether to drive or take public transport to Suria KLCC. I finally resolved to drive there since I am quite aware that one has to queue for tickets to go on the Twin Tower Skybridge and tickets will run out quite fast in the middle of the morning! Yes, today's plan was ISP and I will be shopping and chilling out at Suria KLCC and the surrounding areas.

I reached Suria KLCC around 8.40am and headed towards the Skybridge Tour ticketing counter located at the bottom of the escalator across the entrance of the Philharmonic Ochestra Hall. Despite being there that early, there was already a 6-fold queue line there and so, I joined the queue with the rest of the people there. Majority of them were foreigners. A few that I've talked to were from Switzerland, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Arab and Italy. Chris from Sydney managed to have a longer conversation than usual with ISP live on air! Mr Foo and his family visiting from Hong Kong were also asking where to find bak kut teh seasoning. I directed them to either the supermarkets there or Chinatown which was a few stops away using the LRT. Many people were thrilled to meet ISP as I made plenty of introduction! The guards there were quite starstruck as well and they mentioned they hadn't met them before.

Mind you, queueing up doesn't guarantee entry to the Skybridge! A staff of the towers will go around along the line and asking you how many people who wants to enter with you. Upon your reply, that staff will then be issuing a white slip which contains the time of your tour amd how many tickets should be issued to you(max. 5 per person). I decided to get all 5 despite my initial plan to go with Su only. The first timeslot of the day was 10am, I think and the next was 10.05am. By the time that staff got to me in the queue(which was around 10am), the designated timeslot I got was 3.45pm (I was then urged to arrive at the entrance at least 10 mins earlier before that). Yippie, I had more than 6 full hours to bring ISP around before the Skybridge session at 3.45pm. I left a message on Su's phone to arrive slightly earlier before then and then headed back up to the ground floor. I decided to show off Kuala Lumpur's fine architectural skyline to ISP(yes, bank buildings included). Hence, we went out of the Petronas Tower to the neat fountain area infront of it. Time for more bank spying as well as pic taking! The following pics were taken by a fellow Singaporean Chinese student who caught my eye with his huge camera around his neck.

I also met two Norwegian ladies, Cathrine Husberg and Reidun Dahle who were here for a holiday. They commented that ISP were very friendly and take good pics! Hehe. I will add them on my Facebook later.

After bidding goodbye to the 2 lovely ladies, I decided to head on to the Petronas Gallery which was showing a joint exhibition on Building Merdeka - Independence Architecture in Kuala Lumpur, 1957-1966, 'PETRONAS on Film' (which was the airing of those cool and touching 100 Petronas commercials which really made an impact) and '50 Ways to Live in Malaysia :Contemplating 50 Years of Nation Building'. I managed to catch a picture that really depicted my current situation.Haha.Since the place was pretty deserted, I whipped out my camera and caught the below. Then I asked a staff who was passing by if he could take a pic of me with ISP. He said it wasn't allowed. Ah well...too bad. One of the staff there wanted to take my pic for the RM100 but he hadn't a camera then. At least he knows about it.. When we've finished looking at the exhibits, we left our signage in the Guestbook there.

Then, ISP and I went downstairs to the Concourse Level to check out what was happening. There were pictures and newspaper columns being displayed there which comes from the same joint exhibit the Petronas Gallery. We spent about an hour looking at them: the Proclamation of Declaration, life during the British colonial periods, how Tunku Abdul Rahman gained what he did, school children during those days etc. No one had approached us during that time and we were right in the middle of the Concourse floor! Another staff asked me what I was doing with ISP and I explained my situation again. I had the idea that he was keen to listen to MixFM after that. Again, we signed the Guestbook before we left the exhibition.

We walked from the Concourse floor to the KL Convention Centre via the underground pass as Aquaria was one of the highlights we had on our to-dos today. Passing by the convention halls, we noticed many people dressed in suits and business attire sitting around: The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) International Palm Oil Congress (PIPOC) was happening there today. Needless to say, lots were staring at us. However, they were too busy managing some multi-million ringgit deal hence didn't bother with our smallfry prizeloot here. Keke. I went out through the glass door there and had a few pics taken amongst the people smoking outside as it was far enough from the Twin Towers to get an overall shot. Ok, I gotta admit the tree's in the way but Mr Foo did a good job of taking it after I interrupted his smoky break. And no, he's not listened to MixFM before...I continued towards the escalator which took us down one floor to the Food Court where my first actual Spotter approached me, Gerard who's born on the same year as me! 1982! =) His colleagues along with him were having lunch there and spotted us infront of Aquaria as we finished our exploration of Malaysia's marine life.

It was almost lunch time hence we headed back to Suria KLCC foodcourt for my favorite Ipoh Kuey Teow and icekacang there and to do a bit of surfing over there. Yeap, I brought along my laptop to check my emails while we were on the move. We had been emailing many parties and were waiting for some feedback! Funny enough, Richard mentioned that someone with his ISP was in the foodcourt as well earlier in the morning having a cuppa coffee (I assume for breakfast). Too bad, I missed him as it would have been fun for both of us to spot each other. Hehe. No spotter came up to me over there despite the crowd milling around and my strategic position next to the drinks counter facing the escalator! Hmm...I sat next to this 2 men who were talking about switching jobs. Ah, nothing more scandalous for a lunch chat...ISP were silently discussing amongst themselves if Lady Boss or Men Boss were better..keke. We had a leisurely lunch time when one of my own ex-colleagues decided to pop by to be introduced to ISP. But he declined our offer of a picture as he came down to pack McD's for lunch in his office in Tower B.

Lunch lag hit not long after and we decided to go to Avenue K where we needed to change some money into AUD at BestRate there as we were to travel to Perth this Thurs (30 August 2007). Alright, I admit- not very patriotic of us but honestly, ISP and I have the intention of spreading some Merdeka joy to Down Under! We passed by the Putra LRT station, a huge Burger King and a few other eateries before we got to the money exchanger, got our money changed and decided to get another drink at the foodcourt nearby. No spotters within this building.

We then decided to walk off the lunch by walking back to Suria KLCC and oogle/window shop at the luxury stores there. Even the prize loot won't be able to get more than a few Tiffany's...too bad! I'm sure I have the same hidden desire as Ika and Serena C for those babies...not to mention some Jimmy Choos and LVs...sigh. Pietro was more interested in the Imac computers on the top floor though. Haha.

We decided to stop at Starbucks for a light refreshment while waiting for Su and her family to arrive for our Skybridge tour at 3.45pm. I decided to do a lil more surfing. We met an interesting friend there, Kenneth who was seated at the next table who took our pic and details after I explained why we were housemates for the next 3 weeks. He said he will upload it but he may not be able to catch the cue to call! Kenneth, if you're reading this, please try your best!

I'll update this post with more pics from the Skybridge tour although we were abit disappointed with the whole tour. It was really short- about 5 mins of 3d presentation on the architecture of the Twin Tower followed by a short security check and 7-8m/s ride up this elevator and only SEVEN (7) minutes on the Skybridge. Now, how much is that?! After that, it was over. We were really disappointed. Thank goodness the gloominess cleared up by the time we went up there and we spotted a few other places from our view up there to visit in the coming weeks. Mich decided to join us there during the last minute and keke, good job gal..running across in those mere minutes to join the tour.

We headed back home after a short shopping stint at Isetan as we had a spinning class to attend at MidValley California Fitness at 7.40pm. We decided to head off early to do some more shopping before that and we met up with a sweet girl for a few minutes before we legged it to work up a sweat.

We spent another 2 hours there window shopping and burning more calories as we visited the Ogawa exhibition there near MPH and the RHB ATM machine. There was a long queue there and we decided to stand nearby so that people can get more cash. However, no one took up on the offer. However, a lady spotter spotted us near the Jusco supermarket as we were doing some grocery shopping as we planned to have some energy replenishers after the hourlong workout but she declined to take a picture saying that her banking boss might not like it. Haha. Another day with Ika, Serena C and Pietro has ended as everyone plans to go to bed after this ...we have another exciting day tomorrow. We're gonna climb THE stairs of Malaysia! ;) Stay tuned!

Before I turned in myself, I noticed the aftermath of today: ISP was getting a little too heavy for me! No offence guys.. extra time at the gym next week when we return from Perth alright?

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