Stupid American Shopping (KL Day 3)

After the seeing the caves yesterday, I wandered around Little India, which, you guessed it, looked, smelled, and sounded Indian. The streets were lined with stores selling beautiful fabrics, the air smelled like curry and jasmine, and there were Bollywood movies showing in the shops, blaring songs from four-hour-long movies with lots of dancing.





This afternoon, I headed over to Petronas towers, which until recently were the tallest buildings in the world. They were out of tickets to go up the tower, so I stood at the bottom looking up to get that "it's so huge it's going to fall on me" feeling. Standing there looking up, it really does make you dizzy.

For those not familiar with the towers, that is a picture of them to the right, albeit taken from an odd angle.

I ventured into the mall at the metro stop next to the towers. KL really knows how to shop. The mall was pristine and filled with six large floors of stores I cannot responsibly afford. To quote my mother, "My dear, you are in the wrong mall."


From here, I returned to the Central Market where I had a cup of white coffee, which is so sweet that it tastes like hot chocolate without the chocolate flavor, if that makes any sense. But my main goal at the market was to buy a birthday present for my nephew Billy who just turned 8. I won't say what I got him since I don't think it has arrived yet. But I did see these really cool woven reed hats in a child's size. They were shaped like what you traditionally see in pictures of people working in the rice patties, but they were woven with colored reeds so that they formed a star-shaped decorative pattern on top. I thought this would be fun for the kids to add to their costume box and I inquired about the price of the hat.


After some very confused conversation, it was explained to me that these are actually used to cover plates of food, but that I could "wear it as a hat if I liked." I didn't know whether to laugh or hide my red face. This explains why it only comes in a children's size. It also explains the confused look I got when I asked if people wear these on their heads in the countryside. I guess you can't be smart every day.


Before leaving, I did encounter this interesting musical instrument being played. It is an Angklung which is made up of rows of bamboo tubes that are shaped for pitch and shaken to produce their unique sound. Here is a movie clip of it for your listening/viewing pleasure. He is playing it along with some recorded music, but he stops about 10 seconds in so you can tell the difference between the recorded music and the instrument itself.

Please excuse the poor video quality; I am awful with motion pictures.

Important: Start with your volume turned down, as the audio is quite loud.