Luckily, we had a few days of downtime to relax and tour while we were in KL. The city isn't all that big, geographically, so this was enough time to see all of the sights. Most guidebooks refer to KL as a shopping/eating destination more than a sightseeing destination, to which I agree. Granted, they had all of the same stores that we have in America in the malls and Malaysian food never did it for me, but your mileage may vary.
Our first day of touring was done via the KL Hop on/Hop off bus, which was a slick way to get around the city. KL has a pretty good monorail and bus system, but it doesn't connect well to the tourist destinations. Our first stop of the day was Chinatown, specifically Petaling Street. Not too much to see in the morning there; it's more of a night place, as you'll see later.
And here's a shot of Chinatown (Petaling is a side street of of this road). It looks like Chinatown.
From there, we made our way to the KL Butterfly Park. I was especially interested in this place, since we have a butterfly rainforest in Gainesville and I wanted to compare. The verdict: Gainesville wins. The facility is better and there's a much higher density of butterflies. Still, it was a nice place to tour.
They also had native lizards on display, which beats Gainesville. Below, a Komodo Dragon, probably lusting after the soft shell turtles in the next tank.
The only landing that any of us had: my fellow competitor (from Singapore) made a friend.
They also had these nifty iridescent red dragonflies, which I managed to get a shot of. I'm fond of this photo.
The KL Butterfly Park is part of a large complex of national parks with the KL Bird Park and KL Orchid Garden. The orchid garden was a let down - the very few orchids were in bloom. We didn't go to the bird park.
That's all for now! I'll post next about our night out on the town.
