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The path through Kuala Lumpur International Airport was, by now, a familiar one. At least this time we could promise Alex that, yes, he could catch the train lifts as we descended to join the KLIA Express service to the city.

The light was beautiful as we raced past palm plantations and the amazing architecture of Putrajaya, reaching KL proper in 28 minutes. As we sat in the taxi driving to our hotel in Bukit Bintang the green, decaying city outside brought back so many memories. This was the second country I ever visited and it feels so familiar.



We had to wait a few hours to check in at the Parkroyal hotel so we ducked behind to the hawker stalls to eat some breakfast of roti canai and milo ais. Gosh the milo ais tasted so good.

Then Alex went crazy around the big Christmas decorations of The Pavilion, relishing the opportunity to run around. I was literally falling asleep on my feet and very glad when we could finally check in to our swank room. Pity about all the street noise though.

Only allowed an hour’s sleep before it was swimming time. Alex refused to have a proper swim, enjoying wading around the shallow pool instead. But our swim was cut short by the dark storm clouds that soon unleashed themselves. It’s wet season here.
When the rain died down we crossed over the Sungei Wang plaza for more shopping. I was thirsty and perhaps hungry, but too tired to tell. We shopped until 6pm, whereupon we walked across to Jalan Alor for a big dinner spread of grilled stingray, char kway teoh noodles, har mee, rojak and kangkong belacan. Alex devoured the char kway teoh and ate a fair amount of the others. He was drifitng off to sleep by the end of it.



I was too, so I carried him up to the hotel room while B continued to shop. Unfortunately, he woke as soon as the lift reached our floor, then complained noisily. All I wanted to do was sleep. I had a huge headache, but he refused to return to bed. When B arrived back we eventually all got to sleep, but at around 3am he awoke again and just wanted to stay awake. I still had a headache. With much struggle we all drifted off again.
When we were awoken by housecleaning knocking on the door it was 10.30am!