Planz, Schmanz

The Petronas Towers can be seen from
almost anywhere in the city

Even more evidence to negate the need to make plans, as if I needed any more. As today is my last day here, I actually had some plans in mind. Shocker! I was going to play super tourist and check off three biggies in one day: Istana Negara (the former royal palace, which is now a museum), The National Mosque of Malaysia and, finally, scaling the Kuala Lumpur Tower to end my trip with a great overall view of the city. A perfect plan!

Christmas decorations are pretty
over-the-top here

And then I woke up and it was raining. No problem, I thought. It has rained here every morning and it usually clears up by lunchtime. I went and had my morning coffee, figuring I’d head out after that but, nope, still raining. A lot.






Now rain is survivable and normally not something that would deter me from being out and about, but somehow it just sapped ALL of my motivation to forge ahead. Probably the fact that I have been walking and sweating profusely since landing in Manila a week ago didn’t help. Maybe my energy has just finally worn out and the rain was all the push I needed to just take a day to chill. So that’s exactly what I did.

Does anyone else find it amusing that Asian stick figures
are fat while American stick figures are, well, sticks?
Kind of backwards, isn't it?

I still had a lot of trip planning to do (airline tickets to buy, hotels to book… still didn’t have one for tomorrow!) so I figured this would be the day to get it done. I hunkered down for a while and made an impressive amount of progress, if I do say so myself. (Have I mentioned just how much I despise, abhor, loathe making plans??) At which point I thought I would reward myself with getting a much-needed pedicure. A little more planning and then off for a final Malaysian massage, this one a full body number. It was glorious.

So this seems like a cool, minimalist concept...
until you actually take a shower and then the
entire bathroom is soaked. You better just
hope you don't have to use the john for a
few hours after showering

And that was my day.

It was a shame I didn’t get to see the things I’d wanted to and I’m sure some day I’ll regret not having done it while I was here, but for today it felt like the exact right decision. Tonight I pack up (getting pretty sick of packing, gotta say) and then up tomorrow for yet another obscenely early wake-up call. Cheap airlines are awesome but why, WHY are all of their flights at such ungodly hours?!? I certainly hope there’s a suggestion box at the airport.