It was almost Indonesia’s 2024 Independence celebration day when the DNArtworks team went for company outing to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Bandung team took the earliest Whoosh trip to Halim, followed by taxi ride to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. At the airport, we had a light breakfast, then joined the rest of the team.
We had plenty of free time before boarding the plane around 10.40. We took Malaysia Airline, a full-service airline. I usually flew budget, so upon entering the plane I asked the flight attendant whether we would get a full meal or just snack. One attendant couldn’t hold his laugh to my question. He joked that it’s dependant of my flight. Even after was seated I received no explicit answer whether it’s a full meal or just snack. When the meal was served, it was finally clear that it’s a full meal, complete with fruits and bread & butter. When we arrived at Kuala Lumpur, that same flight attendant jokingly asked me again whether I enjoyed the meal. Well, I did. It’s quite a nice meal.
Two minivans picked us up at the airport and drove us to the hotel. The journey took about an hour. We checked in, drop our bags, and walked again towards Jalan Alor. It was raining on and off when we walked.
At Jalan Alor, we split up into different groups. Except maybe me. I dined alone, picking a Vietnam Bánh mì after feeling nostalgic to the trip to Vietnam. It was raining hard shortly after, so I spent a few minutes staying there until the rain eased. I tried stinky tofu and giant squid satay, but it was not very extraordinary. We walked back to the hotel afterwards, with sightseeing of Lot 10 shopping mall and Don Don Donki.
In the morning the next day, we had breakfast at the hotel, Lloyd’s Inn. It was a delicious and relatively healthy breakfast, with oatmeals and fresh fruits in the menu. Some seats were facing outside, giving a nice morning view, despite in the middle of city.
At 8am we gathered around at the ground lobby, and took the minivans that brought us to Awana SkyCentral. From the SkyCentral, we took a gondola towards Genting Highlands. The weather was perfect for our journey. The haze gave us a cooling and calming effect while riding the gondola.
When we were approaching Genting Highlands station around 10am, it was still hazy, so the visual experience was amazing, as you can see in the video of us approaching the terminal. However some of our friends who were afraid of heights didn’t really enjoy the trip.
About half an hour journey, we arrived at the SkyAvenue shopping mall. We originally planned to walked around the SkyAvenue shopping mall, but since SkyWorlds theme park was just opened, we decided to enter the theme park first.
Pictured before this is the situation inside “Independence Day: Defiance” ride. For me this was the best ride I have ever had. It was a 4D simulator ride, where you sit in a seat that moves according to the movie. Moreover, in this ride, the three rows of seats were stacked vertically during the show and the screen was large enough to make you feel that you were exactly inside the fictional world.
Upon walking around the park, I saw a huge building having a partial burnt effect I found out later that it was actually burnt during an incident. An online article from astro Awani confirmed it.
One nice feature of the park was the existence of mobile app and the integrations. From the app, we can see estimated waiting time of each ride, helping us picking the next ride to have. Our team also bought a photo taking package, where we could request official photographers took pictures of app, and delivered nicely to the app.
Some of us exited the park with the hope of having a good lunch at the shopping mall, but the meals there were generally expensive, so they came back inside the park and had lunch there. I joined them and ordered a vegetarian fried rice. We then walked around the mall a little bit more then took the gondola down, to Genting Highland Premium Outlets. I had meals at food court, long chat with my brother, and oleh-oleh hunting. The food court only accepted cashless payment, and my OCBC debit card came to the rescue.
It was a longer minivan trip back to the city as we had traffic jams here and there. I was quite exhausted that night, so a local Indian hawker nearby the hotel became my choice for dinner. I had a nice roti (also known as prata in singapore) and thosai (a.k.a. dosa in India) for dinner.
The next day was the day for a walk in the city and free time. We started our journey by walking to Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) MRT station. The station was recently went viral because Apple has just opened a flagship store inside the TRX building. Samsung responded by buying the naming right for the MRT station, naming the station as Samsung Galaxy station.
We bought a single trip ticket. The single trip ticket was different compared to other MRTs I have ever tried. It was in form of a plastic coin instead of card. It turned out that in the exit gate, the coin was expected to be returned by plunging it to the machine, just like in the old arcade games.
We alighted at Ampang Park station, then took a walk to the Petronas Twin Towers. Along the way I saw a grafitti of hatred to three specific countries. Not sure why, but as a computer nerd I could say that the writer had a mixed up between Korea and Japan. If you don’t get the joke, see this Wikipedia article.
We took pictures in front of Twin Towers and walked around the KLCC shopping mall. Inside, there was the Cold Storage, a supermarket chain. Since it was a tourist area, the supermarket also sells plenty of souvenirs. Next to the KLCC building, there was the KLCC public park, a perfect place for jogging or simple stroll along the park.
For lunch, we stopped by Nasi Kandar Pelita, a relatively famous chain of local food. They had this huge fish head curry in the menu. The food was good, but somewhat too oily.
Just after I finished lunch, I received a direct message from a long time friend from high school, N. He noticed my instagram stories and told me that he was in Kuala Lumpur as well. We then made appointment to meet, and it was a perfect occassion for the free time of the company outing.
N picked me up around 4pm, and drove me to a place called SS2, west of Kuala Lumpur. We had a nice dinner of Pan Mee, followed by some durians.
In case you didn’t know, durian is a fruit mostly famous in Southeast Asia. It’s a very sweet fruit, but have a distinct smell that makes half population of the world hate it. Here in SS2, was the first time that I saw durian tasting served as the commodity for tourist attraction. Many different types of durians were sold, either for takeaway or dine in. I originally thought that the Musang King variant is the, well, king. But N told me that Black Thorne is another contender. However, just like coffee, different variants of durian give different unique tastes and each people have their own preferences.
N then drove me back to the hotel. Though the food was great, it was the insipiring conversation with him that I enjoyed the most. N is a cancer survior, and before this I only knew the story from his facebook posts.
What I didn’t know, was that he finished a thriathlon before, and diagnosed with the cancer just two months after. It started with a regular check of his pain on the knee to just make sure everything was allright, but ended up that something was not right. This “something is not right” surprise also happened to me when I did a check on swelling of my right knee, that ended up with surgery (see this post). Long story short, when the doctor confirmed his illness, he rushed back home from Kuala Lumpur to Indonesia, just a few days before countries closed their borders to COVID-19 pandemic. After many chemotherapies and tranplant, he survived.
On the last hours before going home, I still had ringgit coins in my pocket. Therefore I took the time in the morning to have another roti and kopi at a hawker nearby.
We then packed things up and took the minivan trip to the airport. I have plenty of free time at the Malaysia airport but maybe not when I am back in Indonesia. Therefore, the story ends here. Thanks for reading this far.
After lunch, we took the hotel’s free shuttle bus that brought us to Tropicana City Mall, where we bought some snacks and bottled mineral waters for our stock at the hotel. I didn’t miss the chance to buy some packs of Old Town brand coffee. Thanks to my former colleague 
We passed about 11 stops before the Petronas Twin Tower. At some stops, the bus waited for 5-10 minutes to maintain the 30 minutes interval, as well as giving the passenger a chance to take a quick look on the tourist spot. One of the interesting spots is the Istana Negara (national palace), where visitors can take picture with one of the two guards on a horse in front of the gate. Somehow I pity them, having all those military trainings just to be the object of tourist photography.
We spent the first half of the game trying to find where was my brother. We then found out he was wearing shirt #7, after asking another viewer who turned out to be a Malaysian studying in Jakarta, having played for Indonesia’s Banteng rugby club. Sadly, it was an uneven match for Indonesia, as Guam beaten them 38-17. Understandable, considering short training time for Indonesia, and the captain’s injury just a day before the match. However, we heard the good news days after we went back, that Indonesia beaten China for 37-13 on the final, securing the place in division 3.
The hotel’s taxi ride to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) cost almost MYR 150, but luckily I asked for another option. A regular cab cost only MYR 100. Still more expensive than taking a SkyBus from KL Sentral, but we didn’t have the luxury of time anymore. We wandered around at KLIA main building for a moment, had lunch there, and took a shuttle bus to the LCCT, as our flight would took off from there. The journey lasted for half an hour, a long trip considering both are in the same area. The check in experience in LCCT was no better than the arrival. We had to walk quite a distance from entrance to the check in counter, immigration and the boarding gate. There were limited signages, and one can easily mixed up too, when walking from the boarding gate to the aircraft. On the bright side, the airport was generally clean and well-ordered.
