A tourist’s bragging rights for visiting the Twin Towers isn’t complete if he hasn’t been to the Sky Bridge. So today, as discussed since our day one, we convinced our lazy bodies to move out of the mattresses, left the comfy cool bedroom behind and braved the hot and humid Malaysian climate to be on time for the Petronas Sky Bridge’s pass issuance.
Our group arrived at Petronas past 7 a.m. Seeing that the area is somewhat clear of people we thought that we were the early birds. Good thing we smelled something fishy just after a couple of minutes—who would want to come in late for the opportunity to visit the Sky Bridge? No one.
We were right. After asking for directions and following the way to the visitor’s entrance, tourists have started to queue and accumulate. We estimated that there were already 70 plus visitors including ourselves. The pass per day only accommodates around 200. We were included in the 9:15 a.m. batch.
The Sky Bridge visit we learned wasn’t only just about going straight up and then it will be over. It started with a 3D movie presentation in a small theater and followed by an interactive visit to an activity center where several aspects of the towers’ construction were shown. There is also one display wherein visitors will find their own height compared to the towers by positioning in a portal that automatically computes the comparison at a push of via button. Cool.
The Sky Bridge visit is limited to approximately 10 minutes only to allow the rest of the visitors for that day. Even then, it was worth enough as the view looking down from the bridge is just as awesome as the view from the outside looking up. One thing I learned from the guide was that the movie Entrapment’s tower scenes weren’t actually shot there but were rather filmed in a studio with a replica of the Twin Towers. That made me hate the movie even more.
At the end of the tour, another place we paid a visit to was the shopping area at Jalan Bunus, which to our surprise and dismay sells mostly textiles for typical Muslim clothing. The whole group didn’t find anything interesting so we checked our map and saw that Central Market is just a couple of blocks nearby.
Despite Lani’s protesting legs we proceeded with the transfer anyhow. We passed by picturesque mosques and buildings along the way that I was busy taking photos and shooting videos. Even one of the public buses didn’t escape my wife’s attention. It has an F1 paint job on it. So posed she did right in front of the curious crowd.
Upon reaching the Central Market, the gloomy sky poured down which gave us a better reason to enjoy a mug of hot coffee and noodles. We found a nice coffee shop in the middle of the shopping center called Old Town White Coffee. Their coffee menu was diverse and unique. Of course, more importantly, the price tag is cheaper than the rest of the cafes in the Central Market and this is one of the cases where you-get-what-you-paid-for line doesn’t apply. The coffee was really good, so good that it could give Starbucks a run for their money.
The cheap but tasty coffee gave us some ringgits to spare for a last minute souvenir shopping. There was this one stall called KL Idea where we spilled our spare bills/coins. The store owners were nice and accommodating and I learned from them that this year is actually Malaysia’s 50th anniversary as a nation. Philippines celebrated our 100th year a couple of years ago. Just saying.
Marcus Can Blog 