Monkey Protests

Today was a long day of wandering with Max and Sushil.  I'll spare the details and maybe fill them in with a picture some other time, but just leave with the finer points.

Who knew about the political unrest in malaysia?  Not me!  So today was a huge protest that was supposed to get (although I dont' know the final count) about 100,000 protesters.  You know, just the environment us tourists feel comfortable around.  "Just don't wear yellow or red," we were advised so I left my big bird suit hanging up next to my red Phillies Jersey.  Walking around the town was completely unbelievable.  By that, I mean it was a such a quiet day.  It seemed like most of the streets were quiet; even the ones without police roadblocks.  Maybe people weren't out because they were avoiding the protests, and we just weren't near the protests.  well at one point I think we were close to them.

After talking to this australian gentleman who had been living in Kuala Lumpur for the past 4 years i think, told us all the things we should do, and all of it involved shopping or eating.  there's not a ton of touristy stuff to do here besides that.  So he directed us to these places that were kinda interesting.  He presented them as the govt wanted to clean up the street food, so gave the best ones indoor spaces to operate.  so what we're left with is in the first levels of  of the highest end malls i've ever seen are food courts with legitimately really good and really cheap and authentic food (interspersed with a starbucks or two).  at one point we were on our way to an electronics mall when i stopped walking because i started crying a bit as my eyes kinda stung a little.  After a second of recognition, I yell to the other two guys to come back to me.  they give me a funny look, but do as i asked (its rare i say something like that).  i guess there was a protest going on not far away, and i encountered diffuse tear gas (hence the tearing).  don't worry anyone, we couldn't see or hear anything going on.  maybe a half mile away we saw flashing lights, but nothing was going on within site.  so we went off the opposite direction, grabbed a leisurely lunch and then continued to the electronics mall, where the walk in between was again, quiet.  but this electronics mall was cool.  imagine a five storied mall with only computer and electronics stores.  so yeah, right up my alley.

then we walked around a while, and again it was super quiet out.  we were actually interviewed at one point by some guys working for an independent newspaper about our feelings on the protest today. We basically said we didn't see anything, it seemed quiet out to us.  i'm sure that'll make front page news.  Then we tried to check out a couple parks they have, all were closed, but in the parking lot we had some fun.  There was a group of monkeys!!!!  i love monkeys.  they make me smile.  We had some good conversations, played some chess and then shared some laughs. Well, maybe that's not exatly what happened with the monkeys, but there were a whole bunch of them and i took a ton of pictures because monkeys make me laugh even when their not giving me advice on investments.

No Mr. Tyrone, I do not think that investing in bananas is wise at the moment

but looks like we're taking it easy tonight.  twas a long tiring day.