What we could walk to in KL or priviledge exists everywhere.

Everyday, we've been going, going, going and by 8pm I am struggling to keep eyes open. It started in Singapore when we saw how much time we really had there and has continued to be our pace.  Today we started to break that. We knew very little of the things "we had to do/see in the city."  While we looked through a few blogs to get an idea of what to do or see, many of them actually focused on things out of the city that we had already done(Batu caves for instance), were planning on doing or not super interested in. We also had already done a few things and were situated right by the more modern part of the city, so wanted to focus on cultural or historical aspects.

We planned a rough itinerary based on a map provided by the hotel, which pretty much had anything you wanted to see from a historical perspective in walking distance of this place called central market.  What's kind of funny is that as we headed out with all intention of landing there first, it wound up being our last stop.

We walked from our hotel, ready to go about 25 minutes or so. The heat, somehow did not seem to be an issue(which neither of us spoke about until our walk was over afraid that it would somehow not last).  We found the city gallery first and got a good overview of the area and got to do some silly stunts at the exhibits.  We then found ourselves next to Independence square and a building of the Sultan's.  We continued walking around a heritage route but missed the timing of this countdown clock(where you are supposed to be able to walk through water streams) and a mosque(buuuut at least both of us would have had to cover up).  We intended to go back but got too far away and turned back to the hotel in search of a way to break the now very present heat(by swimming).  Before we left we made it to chinatown and grabbed some food and finally made it to central market, an artisan market.

We took a taxi. We had been warned by every website and non taxi driver not to take a taxi that negotiated rates ahead of time. Yet, we could never find a taxi driver willing to use the meter. Too tired to bother with it, we again played a much higher rate than we probably needed to.

But we got the respite we desired by jumping in the pool 24 floors up at our hotel and plotted out our next step. If we could do 24 floors up we could handle 37 floors up and go to a pretty iconic bar right??

We got ready and headed out. The building itself was fairly nondescript. You almost wouldnt know that a pretty happening place was over 30 floors up. Once we arrived, we were offered to go to the bar(on the roof), the lounge(with windows, on floor 34) or dinner(also with windows on floor 34).  We opted to eat first and had the while restaurant to ourselves. While it was not cheap for Malaysian standards($42 total-most of our meals are not going about $14 and that's still expensive for Malaysia), it was delicious(I had a duck salad, he had lamb chops) and gave my body what it needed to get used to how high up we were.

And then we ascended, three more stories. The final story on a staircase that exposed about 10 floors of emptiness below. We arrived on the top and it felt like we were entering the set of a superhero movie. There were several tables with chairs and a simple rope(like you'd see to keep people in line at TSA or an amusement ride) along the outside. That was it. It took a while for me to sit down but Joe quickly found a table and settled in.

We each ordered a drink and a snack. Was not at all as good as we had expected considering how delicious our meal had been below.

We also noticed that all the tables on the outside were marked reserved. We watched as each couple or group attempted to take the table, saw the sign, stayed for a picture or two and then walked away.  This was until this group of 2 white males with a white woman and Asian women walked through. The alpha male, tells his friends that they should go over and them even smugly says something like "watch this", comes over and then takes the reserved sign down and hides it on the floor and invites his group to take a seat.  I have no idea where he/they were from but I know they were white. I know that I watched at least 10 other groups attempt to sit there(including Joe) and gave up when they saw the sign. This man did not. It was evidence to me of the implicit messages sent through media, passed down generationally etc. This man(who presented as a white man of means) had no qualms about taking something that wasn't his.  I had a problem with this. And as we left, I let the bartenders know, just in case someone else had reserved it or, in my best case scenario, all people who were up there, would get a few minutes to sit up there, sharing the priviledge and not keeping it for the already privileged.