Our plans to travel to Malaysia have been long in the making. Neither of us having been before thought it a great opportunity to explore somewhere new. Our journey to Malaysia was a bit convoluted but that was all part of the adventure. Our first leg was a 10 hour flight to South Korea leaving mid-day and arriving the next day in the early evening. Flying into Korea we flew over Japan and got a spectacular plane’s eye view of Mt. Fuji. Our layover in Korea was about 6 hours of waiting around in the airport. From Korea we then flew a red-eye 5 hour flight to Singapore. Thankfully we both got some sleep on leg two so when we arrived in the wee early morning in Singapore we weren’t entirely exhausted. We had four hours to kill in Singapore and if there is any airport in the world to have a longer layover, Singapore takes the cake! They have a lot of attractions for visitors to occupy their time with, like visiting an enchanted garden, a butterfly garden, a massive waterfall, and even a movie theatre; no movie for us though. The airport has plenty to do and see including lots of places to shop and eat. Our final leg took us to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and was a quick 35 minute flight on Singapore Airlines that even included a meal service. The service on Singapore Airlines was top notch, so efficient and extremely friendly. Our approach into Malaysia gave us a great view of the landscape and noticed how lush and plentiful their palm oil trees are. Malaysia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil trees and rubber trees.
We knew we didn’t need a visa to enter, but discovered while boarding our flight over that we were supposed to fill out a digital visitor’s card before arrival. A slight amount of panic set in for me, which then got further exacerbated when Z tried to access the site and it was down for maintenance. Not much we could do besides hope that didn’t slow down our arrival process. We were the first in the immigration line, much to our surprise, no other flights arrived around our arrival time. We both had to individually see an immigration officer and after a couple questions, none of which were anything about the digital visitor’s card, our passports were stamped and we were off to collect our luggage. After three legs on two different airlines and not having our luggage AirTags register where they were since we left on our first flight we were relieved to see our baggage arrive and come off the plane relatively quickly; though a little worse for wear. A 45 minute taxi ride later we arrived at the W Kuala Lumpur around noon; and with crossing the International Date Line to get here, officially 48 hours after we left.
The W is conveniently located in KL city centre and a short walk to the Petronas Twin Towers, the world’s tallest twin towers. We had a spacious room on the 15th floor with an amazing view of the towers. As in true W fashion, the room had unique decor with beautiful, modern art above the bed and a unique hanging light feature by the bed. Most everything in the room was automated with button controls at the side of the bed. We had a king sized bed, with a chaise lounger and chair off to the side by the floor to ceiling window. Immediately to the right of the entrance door was a walk in closet and just beyond that was a hidden coffee/tea station, mini fridge and elevated table with bar stool. The bathroom was fairly large with a separate soaker tub from the enclosed rain shower and with the toilet room at the back of the room. It was a lovely room and given Z’s loyalty we were surprised with the delivery of a nice bottle of Wolf Blass Shiraz and a cheese tray while we were out and about. Another perk was a welcome gift at check-in which in hindsight was only meant for us to receive one, but when we were shown the cool W KL branded water bottle and asked which colour we’d like, I immediately blurted out “one of each” without thinking and the front desk agent clearly didn’t have the heart to correct me so we got one of each! We later noticed that one of them wasn’t actually branded so we exchanged it at check out and they were so grateful for us pointing out the defect. Score on the water bottles!
On the 12 floor of the hotel is the Wet deck, aka the pool area and pool bar. After such a long journey we decided to go for a dip and have some lunch before we started exploring KL. The pool was super refreshing from the scorching sun and heat. With humidity the temperature was around 37C with no breeze. The surrounding deck area had plenty of seating, though no real sun loungers ( guess that’s not a thing here?) and more seating under a covered area around the bar. It was a relaxing atmosphere during the day and in the evening becomes more of a “bar scene” with live DJ blasting the tunes. We enjoyed a couple complimentary drinks and canapés there one evening.
The breakfast restaurant called Flock is a farm to table concept restaurant. The breakfast buffet spread was one of the largest and most diverse we’ve experienced. There was a pastry station towards the entrance of the restaurant and thankfully always far away from where we were seated so we weren’t tempted by the delicious looking treats. The range of food options was vast, including made to order egg dishes, breads and cereal, a large variety of cheeses, live growing lettuce you cut for salad, numerous curry dishes, a noodle station, different meats, a variety of dumplings, fresh fruit, and several different yogurts. There was a variety of fresh juices, smoothies, and power juice mixtures. The options felt endless and then there was even a selection of a la carte items we could order. Needless to say there was no reason to leave breakfast hungry.
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