EE & S Adventures

On our last (non travel day) of our adventures we choose to take a trip to the Royal Selangor factory in the KL suburbs.  Royal Selangor are the worlds most famous producers of pewter.  They are a Malaysian institution, probably an Australian equivalent would be Akubra as an iconic brand. The worlds largest Pewter tankard Royal Selangor offer a free shuttle bus with hotel pick up and drop off.  This makes the factory a very cost effective tourist attraction.  Unless of course you buy Pewter and pay for a signature experience which we of course did. But first the free tour which was quite interesting and informative.  The guide was thankfully brief in his explanations and stories as we moved quickly through the factory museum and on to watching craftsmen and women at work.  We even had a go at stamping a pattern in pewter which is not as easy as it looks. After our tour we partook of our experience where we got to hammer out our own pewter bowl...

Our second visit to a butterfly park on this trip (after Magic Wings ) got off to a bad start.  The KL Butterfly Park must be the only tourist attraction in the whole of Malaysia that only accepts cash.  Even stalls at the KL central market prefer plastic.  Since we walked to the park, I (Eric) enjoyed an extra 3km of walking to find an ATM. The park wasn't quite up to the standard of Magic Wings, nevertheless their was a fair flock of exotic butterflies for us to enjoy.  We spent a good hour wandering around the subtropical enclosure taking photos when butterflies settled on flowers and feeder tables and Samuel. As well as butterflies, the park also featured a large display of dead insects - primarily ferocious looking giant beetles which we didn't linger around or photograph.  Lets stick to the butterflies... After the Butterfly Park it was a short walk to the Bird Park.  This was a much larger and more commercial attraction ...

A visit to KL wouldn't be complete without a trip to the local market.  So on a warm and sweaty morning we set out on the 2km walk from our apartment.  We soon realised it may have been nicer to catch a cab. Anyway befor we went to the market we stopped by the interesting Sultan Abdul Samad building.  Built as a Government office in the 1800's, I'm not sure what it's used for now, and you can't go inside, but it does look quite spectacular and interesting (at least the bit not covered by scaffolding that is). We then headed to the Market and lo and behold, we ran into an eclipse.  As you do. The Market itself was ok.  Not super exciting but there was a few nice things if you searched.  Samuel brought some cute cat bags as gifts for his friends and we grabbed one or two other small things.  We did strike it lucky with the food court where we ate lunch, reinforcing the view we were forming that the dirtier and dingier the premises, the better...