Last full day!

Saturday 21st January 2017

I regret the comment I made about David Beckham's music selection for Desert Island Discs.....I was way off the mark suggesting he would choose nursery rhymes, it is totally obvious that he would choose Spice Girls hits!

Today is our last full day of holiday.  We will not arrive back till Monday morning but tomorrow and Monday morning will be taken up by travel.  As usual at the end of a holiday we are looking forward to getting back to normality and seeing friends and family but I don't think we will be too good adjusting to the weather when we return.

Our day involved a swim in the pool and then another excellent breakfast.  I had the cereal as normal followed by Sichuan duck omelette, coconut steamed rice with nuts, streaky smoked beef and shiitake mushrooms.  A little different from a normal cooked breakfast, don't you think.

We caught a taxi to the Royal Palace Museum.

The palace was built for tin tycoon, Chan Wing (quite a tongue twister) in 1928 and was used by the Japanese Governor during the Second World War.  In 1957 when Malaysia became independent it became the National Palace for the King and Queen of Malaysia till 2011 when they built a new residence.  We had to take our shoes off to enter the palace.

The Palace was a bit dated, I guess it hadn't been refurbished since it became a Royal Palace so in one way it has retained its authenticity.  All the Kings had exceedingly long names!  The current next in line is called....Ke Bawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia Al-Wathiqu Bilah Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin.  He had an exhibition of his personal items in the Throne Room.

Our next visit was to the National Mosque.  I have never been to a Mosque before, neither had Janice.

We had to adhere to the dress code in order to enter.

Janice called me Dumbledore!  I don't know why, she must be trying to get her own back.

We couldn't enter the main prayer area but I took this photo from the doorway.

I took a number of leaflets about The Islamic religion.  I feel a bit enlightened.  Allah is the only God.  Jesus is an Islam prophet before Mohammed, not the son of God and he will come again just before the End of the World and will judge by the law of the Qur'an.  I think that's probably enough religion!  We had taken our shoes off to enter once more.  When I was putting my shoes back on an Asian man asked me what I thought.  After a brief conversation I asked him where he was from, he said London, I told him I was from England and told him (jokingly) that we could be related!  He found it highly amusing and shook my hand.

We passed the KL Railway Station, which was the major station of the city.  It is still a station but only a minor one.  It is a faded grand building of the colonial era.

It is bigger than the photo suggests.  I just couldn't fit it all in.

We walked back through the city centre.  It was still managing to stay dry but still very hot and humid.  We walked through a Chinese type market street all geared up for the Chinese New Year.

We heard the sound of banging drums and located them inside a Bank and this is what we found....

There was a troupe of drummers (very loud) and these two Chinese dancing dragons.  There was a traditional ritual that involved the dragons distributing oranges and eating lettuce?  The locals were certainly excited by it as it was supposed to bring luck.  We watched it for about 20 minutes.  Janice's ears were ringing by the end.

We walked back to the  hotel.  In line with the Chinese theme I did my karate impression in the hotel bathrobe!

Then got down to the serious business of having afternoon tea and the complimentary cocktail period, 5-7pm.  It involves self serving free alcohol for 2 hours, I can't believe it!  Of course we will be drinking responsibly.

We had a last walk around the park to see the water and light show.

Perfect.