Genting Highland 2004 – Day 1

Today we went to Genting Highlands (duh!) Maybe some of you might not be veru familiar with this place, Let me breif you about this interesting place my family decided to go on a trip (for those who know what the hell it is please move on).

Genting Highland is situated 51km northeast of the federal capital of Kuala Lumpur (cool). It can be accessed by two roads – the Karak Highway and the Batang kali Road. The Batang Kali Road is really lousy and bumpy and please prepare enough food and water for 7 days (in case you’re stuck in this road, which not much peeps use it). It’s advisable / obvious that you should use the Karak Highway.

There are only a few ways we peeps can go to our destination:
(1) By air, which we could not afford to.
(2) By bus, which we never do it before for at least 15 years.
(3) By car, which is the most appropriate choice.

So, of course, we went there by our new car, Nissan X-Trail. Instead of bearing the risk that the sickening viaduct (which has cracks developing on 33 out of the total of 36 supporting pillars) would collapse anytime, we still used the Middle Ring Road as it is the fastest route available from Kuala Lumpur to Genting Highlands.

Then we used Karak Highway, where lots of landslides occur near the Bentong section. Really chilly but we still used it. Although it’s not really THAT cheap for the toll fees of this highway, but for some reasons we decided to use it, maybe because it’s not as bumpy as those ulu-ulu (ulu-ulu means a very backward town or village in English) roads.

Scenic (not really ‘scenic’) drive along the Karak Highway

Then we started our uphill journey from an interchange just beofre the Karak Highway tunnel, which would lead us straight to the doorstep of Genting Highland. Luckily this trip the uphill jounrey is not plagued with slow-moving lorries and fast-driving crazy taxis. I saw only a few of them, that’s why I deemed the journey ‘lucky’.

 
Driving on the mountain road leading us to Genting Highland.

We passed Awana Resort Hotel, which is located half-way round the road, then we started to feel the chilly, cool, fresh air and seeing mist suspending mid-air. Everyone in the car started going ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ because they knew that we’re reaching our destination. My mom starts to nag about my brother and I for not putting on our sweaters.

See? That’s mist! Wow, great.

We reached Resort Hotel’s lobby at about 12.30pm. Really excited as I can only get to feel this type of natural cold air twice a year. I helped my parents who are nagging about which room to take and what floor to stay to put all our luggage onto a cart, so that the hotel attendant could help us put them into the room.

The Resort Hotel lobby.

There was quite a lot of people queuing up to check-in to their respective room. Luckily we got there quite early, as since the check-in time is 3.00pm, lots of people would get there later then us, so we got our early ticket to be checked-in earlier.

My mom was in great joy as Coffee Bean is just located at the hotel lobby. She wouldn’t live without two cups of thick coffee a day – she’s a coffee addict.

Coffee Bean at the hotel lobby.

We got a room located at the 18th floor, the highest and non-smoking floor of the Resort Hotel. The room has a theme park and Kuala Lupmpur view, which is the most popular view. Luckily we get there earlier, or not rooms with this view would have been occupied.

The elevator landing on ther 18th floor.

This hotel looks nice in the interior but not very appealing when viewing from the outside. It looks sort of nerdy and over-uniformity.

The nerdy looks of Resort Hotel from outdoor.

After dinner we went for a night walk in Genting Highlands. As the weather outside there was really cold (it was approximately 19 degrees Celcius out there!), which is not suitable for my grandparents to stay outside there for walks, we decided to pay First World Plaza a visit.

The decorations in the plaza are some sort of ‘pirated’ ones, for example the one below:

Does this seem very familiar to you?

I even tried to take a picture of the ‘pirated’ version of the Statue Of Liberty. But it’s a cloudy night, the place is not well-lit and in addition there is not enough battery energy to charge my camcorder’s strobe, so I decided not to take a picture of it. I believe that you can just type ‘Status Of Liberty’ on Google’s search to find it’s picture.

We walked past the entrance of Snow World, who claimed itself as the coldest theme park in Malaysia. Little kids enjoyed more by playing hide-and-seek at home by hiding in the refrigerator – Lim Goh Thong (the founder of Genting Highland) can really boast.

The Snow World logo.

Strolling in the plaza fitted with realistic outdoor pavements and fake plants, I finally took a shot on the rides in there. The rides in there were very poor-lit so I can only find this ride, which is the best-lit ride – the no-big-babies-wanna-ride Carousel.

The Carousel.

The streets in First World Plaza.

Oddly my parents decided to go outdoor, maybe because of the high carbon dioxide level in the plaza. Luckily it wasn’t really that cold out there already. We walked past Highland Hotel and Genting Hotel. I took some memorable shots of them.

 
The Highland Hotel (left) and the Genting Hotel (right). They sure look nice at night!

We retunred to our room as tired souls. My parents want to go to the Casino to try out their luck, and they nagging about what numbers they’re going to bet makes me REALLY sleepy.