The City That Truly Never Sleeps

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

What can I possibly say about this place to make you understand?!? It's New York City on crack. Skyscrapers, people, endless advertisements, food, shopping, traffic, tourists, more shopping, more people, awful smells, incredible smells, lots more shopping, hotels, dark and pissy alleys, TEKSIs (that's taxi, for clarification), hawkers, vendors, 7-Elevens, eye-catching lighting, architecture, and more shopping!!! 

There aren't enough superlatives in the English language for me to use to describe the sheer size and volume of malls here. Every single corner has a mall. Even when it looks like it might be a hotel or business building, go inside and find my words true. And these aren't any puny rinkydink malls, either. They are ENORMOUS! Every one of them is bigger, broader, goes deeper underground, is built higher, consists of more stores and more attractions than the last. Some malls are specific, like the electronics mall. Store upon store upon level upon level of every electronics brand you can think of plus hundreds more that you've never seen before. Prices? Not anything special because of the area of town, I'm guessing. But I was too overwhelmed to shop, anyway. Oh, and they entertain you all the while! Dancers, singers, drummers, fire dancers, dragons, fireworks, theme parks, and on and on and on. My head is still spinning.

And just so we are clear: when I went to sleep at 4am on my first night, the city was still in a heightened state of awareness. Markets continued to make and distribute food, kids were running around playing, people were out clubbing, stores remained open, sidewalks were crowded, vendors were pushing their products in your face, people at intersections were singing and drawing crowds, and I couldn't hang anymore. KL showed no signs of slowing down, so I pulled my own plug. Lights out.