Today we visited the King’s palace. Malaysia is made up of 13 states with one king and one prime minister. There are 9 sultan and 4 governors. Kings can reign for 5 years and can only be reelected after 45 years. Only one king has been able to serve twice as he was the only one able to live long enough. The Sultan of Baja is the current king of Malaysia. The king is able to pardon drug and gun crimes. If you are caught possessing more than a 50 cent coin size worth of drugs you can be hanged. The palace is only open 1 day out of the year. The king is also the supreme army head of the country. The prime minister also needs the king’s permission for military matters. And finally, the king is the head of Muslim. The rest of the power in Malaysia goes to the Prime Minister. There are 50 rooms in the palace. 18 year olds in Malaysia just got approved to be able to vote. The previous voting age was 21.
Next we went to a national memorial and gardens. During 1914-1918, the Malays helped with logistics during World War I. However, a lot of promises were made by the British but were never fulfilled. In 1989, there were no more communists. The sculpture at the national monument was made by the same sculptor that made Iwo Jima in Washington D.C. The sculpture garden contained pieces representing different parts of the world.
After the gardens, we went on a short walking tour around Kuala Lumpur. The first building we saw was the Supreme Court. Kuala Lumpur means muddy estuary. Since tin is a major resource found in Malaysia, there is a lot of tin history in the capital. A few centuries ago, individuals would walk towards the current location of the twin towers. It would take them 3-4 days to walk to the tin mine and then go to the river before returning back home. Eventually, the British found tin too and started to mine as well. One tradition was to throw a watermelon into the river. They would wait 3 days and then journey to find the watermelon down river. Wherever the watermelon stopped would be the location to look for tin. In the 1970s and 1980s, this river was known to be one of the dirtiest in Malaysia. The taller the building in Malaysia, the more wealthy the individual.
After the city tour we arrived at the Twin Towers. The Twin Towers contain a financial district and mall. The Petronas Twin Towers are the tallest twin towers in the world. Between 1998 and 2004 they were the tallest buildings in the world. After eating lunch at the mall inside the Petronas, we were able to experience the skybridge. After going through extensive security, we were able to take an elevator up the Twin Towers. We first stopped at the bridge between the two. The bridge is not fully connected to the buildings so sometimes you can feel it sway. After taking many pictures on the bridge, we went up another thirty floors to the top of the building. There we were able to look out over the city and spend some time relaxing. This experience in the Twin Towers made me think about the Twin Towers in New York City and 9/11. My guess is that security at the Petronas did not exist before 9/11. I was very hesitant to go up the Petronas because of the devastation the world has experienced because of the U.S. Twin Towers.
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