Kirk has been waiting for this weekend for practically his entire life and it's finally here! We arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, September 29. The taxi ride to our hotel was a bit harrowing, because the driver seemed to have no idea where he was going. During our drive, he stopped at a rest area for prayer time, while we waited awkwardly in the car. We made it to Chinatown, where our hotel was located and we were thrilled to learn that we could walk out the front door to the hotel, into the heart of Chinatown. It consists of a few blocks of restaurants and vendor stalls full of souvenirs, street food, clothing, shoes, purses, and anything else you can imagine. Absolute heaven. We sat at a restaurant, which we soon found out is a local hang-out for British and Australian ex-pats. We immediately made friends with a British guy who was also attending the race.
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We spent Friday looking around the markets and the surrounding areas, including Central Market, which is just a few bloks from our hotel. We also hopped on the subway to plot our route to the race. The subway and light rail system in Kuala Lumpur is fast, cheap and very easy to navigate. I highly recommend it as the best way to get around the city. While we were in the KL Sentral, we looked around the attached shopping mall and ran into a guy wearing a Texas A&M shirt. Always great to see a fellow Aggie!
Saturday was Qualifying Day for F-1 and we went to the track around 10:30 am. We scoped out our seats, and decided to buy seats in a better section. Since our oringal tickets were only $25 each, we didn't feel to badly about throwing them away. Our new seats were absolutely amazing. We had a clear view of the main straightaway and turns 1 and 2, which is a passing zone. Incredibly, there was no one sitting around us for two rows, so we had lots of room. We watched the only American competing in any of the races that weekend, win the TCR International Serie race and we watched our favorite driver, Lewis Hamilton, qualify in first place for Formula One.
Sunday was RACE DAY!! We got to the track about noon and walked around the track to see the vendors, food and tents and then took our seats for the big event. The race was exciting, of course, and we saw a couple of small crashes in the turns in front of us. It really looked as though Hamilton was going to win the race, but his car blew up right in front of our seats, and he was out of the race. Teammate Nico Rossberg took first place instead. What a great day!
On Monday, we took the subway to the Petronas Towers and they were quite interesting. We considered giong to the top, but it cost $50 and it didn't seem worth that much. It was still pretty cool to see. We also went to Jalen Bukit Bintang, which is a street with tons of street food from all over the world. I was really looking forward to some good grub, but I think we got there too early. Most of the vendors weren't set up yet. Still, it was interesting to see. We spent the rest of our last day in KL, relaxing at the hotel and walking around Chinatown.
Overall, I would say KL was a fabulous place to visit, and the race was definitely a highlight of the trip thus far. Time to get back to the beach, though. :-)
