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Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary
In October Troy and I went with a handful of his coworkers to check out this neat little place about 1.5-2 hours northeast of Kuala Lumpur. Along with being a scenic roadtrip away, it boasted the opportunity to feed and interact with elephants. I was soooooooo excited and couldn’t wait to get there.The elephant sanctuary is located in a very rural area that is fairly easy to get to……..if you’re paying attention. We got turned around a little bit because our gps told us to turn right when we should have turned left and we ended up at this compound with barbed wire around it. Yikes! After a quick turn around and…
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Visiting Kuala Lumpur’s National Mosque
HISTORICAL TIDBIT Masjid Negara is what the locals call the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur. This mosque was built in 1965 in honor of Malaysia gaining independence from Great Britain without any bloodshed in 1957. It was originally to be named Masjid Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj in honor of Yang Teramat Mulia Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj, who was the Chief Minister of Malaysia during British rule and the first Prime Minister after the Malaysians began ruling themselves, but he declined the honor and instead chose Masjid Negara as the name. OUR VISIT Visiting the National Mosque was a nice experience. I had been a bit nervous about visiting because I wasn’t…
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30 Things To Do In Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is a great city to visit. I absolutely love it there and think everyone should visit at least once in their lives. There is a lot of history in KL and quite a lot of unique things to see, though it’s not always easy to figure out what those things are. When we first moved to KL and were looking for things to do, the most common things found were KL Tower, Petronas Tower and Batu Caves. While these things are fun and worth doing, there is sooooooooooooooooo much more to do there. So, to help you have a full experience of the neat things in Kuala Lumpur,…
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Cathedral Church of St. Mary the Virgin
While I was out wandering around Merdeka Square one day, I glanced across a small side road and happened to see this cute little church hidden behind a fence covered in ivy. Since it is somewhat unusual to see Christian churches in Malaysia and the year on it marks this one as quite old, I just had to go over and investigate. This church is so quaint. I love it! Cathedral Church of St. Mary the Virgin is an Anglican church that was commissioned in 1893 when the original building became too small to hold the growing congregation. The original chapel, named St. Mary’s Church, was built in 1887, made of wood…
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Sri Kandaswamy Kovil
During the 1800s large groups of Tamil Hindus moved from Sri Lanka to Malaysia to help construct railway lines. Many ended up settled in the area that is now known as Brickfields in Kuala Lumpur because it was so close to where the lines were being built. Life was much improved from what it had been in Sri Lanka, but many of them missed having a formal temple to worship in. Up until 1890 they had been worshiping informally in homes and at small, makeshift shrines. On December 24, 1890, though, the leaders of the Saivite Ceylon Hindu Community decided they wanted something more permanent and the plan for Sri Kandaswamy Kovil was…
