Current modern Kuala Lumpur
Nowadays, the city truly is a metropolis with a big central business district with many tall skyscrapers, many international renowned hotels and numerous luxurious shopping malls. It lies approximately 40 kilometers from the coast, within the federal state of Selangor (but politically not part of Selangor). Kuala Lumpur’s harbor Port Klang, is the largest in whole Malaysia. It is situated at the mouth of the river Klang. The city is over 243 square kilometers in size and about 1.8 million people live in its centre. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of over 8 million.
Citizens of Kuala Lumpur are earning more and more. The overall lifestyle is improving by the day as personal wealth is growing in a rapid pace. The current city’s growth is enormous. There are many new projects that in time will attract more business and more people from outside KL and also from outside Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur has a big expat community; thousands of highly skilled foreigners work and live in the city. Expat numbers are growing which cannot be said of many of the neighboring countries. Expats that come to KL especially love the perfect balance between Asian and western influences. KLIA (International Airport) attracts many millions of visitors yearly; a big portion of them are tourists that either come and travel through Malaysia, or they have a short stopover in Kuala Lumpur on their way to Australia, New Zealand (or Europe and the U.S.)
SHOPPING HEAVEN
Kuala Lumpur is known as a Shopping Heaven. Especially in the central district of KL (also known as KLCC – Kuala Lumpur City Center), you can find a variety of shopping malls. The following malls are our favorites, and certainly worth a visit: Pavilion KL, Midvalley Mega Mall & The Gardens, Berjaya Times Square, Suria KLCC and 1 Utama. Most malls are located at the Bintang Walk, along Jalan Bukit Bintang. Shopping in KL seems like an activity no one will ever get fed up with. Most malls are opened daily between 10 am and 10 pm. Yes, 7 days a week to 10 o’clock in the evening; this literally means you will be able to shop until you drop into your hotel bed. The only downside is that after a few visits every mall will start to look like the one before. Many of the shops in one mall can also be found in others. Fortunately, after a while you will know exactly where to shop. There are several sales yearly; these usually take place in the months of August, May and December.
CLIMATE IN KUALA LUMPUR
Kuala Lumpur has a year-round tropical climate which is warm and sunny, along with abundant rainfall. It can even rain daily during the northeast monsoon season from October to March. June and July are relatively dry. Temperatures tend to remain constant and hover between 31 and 33 °C. Flooding is a frequent occurrence in Kuala Lumpur whenever there is a heavy downpour, especially in the city centre and downstream areas. Dust particles from forest fires from nearby Sumatra sometimes cast a haze over the region (especially bad between June and August). It is a major source of pollution in the city together with open burning, emission from motor vehicles and construction work. This is also the reason why many people from KL travel to the nearby ‘highlands’ like Frasers Hill, Genting and also to clean forest like FRIM in weekends.
RESTAURANTS, F&B OUTLETS AND MAMAK STALLS
The city of Kuala Lumpur has many restaurants and F&B outlets. On every street corner you will notice people are eating and drinking while hanging out a bit with close friends or family, co-workers or business acquaintances. If you are staying within the city center you are probably best of at one of the foodcourts in the many big shopping malls. People with stronger stomachs can opt to check out Jalan Alor with especially Chinese hawkers. Same goes for the area around Jalan Petaling (Chinatown). Food in Malaysia in general is usually quite good and of fine quality compared to some neighboring countries. This doesn’t mean that you should just eat everywhere you like. A good way to measure the quality is to check whether locals eat there too. Usually popular places are very crowded in Kuala Lumpur; which could also be a sign that the food is good (though this is not always a good rule of thumb).
It is impossible to list all available restaurants, diners, foodcourts, hawkers, brasseries, desert places and bars in Kuala Lumpur. We do have a list with our personal favorites. There is something available for every dinner mood, from local mamak to Chinese food, from Italian to Indian food, from Japanese to even German (and of course French, Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese, Arabic, Spanish, South-American, Korean and much more).