I did some more sightseeing this past weekend and took lots of pictures. But you still can't see them because I haven't taught myself how to get them off the camera and onto the computer. Hopefully I'll do that this weekend.

I saw the part of town that was the seat of British power back when the country was a British Colony. Called Merdeka Square, it has a huge Tudor style building at its center that was sort of a country club for the local British powers. There is a large field in front of the building that used to be their polo grounds. To the left of the square is the train station and to the right is the Anglican church, St Mary's. (yep, Derek, I took pictures)

From there, I visited my first mosque -- the oldest one in the city. Not being Muslim, they wouldn't actually let me go inside, but I was allowed to walk around the perimeter and take pictures. It was beautiful. And very spiritual. There are separate prayer places for men and women and I was able to observe while the prayer was going on. They pray 5 times a day! And I thought once-a-week Catholics were devout!

(In fact, the first prayer service starts at 5:40 a.m. I know because the chanting wakes me up at that time every morning! The chanting is so loud you can hear it all across the city. I need to buy me some ear plugs!)

I then wandered down to Chinatown. There's a huge indoor market there that used to be a "wet market" for seafood and produce, etc. Now it specializes in Malaysian arts and crafts. Some of it was junky but much of it was authentic. I found some real treasures there. I made a mental note that this will be a good place for me to come back and do my Christmas shopping. There is another part of Chinatown called Petaling Street. It is a long street filled with sidewalk vendors. Think of Canal Street in New York but under a huge awning and without the cars. The street hawkers were so aggressive though. They didn't take "no" for an answer. I wanted to look at some of the items -- all knock-offs of course -- but every time I approached a booth, I was assaulted with their pressure to buy something. All the bootleg DVD sellers wanted to sell me porn. I got so frustrated after a little bit I just gave up.

I miss the Daily Show, the Simpsons, and Ellen Degeneres. Thank goodness I can download the latest "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" episodes on iTunes. Now how come you can't get all programs that way?

Work is going well. I'm really getting jazzed about this assignment. So many possibilities. I'll post more on that next time.