After several days of walking, today promised to be a nice respite. We would visit two universities today, University of Malaya and Herriot-Watt University. We'd travel by bus quite a bit, but we wouldn't have much walking.
Our day started innocently enough. After leaving our room, we headed downstairs to breakfast. We met up with Eric on the way down and talked through several details of the day's travel. As we finished, several of the students came down to eat as well. In just a few moments, we grouped up again in the lobby and proceeded to our bus. Our guide, Nazree, told of the pending national election - the election day is a national holiday in Malaysia, hence, none of the government offices would be open tomorrow. This had thrown a kink in the program plan, so we had to combine the two university visits into a single day.
We hit a bit of traffic, but we soon passed through it and pulled onto the campus of University of Malaya. Before long, we reached our conference room. We were warmed greeted by the Campus delegation and our discussions soon began. In addition to the faculty of a few departments, we were also joined by several PhD students from the departments as well. After a presentation from the faculty regarding their program, we moved to discussions. The conversations were certainly very interesting and thought-provoking, ranging from specific topics within higher education to the future of machine-learning and it's impact on the teaching vocation.
Before breaking for lunch, it was time for - you guessed it! - a photo op!
Departing UM, we headed to lunch. This was a special treat the students had not expected. We had a lunch buffet at a Pullman hotel. What's special is, the buffet was very, very nice! The location was quite elegant and the cost was more than reasonable. We had a mixture of Malay, Chinese and Western foods, and the all-you-can-eat aspect of the buffet made it simple to sample everything.
Finishing lunch, we boarded our bus and headed to Herriot-Watt University. Our afternoon of discussions was somewhat similar to the topics of the morning, but included much more of a campus tour, showcasing Herriot-Watt's modern facilities.
Returning home, the evening was free for us, so we could wander the streets and grab a bite to eat. Our hotel floor featured an executive lounge; Ramona and I opted to stop by and see if they had a light snack for us. Inside, we ran into David and Diane, relaxing after our busy day. We found a nice assortment of snacks to tide us over and conversed with them for quite a bit.
Before long, they were headed off to dinner, and we headed back to the nearby Times Square mall. Our mission? To ride the roller coaster! Yes, indeed - this mall featured an indoor amusement park ; apparently the largest indoor amusement park in Malaysia. We paid our fair and entered the park. Several of the rides were closed for maintenance, but we pressed on, determined to ride the coaster. Fortunately, it was not closed and a few guests were already seated in some of the cars. We chose a pair of seats near the front, and soon pulled away. The coaster clacked out of the station and soon sped up, soaring and looping above the park. How fun! Thanks to the short line, we rode again almost immediately.
With mission accomplished, we left the park, in search of ice cream. The McDonald's near the amusement park seemed like a good choice, but the line was long and slow. Checking Google Maps, there was another one about 0.3miles away. We headed out into the street, determined to find our ice cream cones. While many of Malaysia's streets have crosswalks, there aren't as many buttons to activate the crossing lights. We chose to alternate between sprinting across intersections and traveling with groups of other people to safely negotiate the busy intersections. At one point, we had an opportunity to use the monorail station platform as an easy way to cross the street, since the platform stairs descended on both sides of the road. As we came to the top of the platform, Ramona spotted one of the WMU staff who joined us on the trip. She was in the process of meeting up with a few friends who happened to be in KL at the same time, so they were having a reunion dinner. They were all relatively unaware of each other's proximity to one another, but thanks to Facebook and it's location scavenging, it gave them an opportunity to get together.
Bidding them farewell as we left the platform, we scored our prize - ice cream cones! This time, we took an underground stairway to a subway station to make our way across the busy street. On the other side, we passed through the Pavillion mall, a very high-end mall, full of stores like Chartier, Coach and such. With the weight of the day pressing upon us, we hopped and taxi and headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow would see us leaving KL, but not before we took in a few more sights.
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