26 August-Malaysia

Islamic Museum of Art-Malaysia

Islamic Museum of Art

Islamic Museum of Art

25 August –Malaysia

This morning we made a slow start and then headed to the Islam Museum of Fine Art in KL. This is in a stunning new building that has displayed everything with generous spacing and not too much of any one thing so that you come away overwhelmed by it all.

We first had a look at a very interesting display that showed the influence of Islamic art on the rest of the world, especially through the Ottoman Empire, but also on European art and design at the end of 18 Century and in to the 20 century.

In the museum they had a floor dedicated to models of the most important mosques around the world. These were truly amazing. The mosque at Mecca can hold over a million worshippers! The variety and design of these mosques are magnificent creations.

As we left the museum, the sky opened and dropped rain as if it had been storing it up for a month-which it hadn’t, as we had an amazing thunder and lightning storm last night. The taxi we flagged down quoted us 40 ringet ($18) to take us to a shopping mall near where we are staying. Seemed like a bit of a rip off in Malaysian fare costs, but we were not going to argue with the rain beating down on us.

We had lunch at the mall and then spent time just wandering around and enjoying the air conditioning. On the way back to Kiara park Condo we picked up some fruit, and just a we walked up the road we were absolutely drenched by a bus storming though a huge pond of water on the road.


We returned to meet up with Nick and Heather and then to have a refreshing swim in the complex pool. We had to give Nick time to vent about a colleague he struggles with and found extremely frustrating to work with on a project with students after school. Have to say he does sound like a real Dick, after N and H both described experiences with him.

After this we went to a local food hall for dinner, outside, with a wide range of different Malay cuisine. Nick had a tasty squid dish, Dallas a Nasi Goreng, Heather chicken satay, and I had a hamburger! Then we has a great waffle that we all shared and then headed off to a mall, The Curve, for a coffee.