Thursday, September 2, 2010

Kuala Lumpur and Mumbai (Bombay)

The first part of August I got to go to Malaysia and India for work. My company has offices in those countries so I was sent to check out the offices and see how they do things there and to train the employees.

First I went to Malaysia. I stayed in the Hilton and it was super nice! Here's my room:




I didn't get to do a lot of sightseeing in Malaysia cause there just wasn't time but Jessie (she's over Distributor Services in the office there) took me to visit China Town where I bought most of my souvenirs.


It was pretty crowded! But they had a lot of cool stuff there at very cheap prices. They also had some interesting fruit they were selling that grows there in Malaysia. Some of it I had had before in Okinawa on my mission but a lot of the fruit I had never seen before. It was all yummy though! :)


I was in Malaysia on Sunday so I found an LDS church to go to. Malaysia has such a huge mix of different cultures that the services were in English (lucky for me). :) Everyone was very nice and a family from Utah (they've lived in a lot of foreign countries because of the dad's job) invited me over for lunch afterwards. Lunch was delicious and their apartment was super nice! Floor to ceiling windows in their living room! I was able to get a picture of the famous Twin Towers through their window.


Sunday night I flew to Mumbai (used to be known as Bombay). It is a very crowded place! There weren't really any lines at the airport -you basically have to push your way through to get through any of the "lines". There are so many cars on the street and horns are always honking -it reminds me of bumper cars. I didn't see many lines painted on the road -cars just drive where they can fit and they don't stop for pedestrians -it was quite scary trying to cross the street. The people in our office there were very nice -they gave me the traditional Indian welcome and put the red dot on my forehead and told me that it symbolizes the blessings of God.


I got to eat a lot of delicious food in India! I love Indian food but it was quite different from the food in Indian restaurants here -still delicious though! :) I also got to do some sightseeing with Radhika from the office there. Here's some pictures:

This one is the oldest train station in Bombay. I just thought it looked really cool. :)

Radhika took me to a place called The Great Bombay Store where I bought some cool souvenirs. This picture is a lego model of the Taj Mahal. I thought it was pretty sweet.

This is the Gateway to India which was erected way back when King George V visited Bombay.

This is a really nice hotel right by the Gateway to India. It was bombed by terrorists in 2008. They've obviously fixed it up again.

This is Radhika and me with the shoreline in the background. They call it "The Queen's Necklace". You can't see the whole shoreline but it goes around in a half circle and at night when all the lights are one it looks like a big sparkly necklace.

This is a picture of the lobby of the hotel I stayed in.  The Intercontinental -super nice!

It was a lot of fun in both countries and I'm glad I got to go. This week I just got another promotion at work so I'm no longer working with those markets. My next trip will be to either Australia, New Zealand, Korea or Japan most likely!