Mid-Ventures of Kuala Lumpur

July 9-10, 2018

To say today’s airport experience was better than my last would be the understatement of the century; today I didn’t have food poisoning. Thankfully, 17 hours of sleeping did wonders for me, and now here we are boarding our plane to Kuala Lumpur.

Our extremely luxurious, embassy-approved JW Marriott Hotel is centrally located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, right next to every high-end retailer you can possibly imagine—and whose single pair of shoes would most likely clean out my bank account.

We met up with CAPT Suhaimi (a 1993 Naval Academy grad) and his family for dinner at Restoran Rebung Dato Chef Ismail, which was authentic Malay cuisine served buffet style. Throughout the meal, CAPT Suhaimi regaled us with tales of his rugby playing days at the Academy, and we in turn shared some of our own stories. His twin fourteen year-old daughters thoroughly enjoyed talking to Rachel about K-Pop and K-Dramas (although I personally had zero idea what they were talking about and was therefore content to simply sit back and attempt to become cultured). All in all, the food was delicious, although after my brief bout of food poisoning, I avoided the spicy rebung, or bamboo shoots, for which the restaurant is known. I’m sure Professor Barrett tried enough for the both of us, however, for I caught his watering eyes and beet red face after he bravely tasted them. The meal wouldn’t have been complete without the obligatory “thumbs-up” picture at the end, however, which is pictured below.

Tuesday morning we started the day bright and early with a trip to the National Hydrographic Centre, accompanied by two women from the U.S. Embassy in Malaysia. LCDR Azmi kickstarted the tour with a Prezi detailing the various organizations the Hydrography Centre works with, along with its current operations and plans for the future. The next stop on the tour was the charting room, where we were shown the 2007 version of a chart; three separate transparencies with corrections made to the chart throughout the years; and the latest, 2017 version of the chart with all the new additions. One of the hydrography officers also explained the ENCs (electronic navigational charts), which are used in a machine called ECDIS. This aspect was especially interesting because we could relate it to our navigation classes at the Academy—it’s always nice to know that what you’re learning in school is actually used in real life. The next two rooms we visited were the digital charting (aka print on demand) and conventional charting rooms, the latter of which is significantly more tedious but is used for mass production of charts, producing up to 12,000 per hour. At the end of the tour we presented the Malaysian officers with our standard Naval Academy book, and we were pleasantly surprised to receive gifts of our own: a challenge coin for each of us, and a plaque for our school.

Later in the day we walked to—and were turned away from—the Petronas Twin Towers. So we settled on buying tickets to go up to the top tomorrow instead. More pictures to follow tomorrow!

Like Indonesia, Malaysia has not disappointed. Stay tuned for more mid-ventures to come!