As a 24th birthday gift to myself, I indulged again with my favorite past time… to travel. I had this in planning for about 3 months (middle of May-Aug). It will be a week-long getaway with my best friend of 10 years, Gracee … to cosmopolitan KL, Malaysia and fantastical Bali, Indonesia.

Gracee and me on the plane:

The newly opened Terminal 3 airport in Manila:

In June, I meet the most wonderful guy in the hotel where I work for, his name is Charles. Charles is a wonderful guy, he was only staying in Manila for 4 days and we spent the last three days of it together. Apparently, he is assigned to work in KL - where I am supposed to spend a few days of vacation. If that was not fate working our way, I don’t know what is.

So we stay in touch until the day I arrive in KL.

It’s so funny, we talked Sunday night, I told him that we are leaving Tuesday night, and we are arriving a little past midnight. He calls me on Tuesday, 0145H and asks me where I was. I told him that I was still at home … and he waited up for us on a work night.

We arrived on Wednesday past midnight, he met us at the hotel lobby of the Ascott - just right across the Petronas - and we just talked for a while before we went to bed. He needed to go early that morning.

We said our good byes that morning before he went to work, we were supposed to fly out to Bali that afternoon and be back the following week. That morning, we went to the Suria KLCC Starbucks - our favorite coffee place - to have breakfast.

Me at Starbucks with my treasure pot pie and hot choco:

I am collecting Starbucks city mugs so I give this a look. It’s so delicious, they had this pastry “Treasure Pie”, it’s chicken in vol au vent pastry and it was terrific. We don’t have that in Starbucks Manila. I wish they could’ve made them here as well, it could easily be my favorite. I was also delighted to see the MAC store there, another one of my favorite stores.

We left the hotel just before lunch and we flew to Bali. We had 6 magnificent days at the Hyatt Bali in Sanur and the Grand Hyatt in Nusa Dua, we fly back to KL the following week. We arrived at about lunch time and ate our lunch at the KL Airport. Being tired from the flight, Gracee and I spent the afternoon resting and we waited for Charles to pick us up for dinner. It was my first time to see the Petronas all lit up at night and it was just so spectacular, my camera didn’t do justice to the actual magnificence.

After freshening up, he took us to the Bodega in the Pavilion where we had a lovely dinner with my favorite Calamari.. yummy!

With Gracee and Charles at the Bodega

After dinner, we had some cocktails in the Concorde where we met his good friend Eric (who was going to visit Manila the following week) and we had a good night together, all four of us.

The following day, he had to leave early again, so Gracee and I wandered off to the Menara Tower, the 4th tallest tower in the whole world. It offers a pretty good 360 degree view of the city of KL.

We went back to the hotel after strolling the mall once again and waited for Charles to take us out for dinner. We dined at a lovely restaurant, together with Eric and my fraternity brother, Third (who was visiting KL from Singapore). We ate at the Apartment, a very good restaurant with contemporary, domestic interiors.

L-R: Eric, Gracee, Third, Me and Charles (a.k.a Chach)

It was a short and sweet vacation in KL, but I had the time of my life. Charles said he’ll be back here by October with Eric, and I can’t wait to show them around the beautiful beaches here.

Sanriotown Travel the World Event: http://blog.hellokitty.com/traveltheworld