KL

The new KL Hilton has wonderful service and an incredibly convenient location. I stayed in a beautifully modern and spacious, yet cozy suite. I was treated to a huge walk-in closet, my own dining room, two plasma screen TVs, and two bathrooms (with heated toilet seats!). One of the bathrooms had a gorgeous rain shower and an enormous bathtub, and the other had its own sculpture. The view was lovely, the bed was heavenly, and there were huge fluffy towels as far as the eye could see. This suite was absolutely worth the $150 that would have ordinarily bought me 15 nights accomodation.

Nouvo is a great place to splurge on some bottle service (not that expensive in New York terms) or, at the very least, bust a serious move. Some really great DJs play hip-hop, reggae, and rap upstairs, and house music downstairs, although the last few times I was there the rap moved downstairs to the larger dance floor. Nouvo is always packed full with a really fun, hip, international crowd; look for impromptu break-dancing competitions.

I come from America (one nation under a neon sign, indivisible, with Louis Vuitton and discount electronics for all) and even I was amazed by the quantity, quality, and monstrous size of the Malaysian malls. The outlandishly proportioned Mid-Valley Megamall is head and shoulders above the rest; I suppose the largest mall in Southeast Asia is the least you could expect from the city that brought you the tallest buildings in the world. In short, Malaysia doesn't doesn't mess around with these things.As a traveler, I often turn my nose up at places as Westernized and pedestrian as a mall, but Mid-Valley really must be seen. Malaysia is one of the only countries in Southeast Asia (along with its neighbor Singapore) where I basked joyfully in the icy comforts of air-conditioning, and MVM is one of the prime spots where locals take respite from KL's sticky, dusty air. That crisp air-conditioning is pure heaven after riding around on the #12 bus all day.Mid-Valley has every type of store you can think of, including Mango, a huge bookstore, teeny-bopper stores, sports stores, department stores, music shops, a hardware store, and a vaguely familiar store called "Woman's Secret". I even picked up malaria pills from the doctor at the walk-in clinic.