Hiya, stair climbers and really brave window washers, and welcome to Kuala Lumpur! Known to the locals as simply "K.L.", Kuala Lumpur is the largest city in all of Malaysia, with a population of about 1.5 million. Today, Kuala Lumpur is an economic powerhouse, but it still manages to hold onto its ethnicity. At night, local markets and lantern-lit streets fill the city with the sounds of Malay, Chinese and Indian hawkers selling food and other stuff, and the city still has many of its early temples and mosques preserved amongst the skyscrapers. Now, one of things that truly impresses the frijoles is that near Kuala Lumpur you'll find the world's largest reserves of tin. Yes, that semi-precious metal that makes the frijole's worldwide travels all that much easier was first mined here in the 1850's, and in a way similar to what gold did for California, tin did for Kuala Lumpur. So the beans found the whole tin trade double fascinating, and while they were tempted to see if they could have a retro-fitting while in town, they decided to hold out a little longer and see if that double-titanium plated model they've been hoping for comes through.

Proving that "Bigger is Better", the beans are glad that they had a chance to swing into Kuala Lumpur's Golden Triangle area to check out the Petronas Twin Towers, which were not too long ago the tallest buildings in the world. The Petronas Twin Towers were the tallest buildings in the world until October 17, 2003, when the Taipei 101 Financial Center was topped out at 1,676 feet high.(There's a little bit of a worldwide argument about which ones are tallest and if added antennas count - but please, don't drag the beans into the disagreement. We're neutral.) Regardless of who is taller, the Petronas towers stand up at an impressive 1,453 feet high. Each tower is 88 stories tall, has 16,000 windows, and together cost approximately $1.2 billion U.S. dollars to build. Tower One is currently occupied by Petronas, the state-owned petroleum corporation. Tower Two is occupied by Petronas' associate companies and the remaining space is leased out to multinationals. Whether or not there is a "Beans" store in there, we don't know - but somehow we doubt it. So the beans has a marvelous time in Kuala Lumpur, and are glad to have been there. That, and they're more than a little overjoyed for elevators.