Happy Birthday Ross!

Although Ross' birthday celebrations really started last night at midnight, his birthday "day" started by me waking him up at 6am. OK, this may not sound like much of a birthday so far but I planned to take Ross on an early morning hike so we could watch the sunrise from the top of a ridge overlooking the city. Champagne breakfast included in the deal.

However, due to the festivities of the night before, we were both a bit rough and struggled to function too quickly. I packed up the backpack with all the essentials (including last minute additions of Berocca and Nurofen) and then we headed out in the car.

I had a vague idea of where we were heading so set the GPS to where I thought we should be. It was still dark and we ended up past Zoo Negara (the National Zoo) winding our way up an ever narrowing road towards the ridge. We passed through a tiny kampung (village) which was pretty cool in the pre-dawn mist.

After deciding this wasn't the place we were supposed to be, I reset the GPS to another local. This time I had it right and we ended up at the Klang Gates Dam in Taman Melawati where the trek up to Bukit Tabur begins.

Because we took a slight detour before getting there, it was now well past sunrise but still early (and cool) enough. We followed a few other people up the near vertical path to the top of the ridge. It was magnificent! The ridge itself is made out of quartz crystal and the trail gives you views of the Klang Gates Dam and also a great view of the city. As you can see from the photo, we took some time up the top to soak in the view. I would like to say it was also serene but a very "chirpy" university group were also climbing the ridge this morning.

Neither of us felt like breakfast (let alone champagne!) so we sucked down the water and recovered from our hangovers from the night before. After the climb down, we headed home and felt pretty good about ourselves that we managed to do all this before 9am considering our delicate condition.

That being said, we hit the shower and then fell back into bed. I gave Ross his present (Shure Sound Isolating headphones and a bottle of 2002 Petaluma Shiraz) and the present that Ann gave him before we soundly fell asleep. I didn't surface again until 1pm!

I had organized a masseuse to come to the house for an hour and a half massage for Ross at 2pm so by the time he came out of that he looked pretty relaxed! We spent the afternoon relaxing on the couch before heading off to dinner at the revolving restaurant at Menara KL (KL Tower).

We picked Jason up at his hotel and headed out there. It was quite the experience! Beautiful views but it was completely full of tourists (no surprise) and families with toddlers. The tourists were pushing past everyone's tables to get the best views for their photos and the toddlers were running around and shrieking - not exactly the quiet dinner I had planned! The food was ok but nothing to rave home about. So basically I would say it is a good place to go for the view of KL at night but not really the place for a quiet or romantic dinner.

Jason, Ross and I headed to the bar downstairs in Starhill Gallery for a cocktail before walking home. I think Ross had a pretty good birthday all up :-)