11 people. 7 iPhones with no data connection. Perfect setting for a holiday. People would finally stop twiddling with their phones and do some actual bonding.

After passing my driving test and getting my car in Dec 2005, I discovered the exhilaration of speeding up and down the North South Highway, and made three trips to Kuala Lumpur within two months. As I entered my 30s, I began to appreciate my life a lot more, and decided to travel on a budget carrier instead.

Hilton, KL was excellent. Having endured weeks of agony, I found the hotel room to be a destination on its own. I could have trapped myself in the room for the entire 3D2N. As one of my friends commented, it was such a luxury to “spread your hands and legs and stay in bed doing nothing!”

I didn’t. Not for the first day, at least. A quick shower later, the eat-drink-and-be-merry excursion went into top gear, starting with some original glazed doughnuts. “Let’s just have two each, cos we’re going to gorge ourselves to death later.” Right.

Half of them hadn’t seen the largest indoor roller coaster in Malaysia, so off we went. I made the mistake of not securing myself properly. As I raised both my arms, I was violently thrown around in my seat, resulting in some minor bruises on my shoulders.

With 15 minutes to rendezvous, five of us hopped onto this device called, “DNA Shaker”. We occupied the first row, while a couple of locals were seated directly behind us. We had no idea how it would turn out to be.

“It’s probably going to be some silly thing, moving up and down, left and right lah.” We were chatting away when the machine came to life. “I think this is going to be….” Before I could mouth the word boring, the device begin to spin 360 degrees. Thrice. “You mean this monster isn’t just going up and down, left and right? Why the hell are we upside down?” There we were thinking it was some juvenile thing, and then we were shaken and stirred thoroughly. We were completely unprepared and it was extremely hilarious. None of us could stop laughing!

(I don’t know if you get what I mean. But anyway, I laughed so hard I was tearing by the end of the 5min ride. “I haven’t laughed like this for a long time! This could be my happiest day in 2010!”)

Another reason why I like Hilton was because they took the DND sign seriously.

A couple of hotels I stayed at had this morbid policy of checking on their guests. “We have to make sure you didn’t commit suicide on our premises, Sir.” And there were the myopic housekeepers who barged in despite the sign- one of them trying to open my door as I was coming out from the shower unclothed. Duh.

My friends left me undisturbed as well. As they met for breakfast in the lobby, I was blissfully left alone in dreamland. By the time I woke up at 2pm on Saturday, the group was shopping at KLCC. I took my time to pour through the in-room dining menu and finally ordered an American Breakfast. Yes, they served that all day. Moments after I polished off everything on the plate, I was back in bed and watched Discovery before I dozed off again.

It was such a great weekend, I tell you.

I finally met up with them for dinner, sporting the tees we customized for this trip. I didn’t eat much at Jalan Alor because I was dying to have KFC.

Indeed, the fried chicken at KL was slightly different from the version we have in Singapore. (You can’t go wrong with deep fried chicken skin anyway.) Delicious.

I refused to believe HYJ’s claims that the cola drinks in the two cities differed in taste. “How can it be? They are both international brands!” I was absolutely dumbfounded, as the staunch Coke drinker in me leaned towards Pepsi in the blinded experiment. I’m not sure if the results will stand in other parts of Malaysia, but do attempt a Cola Challenge the next time you’re in KL.

After the birthday surprise for Irvin, which involved getting a RM88 cake from the lobby cafe, and then throwing him into the pool- something I haven’t done since my teenage years, we headed to the hotel next door with a single intention. As we settled down to order a round of drinks, we all whipped out our iPhones to snitch the free wifi that wasn’t available at Hilton. Hahahaha.

We had started to make plans for the next trip even before we cleared immigration on our way back. I love this group of people.