The skies were overcast and threatening rain but that didn’t stop us from visiting the Perdana botanical gardens before we needed to switch hotels on our last day in KL. It was the only time on our trip that we didn’t hear motorbikes, which made it a peaceful respite from the bustling city just blocks away.

The entrance to the Orchid and Hibiscus Garden was a bit tricky to find and it wasn’t clear if we were supposed to pay extra to enter but there was no one at the visitor’s booth so we walked right in.

We wound our way through the park and over to the Tugu Negara war memorial and sculpture gardens before tiring of the increasing rain, so we grabbed an Uber to get back to the hotel.

After an easy hotel transfer, I headed over to the Islamic Arts Museum for a few hours. The collection of Islamic art from SE Asia was beautifully curated, including pottery, textiles, jewelry, wood, and paper arts and featured several intricately decorated interior domes.

One of my favorite parts was the scale models of famous mosques from around the world. We had seen three in person but I was a tad disappointed that the beautiful Blue Mosque in Istanbul was absent.

The museum is also right next to the National Mosque of Malaysia, so I got to hear part of the call to prayer from the rooftop terrace.

Quite on accident that morning, I discovered that KL had two Din Tai Fung restaurants so we choose the Pavilions Mall location and got ready to stand in line for delicious soup dumplings. We only waited about 15 minutes for a table and the xiao long bao did not disappoint. Extra bonus – due to the monetary conversion, these were by far the cheapest dumplings we’ve had in our multiple visits to Din Tai Fung in Taipei, Orange County (CA), Beijing, Sydney, and Kuala Lumpur.

chicken soup dumplings, truly delicious

We ended the evening with a quick drink in the aLoft lobby before packing our bags ahead of our flight to Hong Kong the next morning.