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Fab
Five
36| FireFlyz
Rising High
Conquer your fear of heights by paying these
magnificent towers a visit.
W o r d s :
E s t h e r C h e w
Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala
Lumpur
A
trip to Malaysia isn’t complete
without dropping by Kuala Lumpur’s
88-storey Twin Towers, which soars
to a height of 451.9m. Majestic by day
and dazzling by night, the Petronas
Twin Towers was designed by master
architect Cesar Pelli, who expressed
the ‘culture and heritage of Malaysia’
by evoking Islamic arabesques and
employing repetitive geometries char-
acteristic of Muslim architecture. Each
morning, 1,700 passes are distributed
on a first-come-first-serve basis to
visitors who want to visit the tower’s
skybridge. Beneath the Petronas Twin
Towers is KLCC Park, a large urban
park, as well as the huge Suria KLCC
shopping mall.
Taipei 101, Taipei
Standing at an impressive 508m, Taipei
101 held the title of ‘world’s tallest
building’ for a number of years, until
the opening of the Burj Khalifa. Built
to resemble a gigantic bamboo stalk, it
only takes amere 40 seconds to get from
ground level to the 89th-floor observa-
tion deck. Observation decks are on the
88th and 89th floors, with an outdoor
deck on the 91st floor opened on some
occasions if the weather permits it.
The tower’s massive gold-coloured
iron wind damper helps keep it stable
through typhoons and earthquakes.
It even passed a real-life test during
Taiwan’s 6.8-magnitude earthquake in
2002. There’s plenty to do here, as the
basement is taken up by a food court,
and the first five floors are taken up by
one of Taipei’s swankiest malls.