Go With The Flow

Sophie goes to Kuala Lumpur to witness the town’s diverse culture and to showcase her LUC8K style highlighting her creativity

Giraffes don’t normally venture outside of Africa unless it’s against their will. Not Sophie. Armed with her customized LUC8K bags and accessories she lives the jet-set life. Not only does she venture outside her home continent but she will go to places where wildlife would never go for an adventure.

For example, Sophie was recently in the Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur, home to more than 1.7 million people squeezed into an area of just 94 square kilometers. Usually, big metropolises and wildlife don’t mix but Sophie delights in the change of pace. The tall trees throughout the city provide most of the nourishment she needs. She crosses the streets quickly and effortlessly. Her intuitive nature makes it easy for her to befriend locals. She even developed a taste for durian, the strange fruit with a large, thorn-covered husk that when opened reveals a strong pungent flesh that is either loved or hated.

When in urban areas you need money and as Sophie knows money doesn’t grow on trees like the leaves she likes to eat. That’s why Sophie carries her LUC8K customized Wallet for her day-to-day transactions. The souvenirs she buys for friends and family are kept in her LUC8K Shopper.

Sophie is mesmerized by the giant skyscrapers, particularly the Petronas Twin Towers

She is energized by the crowds on the streets always working, going forward with their lives. It has an organic feel where you jump right in and go with the flow—even if you’re a giraffe. She finds refuge in the evening at the manicured Lake Gardens near the Malaysian Parliament building or the Bukit Nanas, one of the oldest virgin forests in the world within a city.

However, she is also perplexed by the massive automobile traffic, the smog that it brings, and the heat that rises from the concrete sidewalks and asphalt roads. All around Sophie sees business and progress but at a cost to the quality of lives for those who live and work in the city. She wonders why there isn’t a cohesive transportation system.

This lack of liveable space isn’t just bad for people. The animals, insects, and plants that are reduced to the few parks and forests within the city and pushed to the outlying area that continues to be developed are being threatened. Most notably threatened by this push outward are the critically endangered Malayan tiger. Estimates are that about 250 of these black-striped adult tigers still exist in the wild.

There is still plenty of wild- and plant-life, ranging from deer, birds, and butterflies in the parks but that’s only because of intense human intervention and sustainable management. This, unfortunately, does not happen everywhere.

Sophie thinks about how fast-growing urban centers can provide a high quality of life for everyone as she heads to her next adventure, leaving behind, for now, the Golden Triangle.

Read about Sophie’s adventure before she was heading to Kuala Lumpur.