Tuesday October 21
Landed in KLIA. This is an insanely large airport with a very bad design. The concourse I came out from the airline bridge is large. Following the luggage claim signs, I walked towards the Passport check counters. In the middle of the concourse are two stairs leading to the second floor. This leaves about five to six feet on each side of the stairs to navigate straight through to the passport counters. Right in the middle of that are the entrances to the toilets. People are coming in and out of the toilets, we are navigating straight to the passport counters, and families standing outside waiting for their family to come out of the toilets. What a mess in this choke hole.
The signage in the concourse comes with 8 different languages: English, Malay, and 6 other (probably Arabic) languages (due to their lean towards Islamic countries) and no Chinese! In Asia, it is not wise, I think, to ignore the Chinese. No only the local Chinese, but think about the billions of Mainland Chinese who are potential tourists.
The concourse led to a train station. Poor signage mean I have to read all the signs and their small prints to determine which train I have to catch. A couple of big signs "Trains to Terminal 2 and 3" on one, and "Trains to Immigration and Luggage Claim" would have cleared this, without the small prints.
Stepped out of the train, approached the Passport counters. There was a long line of counters, numbered 1 to maybe 50. Overhead signs say "Counters 1 to 18 for Foreign Passports", then another "Counters 32 to 48 for Foreign Passports". Okay, that means we have a choice. Locals go straight ahead, foreigners go left (1 to 18) or right (32 to 48). Picked 1 to 18 and walked to the left. Reached the counters on the left. Looked for an open counter. No one there. The lights were on but no one is home. Left the counters. Went over to the right and lined up with the rest of the grumpy travelers. Insane.
Next to the luggage claims. Many carousels. Which one to take? Okay, read the monitor. Found a line that says Singapore under the "From" column. Now I need the flight number to match up with my flight. Can't find it. The flight numbers keep changing, due to the code sharing situation. Our flight, a SilkAir flight MI320, shares this plane with Singapore Airlines passengers, Malaysian Airline passengers, and another Star Alliance member. Each time they change the flight number, the entire screen changes, and the information is redrawn. I have to find Singapore again under the From column, then back to the Flight number column, by which time the lines has changed again. After three minutes of this insanity, I finally found the corresponding carousel number: 43! Walked over to carousel 43, noticed a man picked up a suitcase on carousel 46. I know that man. I saw him earlier in our plane. What is he doing at 46? I shouted at him to stop, but he didn't hear me. I ran over to try to catch him, but coming up to carousel 46, I see my suitcase coming out around the bend. I picked it up, examined it, and there was no mistake. That was my suitcase. From carousel 46, not 43. Insane!
Walked through the "Nothing to declare" gate at the Customs check. Coming from Singapore, this is considered a domestic flight (even though Singapore has been separated from Malaysia since 1970), so the customs officers were not too interested at the passengers.
It was great to see a familiar face right outside the door. Sui Laun came over to greet and hug, and it is good to be home with family. Now to find the parked car. Hak Ngee said he was parked at the "A" building. First we went up to the fourth floor. No. Wrong floor. Oh, maybe second floor. Yes, it does say "Car Park". He remembered the car was parked one floor down from where he exited the elevator. We walked through the parking lot of the C parking lot. Found the elevator he came out of, took the elevator up one floor. Out of the elevator, headed towards the "A and B" parking lot, found another elevator, went down one floor, exited, and finally found the car. Quite insane! There were two parking buildings, one for A and B, and the other for C and D. Apparently the two buildings, built at different times, were not level at the ground, so the floor numbers are not level with each other numerically. Insane.
Finally, we arrived at Subang Jaya, their town. We stopped at the coffee shop before their house. We had curry noodles, fish egg noodles, baked pows, sweet strong coffee with condensed milk. Ah, the World is sane again.
After a shower, around 10 AM, Sui Laun and I took the train into town. We walked the KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Central?) and the Pavilion shopping mall - five stories of high-end shops and two basement floors of food court. This is a GREAT place for young people to hang out and window shop the luxury goods, but cannot afford the prices, and for old people who can afford the prices, but have no need or desire for the fancy goods. Either way, only the food courts win. Full of lunch time office crowds. Young people eating, talking, texting. A bit later, the mall was full of local students on the way home, to stop in for a peek of the good stuffs.
For dinner, Hak Ngee had planned to take me to a restaurant famous for its sweet and sour pork. I had asked Sui Laun about going to the outdoor food court in town. I have been thinking of grilled fish, and also of oyster omelets, and also of stir-fried noodles. So we did. We ordered all these, and had a feast.
The only incident that marred the experience was this. While waiting for our food, an old Malay lade came to our table side. She is selling some fried chips, and fried vegetables, sealed in bags. We were not thinking of eating fried chips, so we said no. I watched her picked up the big bags of chips and walked away. Then I felt remorse. I thought of what my dad would have done. Have I never learned anything from Dad? He would have bought a few bags from the lady to help her out. I should have bought a few bags from the old lady to help her out. I felt very sorry, and kept looking for her to come around again, but she did not. I still felt sorry when we left the food court. I kept looking up and down the streets for her. I am very sorry.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Somewhere over the Pacific
Monday October 21, 2014
From Boston Logan to Washington, D.C. is about an hour in flight time. The airline reported that the trip is an hour and a half, so when we landed in D.C., they can say "We are 30 minutes earlier than reported, Yay! a feather in our cap!". Airlines are cheaters like that.
I fly United Airlines/. This is my usual airline, and one that my company, EMC, recommends. I remain loyal to United in most of my travels, flying United all over the World. At the end of last year, I have a Silver level frequent flyer flight status. Not that I am proud about it or anything, I just like having the higher status to upgrade to a Business class seat once in a while.
Last year was pretty slow, in terms of travel, for Greenplum, aka Pivotal. I only need one more flight to get to the Gold status, which means getting the Premier seats (with more legrooms), and a possible upgrade to Business class. Yay, I said to myself. For this trip, while I was scanning through all the available airlines, I noticed my frequent flyer miles have to wiped clean. Gone! Completely wiped out!. I am down to a peasant class "regular member" of the frequent flyers status/ Because of the (long period of) inactivity, United has bounced me to peasant class of frequent flyers. I think that was pretty heartless.
\
Twenty hours later, we landed in Tokyo.
I had an interesting conversation with the passenger across the aisle. She is writing a paper theorizing on the predictability of human longevity based entirely on genes. She explained that studies on human genetic data correlates well between genes types and long lives. She is presenting this to the Singapore government. She is hoping that they can use this theory to pre-select scholarship recipients from infants. What a crazy idea.
I doubted that the theory could be true, that she can completely ignore external influences like environment. I questioned her about smokers and lung cancer, etc. I cite the example of the last numbers of women older than 90 in Mongolia and the SinJiang province in China. They found one commonality - yogurt, but to correlate yogurt eating with living to the 90s is insane.
From Boston Logan to Washington, D.C. is about an hour in flight time. The airline reported that the trip is an hour and a half, so when we landed in D.C., they can say "We are 30 minutes earlier than reported, Yay! a feather in our cap!". Airlines are cheaters like that.
I fly United Airlines/. This is my usual airline, and one that my company, EMC, recommends. I remain loyal to United in most of my travels, flying United all over the World. At the end of last year, I have a Silver level frequent flyer flight status. Not that I am proud about it or anything, I just like having the higher status to upgrade to a Business class seat once in a while.
Last year was pretty slow, in terms of travel, for Greenplum, aka Pivotal. I only need one more flight to get to the Gold status, which means getting the Premier seats (with more legrooms), and a possible upgrade to Business class. Yay, I said to myself. For this trip, while I was scanning through all the available airlines, I noticed my frequent flyer miles have to wiped clean. Gone! Completely wiped out!. I am down to a peasant class "regular member" of the frequent flyers status/ Because of the (long period of) inactivity, United has bounced me to peasant class of frequent flyers. I think that was pretty heartless.
\
Twenty hours later, we landed in Tokyo.
I had an interesting conversation with the passenger across the aisle. She is writing a paper theorizing on the predictability of human longevity based entirely on genes. She explained that studies on human genetic data correlates well between genes types and long lives. She is presenting this to the Singapore government. She is hoping that they can use this theory to pre-select scholarship recipients from infants. What a crazy idea.
I doubted that the theory could be true, that she can completely ignore external influences like environment. I questioned her about smokers and lung cancer, etc. I cite the example of the last numbers of women older than 90 in Mongolia and the SinJiang province in China. They found one commonality - yogurt, but to correlate yogurt eating with living to the 90s is insane.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
New day
Sunday - October 19, 2014
Mr. Ferreira, ever so punctual, arrived at the doorstep at 5 AM to pick me up for Logan. There were already four other passengers in the van, but hopefully they don't mind me sharing the trip with them. They are on the way to Las Vegas, six days of sun, fun, and gambling, so they should be in good mood.
Today is Mr Ferreira's birthday. I congratulated him on his birthday, and in the ensuing conversation, found that he has a nephew Ted who is a merchant marine seaman, who has been to China, and in fact married a Chinese woman. Ted bought a house in Rhone Island, set up and immigrated his wife to the States. They are help her settle down in the States. I told Mr Ferreira where he can find good Chinese grocery stores - namely my favorite Quincy shopping place, the Kam Man Supermarket. He was excited to get that piece of information.
I have not traveled for a couple of years, and a lot has changed. United Airlines, which used to be in Terminal C of Logan airport,, is not in Terminal B, next to American Airlines. Also new is the check-in procedures. I can use a terminal to check in, print out my boarding pass, and even a luggage tag, which I am to stick it onto my suitcase. When all this is done, I simply take the suitcase to the counter and handed it over to a counter person. As with telephones, we are now doing the airline workers' work. Pretty soon, we will be lugging the suitcases to a drop off bin and drop them off ourselves. This is progress.
On the boarding pass, I have a sign that says TSA-Pre. This means I have been pre-approved by the TSA, and I do not need to do all the checkpoint activities - take off shoes, belts, laptop, etc. I walk over to the checkpoint, put my suitcase on the conveyor belt, and walk through the metal detector. This is so much more convenient than before. A great start.
I have some tickets to use the United Club lounge, and since I have a couple of hours before boarding, I used the lounge, have myself a couple of cappuccinos and a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast.
The only thing that went wrong, sort of, is, I can't find my luggage claim tag. I must have lost it while pulling out my passport from my shirt pocket, and the tag was also in the shirt pocket. It must have been pulled out and dropped on the ground and I didn't notice it. ah well. Since I am in the club lounge, I walked over to the receptionist and asked her to print out of record of the tag. At least I will have something to show the Singapore luggage crew when I retrieve my luggage.
Well, waiting for 9 AM (another hour) before I board the flight to Washington, D.C., to catch a connection flight to Tokyo. I hope everything goes well for the next few legs.
Mr. Ferreira, ever so punctual, arrived at the doorstep at 5 AM to pick me up for Logan. There were already four other passengers in the van, but hopefully they don't mind me sharing the trip with them. They are on the way to Las Vegas, six days of sun, fun, and gambling, so they should be in good mood.
Today is Mr Ferreira's birthday. I congratulated him on his birthday, and in the ensuing conversation, found that he has a nephew Ted who is a merchant marine seaman, who has been to China, and in fact married a Chinese woman. Ted bought a house in Rhone Island, set up and immigrated his wife to the States. They are help her settle down in the States. I told Mr Ferreira where he can find good Chinese grocery stores - namely my favorite Quincy shopping place, the Kam Man Supermarket. He was excited to get that piece of information.
I have not traveled for a couple of years, and a lot has changed. United Airlines, which used to be in Terminal C of Logan airport,, is not in Terminal B, next to American Airlines. Also new is the check-in procedures. I can use a terminal to check in, print out my boarding pass, and even a luggage tag, which I am to stick it onto my suitcase. When all this is done, I simply take the suitcase to the counter and handed it over to a counter person. As with telephones, we are now doing the airline workers' work. Pretty soon, we will be lugging the suitcases to a drop off bin and drop them off ourselves. This is progress.
On the boarding pass, I have a sign that says TSA-Pre. This means I have been pre-approved by the TSA, and I do not need to do all the checkpoint activities - take off shoes, belts, laptop, etc. I walk over to the checkpoint, put my suitcase on the conveyor belt, and walk through the metal detector. This is so much more convenient than before. A great start.
I have some tickets to use the United Club lounge, and since I have a couple of hours before boarding, I used the lounge, have myself a couple of cappuccinos and a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast.
The only thing that went wrong, sort of, is, I can't find my luggage claim tag. I must have lost it while pulling out my passport from my shirt pocket, and the tag was also in the shirt pocket. It must have been pulled out and dropped on the ground and I didn't notice it. ah well. Since I am in the club lounge, I walked over to the receptionist and asked her to print out of record of the tag. At least I will have something to show the Singapore luggage crew when I retrieve my luggage.
Well, waiting for 9 AM (another hour) before I board the flight to Washington, D.C., to catch a connection flight to Tokyo. I hope everything goes well for the next few legs.
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