Sunny Kuala Lumpur

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.