Saturday, February 19, 2011

Kuala Lumpur 2011 - Day 1

190211 1344 local time (GMT +8)
Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia

It's my first trip of the year! And we flew here on Tiger. What a great way to start the year.

Headed for the budget terminal in the morning and met Calvin and his parents, who were nice enough to buy me breakfast. We met Hafiz too, who was sporting a D300 and a fisheye. I dislike fisheyes for some reason, can't think why.

Anyway we headed into immigration with not much time to spare, and almost immediately headed for gate 9. 9V-TAE was waiting for us, and we took our seats, 1A and 1B, next to an Irish fellow, who was studying in Singapore for one semester and was heading for Laos on AK after the TR flight.

We took off at 1046, and more or less rocketed into the sky. The engines were running at what sounded like full power almost the whole way. Of course, being Tiger, we had nothing to do, so we bought some presents. I also struck up a conversation with the Irish fellow in 1C. Pretty soon, we were descending into Kuala Lumpur International Airport, and landed at 1126. Still 5 min short of my record of 35 minutes from takeoff to landing Jetstar did on the return flight 2 years ago. While deboarding, both me and the Irish chap were stunned by the amount of baggage Calvin was lugging for a 1 day trip. To this day I still wonder what manner of things he had inside.

We cleared immigration after a long while, since we spent a lot of time taking photos outdoors on our way through the bus interchange LCCT. Didn't spot much interesting except for some D7 A330-300s. Once out, we found a shop selling AirAsia souveniers, and I bought a cheap but old-generation model of an A330. We then found a RM2.50 shuttle bus to the main terminal, where I am now. Sure beats the RM40 taxi.

23000 local time (GMT +8)
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

On the KLIA Ekspres now after a long and tiring day.

Once we reached the KLIA main terminal, we went for lunch at the second floor food court. This wasn't that great. We then headed for the viewing mall. Sadly though, except for one or two A330s, most of what we saw were Malaysia Airlines 737s. Mostly -400s, but some -800s as well. Eventually we gave up and headed for the hotel. After a brief rest, we headed back to the airport and caught the express to the city.

We spent a bit of time at the Petronas Towers shooting them, then headed for dinner at Madam Kwan's. The kway teow there is excellent, I have to say. We then picked up a charger for my phone before heading over to Jalan Petaling. We did intend to find souveniers for people, but nothing there really caught our eye. Eventually we gave up. On the way back to the hotel now for some much needed rest. Also, Calvin is going to die :)



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