Christmas feeling

Flying to Kuala Lumpur

I had my first bad night sleep, perhaps from having slept too much recently.  I woke at 0700 and got to Langkawi airport at 0830.

AirAsia’s check-in and bag-drop process is very quick nowadays with a touchless kiosk, where one does the actual work on the phone app.  At the airport, one just scans the resulting barcode at the kiosk to produce the boarding pass (duplicate of the one on the app) and bag-tag(s).

As Langkawi is a duty-free port, there was a customs scan of bag before check-in.  However, they didn’t check any eligibility conditions as there is a minimum stay before one qualifies for duty-free purchases.  There’s also nothing preventing anyone from excess items in handcarry sitting elsewhere in the airport with a friend, that will be taken out to the mainland.

I sat down in the lounge to do some work, still dealing with legal matters relating to the landslide in Auckland that we experienced early this year.

After some breakfast, I went airside to await the 1055 AirAsia flight to Kuala Lumpur.

• I noticed during the safety demonstration that the manual PA stated that liferafts were fitted to all exits except overwing.
• Then I noticed that the safety information card showed that the aircraft had no liferafts but only normal slides which are not deployed during ditching according to this airline’s procedures.
• Checking with the crew, they confirmed that this was not an EDTO aircraft and had no slides, but kinda tried to shy away from what was announced during the PA.

Landing 15 mins ahead of schedule at 1155, it was a long walk to the baggage carousel where there was a little wait.  I wasn’t able to take the 1240 bus and had to wait for the 1300 one.  Knowing that my hotel couldn’t take me till 1400, I took all these little waits in my stride.

It started pouring as we approached the city.  Fortunately, the walk to the Cozy Hotel at KL Sentral was largely sheltered and I remained dry.

Ulterior motives

Tickets for buses leaving the airport for the city and also intercity destinations, are all sold through a counter with quite a fancy system.

Being local, it’s easier to think that there is some ulterior motive, eg. for the airport authority to collect commission on the fares.

But then I realised that if it weren’t for such a booking system, buses may fill upstream at Terminal 1 and could always be full by the time it reached Terminal 2.

Christmas in the malls

After a lunch of empal nearby, I took a rest to await dry weather.  My first stop was Pavilion Bukit Bintang to enjoy the Christmas decorations and vibe in their atrium.

Next stop was then KLCC, the shopping mall under the Petronas Twin Towers.  The display here wasn’t as stunning.  I lingered to till darkness in order to enjoy the view of the towers against the night sky.

I continued my evening to the Saloma Link, a pedestrian bridge across a busy highway, named after a Malay actress and singer that had a very sweet but slightly husky voice.

I had hoped to see the bridge lit up with the national flag but tonight it was advertising a movie called Wonka. The bridge led me to Kampung Baru station where I grabbed a light dinner before returning to my hotel.