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images from the life journey of kakijalan...
where my feet and purse will take me :)
By: k a k i j a l a n
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| Thursday, 1-May-2008 21:46 |
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Long, long flight...
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Woke up early today despite sleeping quite late last night. Only had about 2 1/2 hours sleep. Have to... flight is at 10am and I don't want to be late! Luckily the bags are all packed. Arrived home late last night and as soon as I reached home, my *packing duties* were already waiting for me. What to do...
Around 7:20am Abg knocked on my door. I had just finished taking my shower. "Oh... ingatkan Along tak bangun lagi..."
By 7:45am we were out of the door and headed for KL Sentral. Made it just in time before 8am to check in kat situ. I took advantage of my Enrich Silver to use the Golden Class counter walaupun kami hanya travel economy class  The guy who served us (tak ingat pulak nama dia) was very nice and assisted to *block* the empty seat between Mama & Papa so that they'll have more room. "Tapi if the flight full, it will be taken lah" he said. In the end, the flight was not full and the had that in-between seat unoccupied, while I sat next to 2 men on the other side of the plane.
After checking in, we were rather *naughty*. Instead of taking the ERL and since it was still quite early and Abang pun kata it was ok for him to send us to KLIA, we drove there instead. Jimat RM100, hehe... We drove lalu the new KL-Putrajaya highway but missed the exit which would take us through Salak Tinggi. But still ok lah...
By the time sampai airport, perut dah mula lapar so we makan dulu kat food court because 1) airplane food sucks and 2) although I taklah fussy sangat, it will be dekat 12noon kut baru lah they'll serve us food. Where can wait one... I had the most pedas nasi goreng cili api that I've ever tasted while Mama Papa & Abang had a variety of pastries and bread.
At 9:20am we said our goodbyes to Abang and went towards the departure gate. I singgah beli a few barang while Mama went searching for chocolates.
Somehow, each time I travel abroad, it is always through gate C26. No matter the destination. This time it was the same... Gate C26 tu agak jauh lah jugak nak kena jalan and today the queue was very long. Because they only have one scanner open. The other one is being used for gate C27 - flight destination Sydney. Dah tahu flights to London and Sydney are among the two most popular and ramai orang naik punya flight, why lah tak guna gates lain. Tak faham...
The flight departed 30 minutes behind schedule as a result of that. It was an uneventful flight. I managed to watch 27 Dresses which I had missed at the cinema. Tidur bangun tidur bangun... several times. Terjaga because my throat was parched. The flight felt extremely long. Flying long distance in economy is a whole different ball game as compared to flying business. The last time I took a long flight was on the way home from the US. Somehow, that close to 20hr journey didn't feel too long. What a difference extra leg room and space makes.
We finally landed at Heathrow around 5pm... after circling the airspace above London for about 15 minutes due to congestion at the airport. Bila dah landing pun kena tunggu Air New Zealand aircraft to keluar from the docking area. So busy Heathrow tu...
Clearing immigration and waiting for our luggage took another 40 minutes or so. Fortunately, all our bags lepas. Bukan apa... we brought pelbagai jenis food. Enough to fill a whole bag! Ye lah... takut nanti, especially in Germany, tak boleh nak cari food.
The weather was grey, slight drizzle but temperature wise... perfect!! Not too cold... just nice. I don't even have to put a jacket on.
Keluar je the gate, after passing throught the "nothing to declare" lane, I went straight to the Budget Car Rental counter. "Just wait for the shuttele at bus stop 18" the lady on the other side of the phone said. Within 10 minutes, we were already on the shuttle, on our way to collect our car for the next 7 days.
The car we got turned out to be a brand new KIA Cee'd yang baru di deliver that very morning. Perfect! No need to worry about brake tak makan or anything. Being a new car, bau pun baru.. it was large enough to fit the three of us and all our luggage.
Sebelum mula jalan, I took out my lifesaver... the recently acquired Garmin. But also just in case, I made Papa read the directions that I had printed. Am I glad I had bought the GPS because if I had to rely on Papa and his map reading skills, we might spend the entire 7 days in England trying to find our way out of Heathrow, haha...
We headed straight for our destination and tempat istirehat for the night, After a long flight, I was really looking forward to a shower and a bed. Our first hotel... Travelodge T5, near the new Heathrow Terminal 5 which received a lot of press recently. It was a brand spanking new hotel. Tapi walaupun ada Garmin tu, we still sesat lah jugak because I took a wrong turning. Nasib baik the thing can "recalculate" and cari jalan balik. Phew...
After a nice refreshing shower, I treated myself to a nice hot bowl of Maggi kari yang dimasak dengan air panas... ala ala macam kat boarding school dulu A Malaysian staple whenever I travel abroad. Nothing feels better than a warm bowl of spicy soup yang penuh ajinomoto, haha. Lepas makan, I redistributed all the barang we brought... clothes in one bag and food in another. True enough, memang penuh satu bag! Also packed another smaller bag to letak 2 days' worth of baju so that we won't have to angkat all bags all the time, since we'll be moving hotels on a daily basis during this trip.
When all of that was done, it was time to tidur. As soon as I letak my head on the pillow, ZZZ......
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