Sydney Airport
We've checked our bags in and cleared security, and are now killing time until our flight boards. We were very early to check in and managed to secure an emergency exit row on the flight to Kuala Lumpur. We've also got a bulkhead row to London.
Sydney Airport |
The first major interesting event of the trip occurred on the train to the airport, where we saw a guy who looked exactly like Delkin from Lightning Made of Owls! He had long, curly blond hair that obscured his eyes, and was wearing a purple cap covered in diamond checks. What's more, his bag had a tag on it that was patterned to look like playing cards - two aces.
Still killing time. We've had a bit to eat and scored some comfy lounge chairs by a window while we wait to board. M. had a slice of banana bread from Gloria Jeans, while I had a slightly soggy roast beef baguette from a cafe. The terminal was empty earlier, but is starting to fill up with passengers now.
M. has gone off to spend as many of our Australian coins as possible. After the lunch we had $2.30 left. We found some Freddo Frogs and Caramello Koalas for 75 cents each, so three came to $2.25, leaving us just five cents. Not bad. I now have one Caramello, one strawberry Freddo, and one peppermint Freddo for sugar hits.
We are waiting around in transit at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. We have a three hour stop here before the long flight to London. The trip from Sydney took eight hours, with us arriving here at 20:30 local time. The plane landed amid frequent bursts of dramatic lightning, but it didn't rain until after we had touched down and were taxiing to the terminal.
 Kuala Lumpur Airport |
We had luxurious exit row seats on the plane, allowing us to stretch our legs out as much as we wanted. But the seats were still the narrow economy models which looked ghastly after we boarded the plane and had to walk through the luxury of first and business classes.
The first meal on the plane was a ricotta cannelloni for M., while I chose the chicken dish (as opposed to lamb), which was a rather spicy biryani. It had lots of whole peppercorns in it, cloves, and other spices, and was actually quite good. For dessert we got Weis mango ice cream bars - yum!
I started reading the history of England that I'd bought for the trip. By the time we landed, I'd gotten past William the Conqueror and on to the civil war between Matilda and Stephen. It's very interesting and well written. I've learnt that the original Domesday Book is on display in Kew - maybe we'll go see it.
M. watched a couple of movies while I killed some time playing various puzzle games on the in-flight system. The bad thing is the screen resolution is so bad that you can't even read the instructions! Before landing, we had a second meal - a light snack of a bread roll and muesli bar. M. nabbed my muesli bar while I grabbed her roast vege roll. My roll was some sort of chicken salad - again not bad at all.
Once on the ground here in Kuala Lumpur, we went straight to the cafe we'd been to on our flight home from Germany in 2007. M. got a hot chocolate for RM15.00 - which we calculated to be almost $6, after we discovered the exchange rate in a shop later. After finishing the drink, we walked around the satellite terminal shops, which seem geared pretty much exclusively to people who like being perfumes and very expensive watches.
Then we had a rest on some seats, trying to stay awake. The first eight-hour flight was nothing compared to the 14-hour effort to come. Hopefully we'll manage to get some sort of rest on it.