I consider myself lucky

I'm currently sitting at the airport in Kuala Lumpur.  I've been here for almost five hours now.  The day didn't turn out exactly as I planned.

Breakfast was not offered at the hotel, so I ate a cereal bar and a few biscuits in my room.  I went to the lobby to use the internet and then hopped in a taxi to the airport.  When I got to the check-in desk, more than three hours before the flight, I asked if my luggage could be sent through to Penang since I had a short layover.  The assistant told me that AirAsia is a point-to-point airline and it wouldn't be possible.  Not only that, he told me I didn't have enough time for my connection.  When I booked my flight from Kuala Lumpur to Penang a few weeks ago I had two options, 4:55pm and 9:45pm.  My flight from Surabaya to KL was scheduled to land at 3:45, so I thought I might be ok.

The guy at the counter told me that by AirAsia rules you are supposed to have four hours between connecting flights.  Fortunately for me, my original flight from Surabaya was supposed to leave at 9:55am, not 12:10pm to which it had been rescheduled.  So... even though I didn't technically have my Penang flight when they changed the Surabaya-KL flight, this went unnoticed.  To be honest, I didn't want to make a big deal about it because they were going to change my flight without a fee.  I thought I might have enough time, otherwise I would have booked the later flight originally.  Anyway, even though I was upset about the idea of getting in at 10:30pm instead of 5:30pm, I consider myself lucky to have the changes with no extra charges.  Of course, lets not forget the 150,000 IDR departure tax which must be paid in cash.  Good thing the taxi cost less than I expected because I had enough to cover the tax.  I definitely spent over 2 million IDR. Crazy to think I'm a millionaire in Indonesia.

Since I'm staying with a friend of a friend, Adam, in Penang, I tried to contact him to let him know.  I had almost three hours to kill before the flight, so I spent it finishing The Last Lecture.  I have to say, this was not a good book for me to be reading in public.  I'm way too sentimental and emotional and I kept tearing up (actually more crying) through most of the book.  Some things just really hit home, especially in the beginning when he talks about winning the parent lottery.  I think I won the parent lottery and reading about his childhood made me think about all the good things from mine.  And then the fact that he talks about leaving a legacy for his family, just made me so sad.  Cancer has affected my family, and my parents friends, and its a challenging subject to read.

The AirAsia crew were making announcements in the departure lounge and I sensed our flight seemed to be slightly delayed but I couldn't hear what they were saying.  When I tried to find someone to ask, no one spoke English.  Another challenge.  I really didn't have a clue what was going on and there was not a single non-Asian person on the flight.  I was the only one not from the Asian continent; I stood out.  The plane ride was just over 2.5 hours, and I made good use of my time by reading all about the parts of Malaysia where I'll be traveling.  I also got some pizza on the plane; my stomach was growling from a lack of food.  We landed about 10 minute late (good thing I wasn't rushing for a connection) and the lines at passport control were insane.  I got in one queue that just wasn't moving, so I changed, although I would have been better off staying in the first one.  My time at the counter took all of one minute.  The guy took my landing card and stamped my passport with a 90-day tourist visa.  My bag was waiting for me, since passport control took so long, and I cleared customs.  The Low Cost Carrier Terminal was nicer than I expected.  Even though I'm trying to keep it local, the Starbuks with free wi-fi called my name.  I took out some cash, purchased a Malaysian sim card (so I've got a local number) and then enjoyed a Java Chip Frappaccino.

I spent a few hours at Starbucks, working on getting my blog updated and my shutterfly site live.  I've only posted pictures from the first couple days, which can be found at http://ejltravels.shutterfly.com/. We are now about to board the plane.  Don't have too much else to say anyway since I've just been at the airport all day.  Will be arriving in Penang around 10:30pm, so probably won't write again until tomorrow.