SYDNEY TRIP WITH ELAINE

Day 1: 26/7/2009

8.00 p.m.
Reached KLIA at about 8 and proceeded to check in. Upon check-in, I was told, to my horror, that I need a visa to go Australia and I didn't have one. FORTUNATELY, this is quite common and there is a facility in the airport to solve this problem. So that was my first heart attack moment of the trip. The visa costs RM30 and the place is found at the MAS office in the arrival hall.

Because my ticket was purchased online and I did not pre-book a seat online, my seat was only assigned when I check-in, thus I was left with only the unsavoury choices. The lesson I learnt from this is that never trust what the flight attendant says. As he was trying to get rid of the disgusting seats, he conveniently left out the disgusting side of the seats and was eagerly promoting them. I thought it was weird that no one took the seats if they were as good as he claims. Fortunately my dad was there and advised me against taking the most disgusting seat that he was offering me and I ended up taking a less disgusting seat among the disgusting seats.

9.00 p.m.
After going thru the custom check point, I treat myself to a starbucks coffee frappucino and went to look for the vodka requested by Sookjin. Because I am absolutely blur in the alcohol department, so there was this young guy assisting me to get the alcohol. I asked him what's the difference between something and something so he was saying the more expensive one is premium. So I asked him what does he meant by premium den he just said that it means that it's better. So I asked him in what sense it's better and finally he answered he doesn't know. Seriously though, I really feel that you shouldn't just dish out words when you don't know what it means.

Anyway, I don't know about the usual price of alcohol but I got a 1 Litre Smirnoff triple distilled alcohol for RM64 and I thought it's a bargain. The funny thing about paying is that you need to present your passport and boarding pass to the cashier. Apparently you can only collect the alcohol you purchased after you pass through the security check point at the boarding area. I have no idea why. Maybe they are scared that you might somehow concoct a bomb in the airport or something.

9.30 p.m.
When I went to the boarding area, I was surprised to see there were many who were headed down to Sydney, in which many were Malaysians (I'm assuming as all the non-gwailo passengers).I mean, this is not even a holiday season and aren't we in the midst of a recession? Imagine the crowd during holiday season...

9.40 p.m.
Time passed very quickly and I was boarding the plane before I knew it...

I guess I'm a pretty slow person because the realization that I was travelling alone only dawn on me when I was passing the security check to the boarding room. Suddenly the idea seemed pretty daunting because this is technically the first time that I'm travelling alone to a far, foreign place. Singapore doesn't count since it's pretty much like KL anyway...

10.30 p.m.
I think the plane officially departed at 10:30 p.m. As they were pressurizing the cabin, so the plane was unbearably warm. Anyway, the unscrupulous flight attendant at the check-in said that he was giving me a seat where the next seat is empty. Turns out that he was lying again. After I was settled in my seat, a lanky, blur looking guy probably my slightly younger than my sister came and I realized that I was sitting at his place. The air stewardess who was helping him asked if we were together to which I found rather stupid and funny because if we were together, he wouldn't need to refer to her anyway.

11.00 p.m.
After a non-eventful take-off, we were served our supper. The menu was conveniently misleading. We were given a choice between