Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Well, mostly just planes…

Ranger Duck and all his luggage

We left Plano around 7am on Wednesday.  We went DFW to LAX with no problem.  Well, one slight problem. They made me check my carry on suitcase. Didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.  More on this later.

At LAX, we decided to ask about an upgrade to “premium economy”. If we bought premium economy at the beginning, it would have been an extra $3000 each.  They offered the upgrade for $300 each.  It was an easy decision.  We had bigger seats, more leg room, and a better menu. We were also offered hot towels and a complimentary drink while we waited for everyone else to board and get settled.  The 14 hours to Hong Kong was better than I expected.  We were definitely ready to get off the plane after about 12 hours though, mostly out of boredom.

Ranger Duck enjoyed the fancy accommodations of Premium Economy.

We were greeted at the gate in Hong Kong by an airline representative who let us know our flight to KL was cancelled, but they had made arrangements for us to get on a different airline’s flight.  All we had to do was go to the other counter to get new boarding passes.  That seemed easy enough. The other airline apparently didn’t know that they would be flying several of us and weren’t prepared.  They seemed very confused and we were asked to go to about 3 different places.  All through this, no one was communicating anything to us.  I think we both would have cried if we weren’t so exhausted.  After about 2 hours, they let us know that we had missed all the flights to KL that night and we could go at 1am through Singapore or at 8:30am direct.  We opted for the direct flight and they put us up at the airport hotel in Hong Kong.  We didn’t get to see any of Hong Kong, but it is cool to be able to say that we spent the night in China.

The view from the Hong Kong airport.

Micah had a change of clothes, but my extra clothes were in the bag they made me check.  I did have a toothbrush and toothpaste in my purse, so that was better than nothing.  When we woke up in the morning, I realized that my cover up for my dress was also in my checked bag.  So I would be flying in to a primarily Muslim country in a dress with tank top straps (that I had already worn for 2 days).  The best option was for me to wear one of Micah’s t-shirt over the dress.  Not my most fashionable day, but at least we did not kick off an international incident.  Our flight from Hong Kong to KL was delayed by an hour and we flew through some terrible turbulence.  In retrospect, the whole ordeal was not so bad.  We saw many people who had spent the night at the airport.  At least we had a bed, a shower, and a good meal.  We landed in KL, found our driver, and made it to our hotel without further trouble.  It took some time to get checked in, our reservation was only made about an hour before we arrived and the receptionist couldn’t find it at first.  At this point, it was about 3pm on Friday in Kuala Lumpur.  We had been traveling for the best part of 3 days.

We have had time to get settled in and do some exploring.  We have tried food we couldn’t identify.  We watched the Malaysian Independence Day parade.  We are getting acclimated to the culture and haven’t made too many mistakes…that we know of!  Full posts on all of these things are coming this week.  There is a lot to say about the things we have done so far and I want to make sure they each get the attention they deserve.

The time difference from KL to the East Coast is 12 hours, the difference from KL to Texas is 13 hours.  KL is ahead a day.  If you want to arrange to chat or Skype, we will have to plan in advance!  We don’t have texting on our phones, but FB messaging has worked well and I imagine G-chat would be OK too.