The
alarm went off at 3 AM, early, even by birding standards. We hauled our bags downstairs and met
Adrian, our amazing local guide who never seems to rest. He bused us to the airport and left us with
instructions on how to check in. There
were few people around and we had to sit for half an hour until anything opened
up. We scanned our bags, checked in
with Malaysia Airlines and went to our domestic gate.
We
boarded and got our two window seats, Bob in front of me, as we both want to see
the scenery. We circled around Kota
Kinabalu seeing more fancy condos and a beach resort before heading west to the
Malay peninsula and the capitol, Kuala Lumpur. We were given a full breakfast of chicken
and noodles and fruit and landed at 8:30.
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| K L Airport |
 |
| Finally- Durian! |
We
walked through the lovely airport with its palm-filled atrium and shops worthy
of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills! We
managed to find a small stand selling Durian products and shared a Durian frozen
fruit bar. It was quite delicious but
did have a faint taste of old onions! I wanted to buy some gum, but nothing
so plebeian was to be found,
so I’m going home with a few very pretty Ringgit notes.
We’re flying Malaysian
Airways, and on the same model plane, the 777, that is now very mysteriously missing. A little creepy – but what could we
do? And anyway MA is an excellent
airline with good legroom and good food...and they start all their in flight
announcements with “ Ladies & Gentlemen, Boys & Girls…” which for some
reason always struck us as very humorous! We got seats 35J & K, the same as we
came over on, and started watching movies. We got lunch and a snack and arrived in
Tokyo in the early evening. We had to
disembark, walk quite a ways,go through security. go upstairs, walk in the
opposite direction, and get right back on the same plane. We were served dinner with a delicious cold
noodle salad with soy sauce, a packet of dried seaweed, and some wasabi. After dinner we took an Ambien each and
slept pretty well until the same morning when we got lunch and landed at LAX at
1:40 PM.
At
the great new Tom Bradley terminal, we were whisked through immigration, quickly
picked up our bags, and dashed by customs. We were scheduled to ride home on the SB
Airbus leaving at 3:30, but we as we emerged from the terminal, there was the 2
PM bus right there by the curb! What luck!!
Bob
collapsed into a deep sleep all the way home, and awoke as we arrived in SB at
4:30. We grabbed a cab driven by a
wild woman in a bright green wig (St. Paddy’s Day – who knew) who got us home in
time for me to dash down to the Cat House Hotel and grab a howling Maddie! She yowled all the way home and has been
super affectionate ever since! As we’ve had so much Asian food lately we drove
over to Montecito for an Italian dinner at Via Vai. A great trip, but we’re all happy to be
home!
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| Miss Maddie |
XXX,
Katy
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