malaysia

It’s been quite some time since I wrote my last traveling blog and nothing was going to happen with this until November. Then I showed up to work on a Monday and my boss said I was going to Malaysia on Thursday, okay. I was overlooking my flight schedule, I was to leave Tucson on Thursday and I wouldn’t be getting to Kuala Lumpur until Saturday afternoon. Sheesh, even with crossing the International Dateline that’s a lot of AIS. Ass in Seat. Flight to Dallas was not memorable. Then I had a 7 hour layover in Dallas, I spent most of the time in the lounge, that was better than being with the locals, but I would have preferred to just get on with my trip. Next I had a 3 hour flight to San Francisco. Got to San Francisco, went to the lounge and watched my Michael Phelps continue with the dominance. Afterwards I thought to myself, I’m going to go check out the Cathay Pacific lounge. Good thing I did because I actually needed to leave the terminal, re check in, and go through security. I did all of that and still had time to get to their lounge, eat some dumplings, watch some female gymnastics and then catch my 14 hour flight to Hong Kong. I had an okay seat but it was very tiny and I was sitting next to a stinky Indian. One thing I was very impressed with was Cathay’s in seat entertainment system. Almost 100 movies on demand and 8000 CDs on demand. Simply amazing. Somehow or another I made the 14 hours and I was now in the Far East. Walking around Hong Kong airport at 5am is nothing special, it’s empty and very quiet, everything is closed, but the lounge is open at DragonAir airlines; okay go have some noodly soup and some dry ginger ale. Then I had another 3 hour flight to KL, as it is affectionately known. The airport here is fairly nice, it’s very hot and muggy, which is what you would expect for the jungle but still.

As soon as I checked in I went to HRC, that’s what all pinheads do, and went to an Argentinean steakhouse. Came home went to the steam room and couldn’t keep my eyes open past 9pm, fast forward 11 hours of sleep. I awoke, went down and head some breakfast and went and got a massage. This was my first massage and I really enjoyed it. I might have fallen asleep during. It wasn’t super relaxing because I’m not a stressed person but when she went to work on my claves I winced. Afterwards I was covered in relaxing oils and went to work kind of sort of. Went for walk to HRC for lunch. That night I walked to an Italian restaurant and had some pizza and beer. Since the area is predominately Muslim they are very reluctant to give you beer. So when you are ordering your 4th refill they seem upset by that
Monday was the first day of the conference and I didn’t do much, but I went to a great Chinese restaurant for lunch. Worked on my chopstick skills and had some tofu. Not very good. Monday night I went to China town and bought some truly authentic knock offs. A great polo shirt and Lacoste shirt. Some other gifts, which some readers may be getting so I won’t say what else I purchased.

Tuesday I actually did some work. Then I went to some huge 6 story electronics store where everything under the sun with a battery could be purchased. Sadly it was the same thing on every floor, cameras, flash cards, motherboards, phones, memory sticks, yada yada yada. That night some of the conference coordinators took us to some Malay hole in the wall for dinner. I had some egg fried rice dish and satay. Satay is just like a kebob. Good stuff.

Wednesday I went to a meeting and then it was our cultural dinner. We had a great show with dancers. Malaysia is a melting pot of Chinese, Indian, and Malay, so all week I had either Chinese food or Indian food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I was able to try many new fruits that I had never seen or heard of before and sadly I cannot pronounce them either so you will not be privy to that information either. Had many good meat dishes and some Indian pastries. Afterwards I called it a night.

Thursday was only a half day because of our cultural tour. We had lunch at the hotel Italian restaurant which was exquisite. Then we were off. We went to a Malaysian craft center, they make many fine silk garments and products with a many fine price attached. Next we went to the Petronas towers. If that doesn’t ring a bell it’s the towers from the movie Entrapment. Quite a nice view, of course another 6 story mall is attached with very high prices. I bought a FCUK shirt because I like the word fuck. I was accompanied by one of the Malaysian colonel’s daughter. Good conversationalist, she wanted to practice her English. It was nice. After we got back from the tour we went back out with our coordinators to another Malay restaurant and I had some egg fried noodles dish. I really hadn’t gotten drunk yet so I decided it was my last night better imbibe. I went to a bar, sat down, and proceeded to order pints of Singapore beer. Its called tiger and its ferociously good. I also smoked a Cuban cigar, It wasnt very enjoyable and Im sure I did it wrong but with the whole trade embargo I thought why not. Does smoking making you drunk at all because I only had 4 pints and I walked home a la Billy from Family Circus. I even wrote drunken emails and IMs.
Currently Im in Tokyo sipping Japanese Whisky, it has the flavor of a cherry blossom with the bite of a samurai, I realize those references may be to the wrong country, but the thought seemed amusing to me and now you really want to try it as well don’t you. Anyways Im off to my gate c71.

Alright picking up where we left off. I left Tokyo at 11am on Saturday and now Im in texas at 10 am Saturday morning. Love that international dateline. One of the coolest things about my SFO trip was that I had about 20 hours of nighttime that night. Usually when I come home from Europe I have 20 hours of sunlight and it gets pretty annoying but I didn’t mind the 20 hours of nighttime. Let me go back and reread and see where I left off.

Looks like we are on Friday now. Friday was a pretty chill day, like most of my days, I try to do as much chillaxin as possible. We wrapped things up and some admirals and general said some closing remarks, we had a small awards assembly, then we went back to that same Chinese restaurant. I ate too much duck and squid, but it was tasty. I packed up all of my equipment and packed my luggage and somehow with all the crap that was given to me and with all the crap I bought I still came in under the baggage limits. I had to be in the lobby at 6pm to catch my van, fast forward to 8 when the van actually showed up. The host nation was very apologetic and embarrassed but no worries my flight wasn’t until 1050.

I had a very enjoyable ride with a wing commander from Bangladesh. We talked about human interoperability and we had a great discussion on Christianity and Islam. We came to the conclusion that they are 98% identical and how everyone should just chillax and this world would be a better place. I learned what the difference is between covering your hair and covering your whole face when it comes to woman in Islam. Good stuff. My flight from KL to Tokyo wasn’t too bad only 6 hours, but my coach seat was super cramped and they wouldn’t turn the lights off either. I fell asleep twice for about 30-40 minutes and REMed it up. I woke up covered in my own drool, must have been good REM. Not much else going on with that trip. My flight from Tokyo to dallas was 11 hours and the movie selection sucked it royally. And it was super cold. When I was in Tokyo I broke down and bought some duty free noise cancelling headphones, shits rocked my socks off. I slept something fierce on that flight. The breakfast and lunch were okay coming from Asia. I always recommend everyone to order the kosher meal when traveling to Europe on AA because the other food sucks. Currently sitting in the DFW lounge drinking vodka and orange juice about to get on my flight. I think when it is all said and done I will have traveled 28 hours, pretty long time. Well if I can think of anything else Ill write it, but im tired so this will wrap it up.


Hugs and kisses,


jake