First Taste Of Home

Airport is a place where I have a love-hate feelings for. For couple like us who are on a LDR relationship, it is always the place we meet and part. We are already more than three years into our relationship and except for the very first time we met face-to-face with each other in our life, this time is the first time Michelle and I met in somewhere else but the airport. As she was traveling from Malacca up to KL to meet me on the morning I arrived in Malaysia, we decided that our meeting point would be at KL Sentral.

In front of the McDonald's restaurant to be precise.

My first meal in Malaysia - breakfast consisting of sausage McMuffin with egg, hash browns and coffee.

Dr. Gan playing Uno with my little cousin.

While the big brother was busy playing his zombie game.

See nowadays what kids make during the Pendidikan Seni (Art) class. Can you believe it that this whole computer set was made of cardboard?!

I took a closer look and realised it was the Facebook page haha!

Lunch was home-cooked meal by my aunt - fried chicken wings, Sinhalese style stir fried ladies finger, and ABC soup.

We would be traveling back to Taiping on the next day with my youngest aunt, who took a few days off for Christmas holidays. So, we spent a night at my third aunt's place before heading northwards back to my hometown. It was Christmas eve on the day I arrived in Malaysia, so we went to the city for a short outing.

Our first stop was at Shanghai 10 (上海天) at Avenue K, located two floors above the KLCC LRT station because Michelle was dying to have their durian pancake. This girl I tell you; as long as something has got to do with durian, she will do anything just to get it. We actually had this durian pancake for the first time during our Genting trip two years ago and Michelle instantly fell in love with it.

The restaurant looks a little classy from outside, with a strong Chinese feel from its wooden furniture and decoration.

The ambiance inside the restaurant was not bad; take this light for example.

Xiao long bao. Do you know that the right way of holding the dumpling is from the tip top so that you don't burst the lower layer which contains the soup.

Avocado with kataifi. This smooth texture of the avocado blends well with the cripsy kataifi. However, it tasted a little bit like kaya =.=

Durian pancake. It's durian flesh with thick mousse and a very thin layer of pancake. Although it is a little pricey, I would highly recommend this. We ordered three plates at first, but since it was quite a big serving (three pieces in a plate), we ordered only two plates in the end.

We took a short stroll around KLCC but nothing much to see there. I would say the Christmas deco at KLCC this year lacks creativity.

From KLCC, we headed to PJ. We managed to hop into the brand new coaches in the Putra LRT Line.

We arrived at Sunway Pyramid and walked mainly at the new wing because Michelle has not been there yet. After a while, we decided to get some snacks. We tried something different at a newly opened outlet - Ninja Joe, a non-halal burger restaurant which serves pork burger. It is quite rare to get pork burgers in Malaysia, so we thought of giving it a try.

A solo ninja burger is sold at RM 5.50, two for RM 9.90. The more you order, the cheaper it gets per burger. There are quite a wide range of different sauce to choose from - original, teriyaki, sweet and sour, black pepper and oriental. 

Stuff we normally do while waiting for our order to come.
 

I went for original sauce while Michelle chose teriyaki sauce for her burger.

One downside is the tiny size of the burger; it is like half the size of my palm! To be honest, their sauces and burgers are nothing special, 
so I probably would not go there again.

We continued walking and somebody spotted black sesame and green tea ice cream at this Japanese cafe, and got excited right away.

We settled for three scoops of gelato - green tea with azuki beans, black sesame and durian flavour. The black sesame was especially nice.

The night illumination outside Sunway Pyramid.

We left Sunway Pyramid quite early because anyway we need to pack and rest early. Furthermore, for all the problems and cases reported every time it's the eve for a big countdown celebration like Christmas and New Year's day, we decided that we would not gonna join anything like that and get trapped in the traffic congestion, but to get home earlier instead. We were greeted with some small fireworks sound at the stroke of midnight.

My youngest aunt picked up us at around eight in the morning and we went for breakfast first before starting our three-hour journey back to Taiping. She took us to have dim sum at some Chinese coffee shop near USJ area.

Too many kinds of dumplings here, so not gonna name every one of them.

The yellow one is siew mai and spicy chicken legs. I rarely take chicken legs because they say your handwriting will turn super ugly. True one-arh?

Radish cake and lor mai kai, which was rather bland.

Gua Tempurung was spotted from the North-South Expressway near Ipoh.

Approaching Ipoh, the largest town in Perak.

They have recently reconstructed the tol gate at Jelapang that it is sometimes quite confusing. That is why they have to erect a XXXXXXL-sized signboard to avoid drivers making the wrong turn.

After about three hours of journey, we finally reached Taiping. Now I know why the only thing most people know about Taiping is the Taiping Zoo.

It feels so good to be back to my hometown.

The two chefs were busy preparing lunch when I reached home.

The outcome! We had fish, instead of turkey on Christmas day haha!

In the evening, we had Siamese laksa by my grandma.

Coming back home means consuming food non-stop. So, I shall stop here first before my blog gets overweight haha!

Flying With AirAsia X : Haneda - Kuala Lumpur

Roughly about one year ago, I was among those who wished for Air Asia to expend their flying routes to Japan. Back then, there were already AirAsia X (AirAsia's long-distance airline) flights to other big cities like London, Melbourne and Seoul, but not to Tokyo.

However, after anticipating for that dream to come true for more than a year, the wait was finally over with the introduction of the AirAsia X flights to Haneda airport in Tokyo beginning December 9, last year. It is the first foreign low-cost carrier to serve the airport, which offers a cheaper alternative for us who wish to fly to Japan. The flight flies from the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) in Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to Haneda Tokyo, with three non-stop flights a week.

Waiting for train to head to Haneda airport from my place in Inage, Chiba.

The newly opened international terminal of Haneda International Airport.

AirAsia X flight D72653 lining up among other airlines like JAL and ANA.

This new terminal was opened recently - October last year.

The tickets for this KL-Tokyo and Tokyo-KL routes started to go on sale in late September last year and everyone, especially the kiasu Malaysians like me, rushed like mad to buy the promotional tickets, which was as cheap as RM 99. That's of course, just the basic ticket price excluding the airport tax and other miscellaneous fees. Still, it is still a great deal at such price. The cheap tickets were already got sold off in less than half an hour after it started to go on sale! Crazy, isn't it?

But guess what, I was also among those crazy ones who waited in front of my laptop to book my tickets right after the tickets went on sale haha! I literally "raced" with thousands of others to book my tickets as fast as possible, because the cheap seats were limited and they were selling like hot cakes. Then came the bad news! My browser collapsed when I clicked on the pay icon! Luckily, I acted quickly enough to rebook my flight and although I didn't manage to get that best deal, I'm glad that I still got quite a bargain for my tickets. Lesson of the day, do not use Google Chrome but Mozilla Firefox when you are booking flight tickets from Air Asia.

This is one of the main attraction of the terminal - Edo Koji (江戸小路) in the fourth floor.

The place is a shopping corridor modeled after a typical Edo Period street; it is like being in a theme park rather than an airport terminal

Shops line the corridor selling goods related to Japanese tradition and culture, including cosmetics, T-shirts, bags and local food products.

Restaurants specializing in popular Japanese cuisine such as sushi, soba and sukiyaki are also available, as well as some establishments featuring international cuisine.

The Edo Koji shopping street has a shop with a facade modeled after a Kabuki theater.



A corner for passengers to learn about the custom procedure with Kasutamu-kun.



Among the items that are illegal to be brought into Japan.



Telling me that it is not allowed to wear sunglasses at the security check section haha!



Suddenly, I was asked to put away all the fake Kasutamu-kun from the screen.



That's the final bear I need to kill with my "laser power" lol! In the end, I spent like more than ten minutes playing with that thing haha!



December 2010 marks the the first Christmas for Haneda International Airport.



The focus is on Japan's modern culture on the fifth floor. Named Tokyo Pop Town, half of the floor is occupied by shops selling goods of popular anime characters,
teen idols, TV and movie stars, toys and figurines.



This airport was recently renamed as Tokyo International Airport.



It was full moon on the night I fly; the moon was so low and huge, something quite common in Japan. Anyone knows why?

Prior to taking this flight, I have only flown in and out of Japan through Narita International Airport and Niigata International Airport. This is my first time taking a flight at Haneda, and I purposely timed myself to reach there several hours earlier than my flight time, just in case I get lost along the way. Sometimes, I can be really blur when it comes to going to new places haha! Too bad that that the check-in counters for my flight was only opened about two hours before my flight time. So, I used the time to explore the new place while waiting to check-in.

One negative point about this AirAsia X flight to Japan is the unfriendly flight time. It is still okay when you fly from Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur, because it departs at 2345 hours and reaches KL at 0630 hours in the next morning. However, the flight from KL to Tokyo departs at 1440 hours in the evening and lands in Tokyo at 2230 hours on the same day. For first time tourists to Japan, it will take at least another sixty minutes before they are done going through the immigration and claim their luggage. Hence, it is quite likely that they will have to spend a night at the hotels around the airport, because I believe it will be hard for them to catch the last train to Tokyo.

So, the check-in counters were finally opened.

Quite funny to see that the boarding pass bears ANA logo.

A slightly smaller departure hall, compared to Narita.

I was browsing through the books at the bookstore and see who I spotted? Uncle Tony on the front page of Forbes Asia!

Here comes the air-stewardess of AsiaAsia X, dressed in bright red uniform.

Their luggage size was so huge for their standard; they must have done some shopping while in Japan.

Feeling excited as I am moving closer to board the plane.

I looked around the boarding hall and I can say that more than ninety percent of the passengers were Malaysians. Everyone was speaking in familiar languages that it didn't feel like I was in Tokyo at all. It feels so much like home when you listen to an uncle standing next to you speaking Tamil on his phone, one group of students speaking Kelantanese dialect and a family on the front bench speaking Cantonese. I also saw several of my juniors and seniors who took the same flight as mine that evening.

I started to sense that it would be a new experience when I board the aircraft as soon as I realised that the boarding gate was on the ground floor, because the boarding gates are usually on the first floor of the departure building. My guess was further confirmed when I saw several shuttle buses beginning to line up outside the building. Unlike the usual way of getting into the plane through a platform, this time we had to do it in a different way.

We had to board a shuttle bus to get into the aircraft. Look at the inside of the bus; crowded like canned sardines, like taking buses at Pudu Raya haha!

Later, we had to climb up the plane.

The aircraft is a new Airbus 330.

The interior of the economy class section of the aircraft. Not that bad as we initially thought.

The flight was fully booked. That three ang moh guy on the left were talking so loudly throughout the flight =.=

Someone told me that the seat is so small that we can hardly move. But if a giraffe can place his legs nicely like this, then it should not be a big problem for others.

The toilet was just like other planes but still, it was still a bit too small for an elephant like me lol!

If you read the news, then you should know what is this all about; a bet between Tony Fernandes and Sir Richard Branson.

"If I had a flying reindeer, I'd name him Rubang" by Jasmine Lee, Air Asia Head of Commercial.



"Must-See, Must-Do in Japan". Looking at the list, I have yet to play pachinko, watch a Kabuki, watch a live Sumo wrestling tournament,
hike up Mount Fuji, or sleep in a capsule hotel.

One of the interesting discussion topics among us was the food served inside the plane. We all already knew that food isn't free and we will have to purchase them, either by pre-booking them earlier, or just buy them from the air-stewardess during the flight. I took out the pamphlet to check out the menu and was so excited to see some familiar snacks sold. They have Twisties, Sugus, Milo drinks, Ribena and even Tong Garden nuts!

However, all purchases are only to be done using either Malaysian ringgit, Japanese yen or US dollar. And you will get your change back only in Malaysian ringgit. So, it is better that you prepare some Malaysian ringgit in your wallet before you board the plane.

Some of the snacks and beverages available inside the plane.

Looking at this page made us hungry immediately.

But see how much picture can be a deceiver to us. I will be honest here, the food was quite poor, both in presentation and taste.



It doesn't really matter as I can always get the real food as I have arrived in Malaysia!

The flight took approximately seven hours and due to some delays before it took off from Haneda, we arrived slightly later than scheduled. However, what's more important is that I have finally arrived safely to Malaysia and started my short ten-day break at home. I will be updating more about my Malaysia trip when I can find the time, because currently I am at Malacca until I fly back to Japan in a couple of days' time. So, stay tuned!

Thanks to Air Asia, now everyone can fly.