It all started with my quest to obtain Italian citizenship. In addition to the requirement to be married to an Italian citizen (check), there's a language requirement, which means I have to pass an official exam before they'll even consider my application. The exam was offered in Vancouver in early December and knowing that I work best under a deadline, I signed up, paid my exam fee, and hit the books.
While I was busy studying, Gerry must have been getting bored, because that's when he started planning our next adventure. First there was Italy, then Mexico, and now...Malaysia!
Fortunately, I'm the easygoing one in the relationship, so I'm happy to just go along. And that's how we ended up on a bus from Victoria to downtown Vancouver en route to the Kingston Hotel and the Italian Cultural Centre, then to YVR and directly on to Malaysia.
Aside: If ever you need to travel from Victoria to YVR or anywhere in downtown Vancouver, we highly recommend the BC Ferries Connector service. Not only is it an affordable, efficient, and stress-free way to get to your destination, if you're lucky enough to be on Busdriver Bob's bus, you'll be entertained along the way with fun facts, spot-on impersonations, and what amounts to a sit-down comedy routine. That alone was worth the price of admission, and bonus, we got where we were going without having to drive in downtown traffic!
But this is about our adventures in Malaysia, so let's pick up our story in the Star Alliance Lounge at YVR, where we passed a pleasant 3 hours prior to boarding our flight, toasting the successful (I hope!) completion of my exam and enjoying a leisurely multi-course cafeteria style dinner along with several glasses of pinot gris.
Finally, it was time to embark on the first leg of our journey, a 14 hour flight on China Southwest Airline to Guangzhou, China. We left at 11:20 p.m. and chased the sun all the way across the Pacific and most of China. We never did succeed in catching any daylight, which was a bit depressing. But the flight attendants worked hard to make the long flight a bit more tolerable by tending to small details.
For example, once the occupant of the aisle seat in our row finally woke up (I have no idea how she slept that long, and through that much turbulence!) and I was able to visit the lavatory, I was delighted to find that it was sparkling clean. The end of the toilet paper had even been neatly folded into that little triangle thing they do in hotels. Keep in mind, this was after about 8 hours in the air and certainly a fair amount of use of the facilities.
Actually, on my way to the loo, I must have startled one of the flight attendants who was taking a well-deserved rest in a jump seat. Now I know why they're called jump seats because as soon as she noticed me approaching she jumped up and started puttering away at something, even though I'm quite sure there was nothing that needed doing.
I rather got the impression that she was grabbing a few well-deserved winks in between passenger visits to the lavatory, and when there were no "customers" she would discretely pop in to tidy things up and fold the toilet paper so everything was pleasant for the next passenger.
Finally, at who-knows-what-time because we were now 16 hours ahead of Vancouver and had hardly slept at all during the flight, we arrived at Guangzhou airport. After the longest taxi-to-a-gate we've ever experienced - a good 25 minutes - we were finally able to get off the plane and stretch our legs while making our way through the airport to find the gate for our connecting flight.
I'm afraid that's the best airport photo we could manage. There was a really gorgeous "Welcome to Guangzhou" poster we saw that would have made a lovely photo backdrop. Unfortunately, it was on the wall directly behind one of those moving sidewalks and we were not about to try taking a photo in front of it while sleep-deprived, juggling our luggage, and also in motion.
Our flight into Kuala Lumpur (KL, for those of us in the know 😉) was relatively short by comparison, so I didn't feel the need to check out the toilet paper situation in the lavatory. The KL airport is very modern, but the signage in the arrivals area was not altogether clear. We just followed the crowd thinking that was a safe bet, stopping to take a quick photo along the way just to prove we had actually arrived.
Once we figured out that we were to board a train to another terminal to clear customs and immigration, everything made more sense. We breezed through customs after going to the "nothing to declare" lane. We were then waved on through what we assume was immigration, after responding that we were Canadian when asked our nationality.
Facing the last leg of our journey, we had the choice of taking a Grab (the local version of Uber) to our hotel, or checking out the public transit system. As usual, we opted for the latter. Even after 21 hours of travel, it's kinda fun to figure out the buses, trains, and whatever other options might be available in a new country. But can you believe we were still smiling at this point???
The airport is quite a ways out of the city, so our first leg was the KLIA train to Putrajaya Sentral station. We then hopped onto the metro heading north on the yellow line, then changed to the orange line to arrive at the stop closest to our hotel.
Due to a stalled construction project behind the station (we later learned from an Aussie-in-the-know whom we met in the swimming pool, that someone disappeared with several million dollars of investors' money 10 years ago), we had to walk down a very long covered walkway to exit the station, then double back along a busy road to finally arrive at our accommodation.
It was now about 4:00 p.m. local time and we couldn't remember when we'd last slept. However, we managed to stay away long enough to unpack, shower, and head out to find some supper. But by 9:00 it was lights out time, and we both slept like babies.
I think we surprised ourselves at how little jet lag we had. None, in fact. Must've been the near-total lack of sleep from Thursday morning Vancouver time to Saturday evening Malaysia time. In any case, after a good night's rest we felt like we were right back in the swing of things, so we haven't wasted any time diving right into this next adventure...
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