KL-London thoughts

Well, two weeks ago I did the London-KL trip thought, now having finally arrived back in London, this is my KL-London thoughts.

Firstly KLIA, what a clean sterile place. It was also empty giving the whole place an eerie feeling. I proceeded to the book store and start hunting for books. Imagine my shock when I found that most of the books sold here costs more than Kuala Lumpur's MPH store and even London's popular book stores like Borders and Waterstones.

Since I am not really into luxury items, I had to skip half of KLIA shops. The next trip was the video store where I started searching for the so called Sepet DVD/VCD. You see I do not know anything about this film except its about a Chinese guy and Malay gal falling in love. I also happen to think its kinda arty. This assumption is purely based on the publicity stills I have seen in magazines and websites and some reviews I have read. Well I missed the movie when I was in KLCC on Thursday and thought I could get the video. No matter, we have bittorrent.

A quick trip to the sole electronic store reveals nothing that I desired. Of all the shops I spent most of my time at the tourist stores. I am a Malaysian and I shop for tourist stuffs!!! Well I got a couple of beads for my junkie British friends who happens to love Malaysia.

With an hour to kill, I decided to wait by the gate and read my book. Boarded at about 11.45am and I found myself having four seats by myself. Sadly its because there were a couple of people who came in 20 minutes late (and delayed our Plane by 30 minutes). Well I got 1 1/2 seat for myself sharing it with my Australian (?) neighbour.

Because we were flying towards London, we were always in the sun. Could not sleep at all because MAS stewards did not instruct the closing of windows this time around. I had only three hours of sleep last night so it was important I got a little nap. Well they were showing Ocean's Twelve, Elektra and Spanglish on the tiny screens. All of which disappointed me.

By the way, if you were hoping that MAS has upgraded the cabins to the ones widely reported in the newspapers last week, you would be disappointed. We were all stuck with ten year old designs. Enquire first with MAS before booking your flight, if not just fly with some other airlines like Emirates or Lufthansa or even Singapore Airlines.

Food was mildly enjoyable this time around. I had some lamb thingy with roasted potatoes for lunch and ravioli with cheese and tomato for dinner. Just proves that catering on MAS is best left to those ground crew in Malaysia and not those incompetents in London (London-KL food are horrible).

Magazines were provided in the form of Newsweek and Time, both full of coverage pertaining to a certain woman called Terri. The nice lady next to me brought out her copy of a fashion magazine, a suplement of Time magazine in which it went into details of China's female fetish for bourgeoise fashion. It was an interesting read.

We arrived at London Heathrow at roughly 6.30pm BST. Immigration was quick this time. It usually takes about 1/2 hour to navigate through the queues but this time I only had six people in front of me. Baggage reclaim was as sore as my experience in KLIA two weeks ago. 45 minutes of waiting. A ground crew staff told me this was because there was only one guy unloading the cargo!

A short trip out the jammed green lane and I was soon on the underground back to my place. I was sharing the same box on the Piccadilly Line with a couple who cannot stop touching each other. Ah...what a sight...what freedom...I was so glad to be back in such a liberal city, I immediately went fishing for today's Observer at the local newsagent but by then it was too late, all the copies has been sold out.