Kuala Lumpur June 2014 "You look different"
01/06/14 15:32
If you had said to me six months ago that I would be flying out to Malaysia to meet the mystery woman I have been chatting to on zoom then I would almost certainly have laughed at you. I am now out of full time work but a promising career in consultancy work beckons once I get back from this visit. I told my Mom I was going to meet this lady and she said I should take a gift or two. I hadn't given that a moment's thought but of course it is right to do so. I have no idea what to take with me but decide that shower gel must be a good idea for a hot country and buy a selection packs containing twelve different fragrances. I hope this will be well received. I am also cheered by one of my now regular weekly Zoom calls coinciding with a visit to my Mother's so she gets the chance to talk to this lady. (I'm sure my Mom doesn't know how Zoom works as she holds the screen 25 cm from her face. I should have warned her that the camera on my friend's computer was not very good!)
I haven't flown anywhere for over twenty years and certainly never to this part of the world. How will she recognise me as I have no real idea what she looks like? I decide to play safe and choose to wear a green sleeveless jacket and a floppy hat like my Dad used to have. I know I will need to stand out from the masses once I get there otherwise she'll not know it's me and I'll face the daunting task of getting to KL (that's shorthand for Kuala Lumpur) on public transport. This is going to be the adventure of a lifetime so I've bought the Lonely Planet guidebook to Malaysia in case she knows little about her country. (Spoiler alert: I didn't need the guidebook).
The flight from Birmingham stops off in Dubai for a couple of hours and I scan the departure's board for where I need to be. Dubai airport is massive, Birmingham not so. The big screens list dozen's of flights but I spot the name Kuala Lumpur and my onward departure time. Against those details is a departure gate number so I make my way over to it and sit down. I have a ninety minute wait and quietly watch the comings and goings of passengers and contemplate on what is to come as time slips by. A lot of time slips by and very little appears to be happening so with less than 30 minutes to go before my onward flight is due to depart I decide to ask at the desk "what is going on and why aren't we boarding?" There are horrified looks on their faces as apparently I am sitting where disabled people go to get transport to their Gate and mine is just about to close! I get on a "fast people carrier" which takes about twenty minutes to take me to the now closed gate where I board a bus, thankfully with a couple of other stragglers, that takes us to the plane. I've just made it but my fellow passengers do not appear to be happy about my last minute arrival. I sit down and ponder on how I could have made such a mistake. I am very good at reading timetables and working out where I should be even in this unfamiliar environment. I am certain when I arrived in Dubai I had correctly read the Gate number that was for Kuala Lumpur but now I have boarded a plane at the opposite end of the airport to where I had been sitting and that was never a Departure Gate in the first place! (Remember this is my first flight through Dubai so I have no idea how many people would be waiting to go to Kuala Lumpur. There were 25 people with me in that waiting area and it never occurred to me that wasn't near enough for the onward leg of my journey). Nevertheless I am relieved to be on the right plane and think no more of it. However, you the reader, are invited to think what might have happened had I not chosen to ask "what is going on"? I've not flown for twenty years and never had to change flights midway so I might have carried on sitting there and missed my onward flight. Had that happened would I have waited another 12 or 24 hours (and paid again) for the next flight or maybe I would have gone home in frustration?
After a seven hour flight the plane landed in Kuala Lumpur and I put on my jacket and hat. As I was standing in the queue to go through Immigration I looked around at my fellow travellers and thought "Everyone here is of Asian origin whilst I am a European. I don't really need to dress to be obvious to any one waiting for me". I pass through Customs without any problem walk out to where the assembled masses are waiting to greet their friends/relatives/business clients, etc and a voice shouts my name. I walk over to meet this lady and her first words to me are "You look different". Well, I assumed it wasn't my jacket and hat she was commenting on but rather the bit you don't see when sitting down in front of a camera. I am somewhat overweight. I mumbled something about how cameras are not the best of things to show details whilst remembering I was seeing for the first time what she looked like rather than through the lens of her 3MP camera!
Post script: I write these stories with the advantage of hindsight. The incorrect Gate Number story is significant because it is highly unlikely I made a mistake when looking at the screen. This was my first visit here so I took care to read that number more than once. What I believe happened is that someone didn't want me to get to Malaysia and put the wrong Gate Number into my mind! What I saw no one else did. There are at least two more stories to come in my blog where something similar happens to me and what I see with my eyes I doubt anyone else will have seen with theirs. I have provided links to those stories below and you can make up your own mind as to what happened.
Welcome Home - I go to church for the first time in forty years and there is a message for me on the screen
The Writing on the Wall - I see what I think is reflected light on a wall but it can't reflect on to that one!
I haven't flown anywhere for over twenty years and certainly never to this part of the world. How will she recognise me as I have no real idea what she looks like? I decide to play safe and choose to wear a green sleeveless jacket and a floppy hat like my Dad used to have. I know I will need to stand out from the masses once I get there otherwise she'll not know it's me and I'll face the daunting task of getting to KL (that's shorthand for Kuala Lumpur) on public transport. This is going to be the adventure of a lifetime so I've bought the Lonely Planet guidebook to Malaysia in case she knows little about her country. (Spoiler alert: I didn't need the guidebook).
The flight from Birmingham stops off in Dubai for a couple of hours and I scan the departure's board for where I need to be. Dubai airport is massive, Birmingham not so. The big screens list dozen's of flights but I spot the name Kuala Lumpur and my onward departure time. Against those details is a departure gate number so I make my way over to it and sit down. I have a ninety minute wait and quietly watch the comings and goings of passengers and contemplate on what is to come as time slips by. A lot of time slips by and very little appears to be happening so with less than 30 minutes to go before my onward flight is due to depart I decide to ask at the desk "what is going on and why aren't we boarding?" There are horrified looks on their faces as apparently I am sitting where disabled people go to get transport to their Gate and mine is just about to close! I get on a "fast people carrier" which takes about twenty minutes to take me to the now closed gate where I board a bus, thankfully with a couple of other stragglers, that takes us to the plane. I've just made it but my fellow passengers do not appear to be happy about my last minute arrival. I sit down and ponder on how I could have made such a mistake. I am very good at reading timetables and working out where I should be even in this unfamiliar environment. I am certain when I arrived in Dubai I had correctly read the Gate number that was for Kuala Lumpur but now I have boarded a plane at the opposite end of the airport to where I had been sitting and that was never a Departure Gate in the first place! (Remember this is my first flight through Dubai so I have no idea how many people would be waiting to go to Kuala Lumpur. There were 25 people with me in that waiting area and it never occurred to me that wasn't near enough for the onward leg of my journey). Nevertheless I am relieved to be on the right plane and think no more of it. However, you the reader, are invited to think what might have happened had I not chosen to ask "what is going on"? I've not flown for twenty years and never had to change flights midway so I might have carried on sitting there and missed my onward flight. Had that happened would I have waited another 12 or 24 hours (and paid again) for the next flight or maybe I would have gone home in frustration?
After a seven hour flight the plane landed in Kuala Lumpur and I put on my jacket and hat. As I was standing in the queue to go through Immigration I looked around at my fellow travellers and thought "Everyone here is of Asian origin whilst I am a European. I don't really need to dress to be obvious to any one waiting for me". I pass through Customs without any problem walk out to where the assembled masses are waiting to greet their friends/relatives/business clients, etc and a voice shouts my name. I walk over to meet this lady and her first words to me are "You look different". Well, I assumed it wasn't my jacket and hat she was commenting on but rather the bit you don't see when sitting down in front of a camera. I am somewhat overweight. I mumbled something about how cameras are not the best of things to show details whilst remembering I was seeing for the first time what she looked like rather than through the lens of her 3MP camera!
Post script: I write these stories with the advantage of hindsight. The incorrect Gate Number story is significant because it is highly unlikely I made a mistake when looking at the screen. This was my first visit here so I took care to read that number more than once. What I believe happened is that someone didn't want me to get to Malaysia and put the wrong Gate Number into my mind! What I saw no one else did. There are at least two more stories to come in my blog where something similar happens to me and what I see with my eyes I doubt anyone else will have seen with theirs. I have provided links to those stories below and you can make up your own mind as to what happened.
Welcome Home - I go to church for the first time in forty years and there is a message for me on the screen
The Writing on the Wall - I see what I think is reflected light on a wall but it can't reflect on to that one!