A Walk in Town

The weather was nice and I have a couple of hours to kill. 10 am on a Monday morning and in was on leave. My camera was with me and Pasar Siti Khadijah was only 10 minutes away by foot.

Off I went without much hesitation.

The traffic in the morning was quite happy. I walked past the bus terminal, made a right turn and before I knew it, I was already at one of the entrances of the unmistakeable facade of the market.

It was the day before Aidil Adha, and I wasn't expecting the place to be crowded. But minis the crowd, I felt that place lost some of its photogenicity. I managed to squeeze out some decent photographs but ,in us the crowd people were aware that in was snapping at them.

I hung around for about half an hour, before deciding to head put to Bazaar Buluh Kubu next door. Again, my timing was bad. I was too early.

It was around 11 and only a handful of the shops were opened. Colourful, but again minus the crowd, I couldn't slip in to take photographs.

The sun was really high by now, and I took some time taking in the cityscape. They still have plenty of old buildings built after the war at the city center. Mostly built with art deco influence most needed refurbishments. The area around the bus terminal caught my eyes. And one particular bakery was calling me in.

More about the bakery later. As for now, let's just enjoy the snap and the ambiance.

Link to the photowalk slideshow can be seen here. More write-ups from the whole trip here.

A Look at the Pool

After breakfast, I decided to walk around the pool. I then realised that the hotel was actually quite small. They had a pool just by the coffee house where I had breakfast. And the pool was pretty big considering the size of the hotel.

From the 9th floor while I was waiting for the liftA long children pool separated from the main

It was just after 8 in the morning and already some family were already coming down to have a quick swim. My boys didn't bring their attire. I wasn't sure if they were keen to get wet later today.

The maximum depth on the adult side was 1.25m. The children area was more of a wading pool but it went the full length of the main pool. I reckon it must be around 25m from one end to the other. I was sure my boys would really appreciate it.

Nice deck chairsMore decks on the sideI doubt that many people were using the showerEven if the boys decided against coming down, I wouldn't mind going in there alone.

More entries here.

A Delay

I was due to fly off to KL, taking off jut before 8pm. While taxiing, the right rear landing gear went onto the grass. We felt a jolt and sudden veering to right.

After about 45 minutes of delay, the plane was evacuated and retimed for after midnight. No injuries, and the boys did not freak out, although there were a lot of question for me to answer to the boys.

We have about 3 hours before take-off. Need to sort out dinner for everyone.

Air Asia it was

I have to confess that the recent day hop to Kota Bharu was my first on Air Asia. I have been hearing mixed experience from those who have been on one before. Air Asia was efficient, straight to the point and basically you pay for what you get.

I was not sure how to categorise my recent experience. On the whole, it was not bad. However, flying off from the LCCT have one drawback however. Traveling to the terminal from KL was a pain as I usually take the KLIA Express from Sentral. There were bus service from Sentral but being buses, I can't assume that it would be as efficient as the 27 minutes travel time you get from the train service. You would also enjoy the convenience of being able to check in your luggages from the Sentral Air Terminal. And since I was able to travel on Business often, there were no such service on Air Asia - disclaimer, I do not pay for my travels usually. Cost was never an issue. The reason for taking Air Asia on that occasion was the timing of the flights. But due to the hold-up which I would mention later, I could have used MAS instead and still reach my house at about the and time.

I decided to drive to LCCT rather than call for a cab and parked at e public space just in front of the terminal. I was only charged RM 27 fees for parking from 7am to 6pm. Open car park though, so your car would bee losers to the elements. The roofed space was located a furthers walk back and I was on a rush then. The terminal would also take you an extra 20 minutes travel from the KLIA main terminal - I almost missed my flight that morning since it took longer than I expected to get to the LCCT.

Landed in the rain, and finally allowed out of the cabin after 30 minutesThe second issue was the fact that we could not disembark or board in heavy rain. According to the crew, opening the cabin door was the main problem as the rain will get into the cabin and make the floors wet. Practical excuse I thought. It would cost the airline tons of money to leave the jet idle on the tarmac, so I was sure they were not making it up.

So the bottom line, would I take Air Asia for traveling with my precious brats? Definitely no. They would go berserk at the terminal. But traveling on short hops like I did last time, I would definitely do it again but if the schedule was tight and I couldn't afford a delay, then definitely I would have prefer MAS.

Waiting game

I have just landed at LCCT at KLIA following a day trip marking papers at Kota Bharu. I started off very early as I drove there and parked the car at the airport. The journey was fine, but upon landing, we were greeted with a heavy downpour and had to stay in the cabin until things settle down. We have been on the ground for a good 20 minutes now. To make things worst, the air conditioning system started fogging up the cabin, not to mention the amount of money AirAsia would have lost with the airline lying idle on the runway.

That was probably one of the major drawback with LCCT, as there were no terminal connecting the cabin and the main building. The other was the fact that it took liger to reach the place compared to KLIA proper if you plan to drive there. It took me a good 20 minutes from KLIA to get here this morning, worrying about missing the flight. Finally, upon arriving, I just parked my car at the main carpark, not having the chance to find an alternative one. Maybe in the future, given the choice for a business trip, I might just prefer MAS instead - if I was not paying for the flight o course.