June 24, 2008 (Tuesday) - Flight AK5209 Depart Shenzhen at 20:05
All of us woke up early as my family and I would be going back to Lo Wu Commercial City because, among other things, we had to pick up my suit. Tariq, Intan and Ngah decided to stay back and maybe just explore Dongmen for one final round. However we were to early and the Commercial City was still sleeping when we got there so we just killed the time by hanging around. As soon as the fabric shopping area was opened we were the first in and we got our first customer advantage and discounts. I picked out my suit which was a bit disappointment. I was warned by my colleague but I ignored his advice and paid the price. The jacket was ok but the pant was not what I wanted. My advice to anybody cutting a suit there please make sure either you have a sample with you or you spent enough time patiently explaining the exact thing that you want to do.
However, we were not finished with our shopping, I thought we were, and taking the first customer advantage Sam bought few more fabrics and I squeezed in two more for suiting. I’ve learned my lessons. We took the train back to Loajie and since we had couple more hours we stopped at the McD on Dongmen street to eat.
Once back at the hotel the first thing that I did was to ask for late checkout, that I got until 1400, and booked a transport to the airport. After lengthy explanation and translation I was offered a mini van, I thought it was a mini van that could fit 13 of us, at 400 yuan. When it came at 1600 it was actually a mini bus. Thus we had a nice comfortable ride to the airport.
Shenzhen airport was quite a big airport that served as a hub in the south serving other major cities in China. We were dropped by the bus driver at the end of the airport where the International wing was and it was not a small wing serving just few major countries and destination like Taiwan, Bangkok and KL. Actually there was no indication as to where our checkin counter was from the outside. We walked the entire airport we could not see anything until we backtracked to where we were dropped off then only we saw a small handwritten notice stand stating our flight number. I enquired from the staff nearby and was told to come back to lineup at where he was one hour before flight time. Without nothing much to do we just hang around there to wait. One thing I do not like taking a low cost carrier is that most passengers tend to be a little bit kiasu. In fact this what exactly happened when we were outside lining up to enter the checkin counters and inside the waiting area when we were to board. I just could not understand how some people just do not have a brain to give way to mothers with small children and old folks. It was not really a long flight that they had to be too particular to get a seat. When I boarded trying to sit at the isle I politely asked two Chinese nationals if I could sit there and they reacted as if they own the plane. I remarked loudly in English, ‘Why you do not want me to sit here. I do not think I smell and furthermore I paid to be on the plane.’ Obviously they did not know what I was saying and I ignored them the whole flight home.
Obviously everyone were hungry – hungry for rice and anything resemblance to Malaysian food could not wait for the flight attendants to start with their round. I left Baqir to order the lot for most of us and when he did that the flight attendant almost feinted. Yes, Baqir is a big size young man and would tend to eat a lot but what he ordered to the flight attendant could feed an elephant. Only when he passed the food around she realized the situation. The flight attendant joked about it.
We landed safely at LCCT at 0045 on Wednesday.
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