Grounded

Yesterday I was all set and ready to head off on my big trip. Twist in the tale! This didn't actually happen!
After a brief moment of excitement on being off on my own, watching The Nanny at the airport gate, what started as a long delay turned into an announcement that our plane had developed a technical fault and wouldn't be flying that night. Good times!
Was rescued by Mum and got to spend a strange day back at home, hanging around in my uber-clean room that was all prepared for a 5-month-later return.

No plane meant missed connection, and missed tour link-up, but luckily Malaysian Airlines got a flight together for us the next day and have got me onto another Beijing flight. Now arriving in Beijing one day later than expected, but hopefully I can catch up with the vodkatrain group smoothly from there.

Next twist in this tale is that my new flights now involved an overnight stop in KL. This is cool: I am well pro at this (from Vietnam). And this is why I'm now posting from my netbook on the 8th floor of Hotel Empress overlooking KL, instead of partying hearty in Beijing.
My room seems pretty flash but I think this is largely due to the fact that I don't stay in hotels much! I was impressed enough by there being a "corner chair". Also the view is pretty cool, even if it is midnight. Didn't actually know where they were taking me - got directed to a minibus for a mystery drive! Glad the hotel existed, and that it has a bed and wireless.

It was weird flying Malaysian Airlines again after Vietnam because it turns out not much has changed. I had Tiger beer and Weis bars on the plane, then got shown a promotional video for KL airport highlighting Burger King and Starbucks (though when I got here I saw they've opened up a new eating place called NÖÖÖDLES which actually looked pretty awesome. Where was that 2 years ago?). When I was waiting in the queue for Malaysian customs someone's phone went off and their ringtone was "I'm so lucky lucky". What is this madness?!

In other news, was pleased to discover they were showing Chuck on the plane.

I'm now off to investigate if there's anything interesting on my room TV before getting my 5 hours sleep before the next flight.
Come on Beijing! I am well keen to be there already! This has felt like a very, very long start to my already long holiday.