The first 2 days

I made it safe and sound to Malaysia. One of the hardest parts of the trip was transferring to the international terminal at JFK! The signs in JFK aren't great and I really thought I had done something wrong when I left the secured area. But we (I was traveling with a co-worker) finally found the train we needed to take and go going in the right direction.

When I checked in at RDU they checked my bag to KL, but only gave me a boarding pass for my flight from JFK to Hong Kong. I didn't have a pass for the flight from Hong Kong to KL. So once we finally found the terminal at JFK that housed Cathay Pacific we went up to the ticket counter and they set us up all the way to KL. But then I had to go through security again.

The flight to Hong Kong was fine. We stopped in Vancouver to refuel, but we didn't have to de-plane. Most everybody left the plane so I got a chance to stand up and walk around some. The seats on Cathay Pacific are very comfortable and each seat has a TV with on-demand movies and TV shows. I wanted 4 movies and several TV shows on the way to Hong Kong. We arrived in Hong Kong about an hour early because we had a good tailwind.

I had to go through security yet again when I got to Hong Kong. But we didn't have any trouble finding our gate and they had free wi-fi there. I was able to cruise ESPN to look at college football scores and to send a few emails.

The flight from Hong Kong to KL was uneventful. Once we got to KL we had about an hour and 45 minutes to go through customs and get on our plane to Langkawi. We breezed through immigration and customs (because we didn't have anything to declare) but it was hell trying to get our boarding passes to Langkawi. The airport was packed, I guess because it was noon on a Sunday. We couldn't use the self check-in kiosks so we had to go to the counter. And apparently there isn't anything like a line or queue around here. It was like a big cattle pen where everybody was milling around. We finally got our boarding passes and made it to the gate after going through security yet again.

The flight to Langkawi was short and not very crowded. There was a shuttle waiting for us at the airport to take us to the resort. We finally got to the resort around 3:30 where I had a beer and a shower in that order. I felt like a new man! My 30 hour trip was finally over!

We had supper Sunday night on a restaurant on a pier over the water. The atmosphere was awesome. The food was Thai and kind of spicy. At least the appetizers were spicy. The main course wasn't as bad.

After supper a bunch of us from the American team sat at the pool with a couple of guys on the Romanian team and drank Romanian moonshine. Talk about some stout stuff! One of the Romanian's has an uncle who made the moonshine and he smuggled it into Malaysia in a 1.5 liter water bottle. It was a fun time even though I was pretty tired.

After breakfast on Monday we started our meetings. We had a break in the morning after a group picture where we had some free time. I went to the pool and the ocean. The ocean here is warmer than the pool water which was kind of interesting. The ocean isn't as clear as I thought it would be. The pool has a bar in the water which is interesting. I've never stayed at a place with a pool bar before.

Monday afternoon we had a team building event which was pretty much a ropes course. It's very hot and very humid over here so after 3 hours of standing outside and running through an obstacle course, we were all pretty exhausted.

Monday night we had a traditional 4 course Chinese dinner. It was good and I used chopsticks the whole time and didn't have to resort to the knife and fork the waitress brought me. She asked if I wanted something other than chopsticks and I told her that I might need something as a backup. Apparently I ate fake shark fin soup last night. My favorite thing was this deep fried red snapper. And I mean it was the whole fish, head bones and all, just dropped into a frier. It was tasty though! I collapsed after supper Monday night and went to bed at 9:00.

I woke up this morning around 6:30 and headed over to breakfast after a shower. This resort is so big that they have shuttles running around to carry you from your room to the lobby. You have to dial 4 and call a shuttle when you leave your room. It's been nothing but meetings so far today and tonight we're supposed to go to a nearby town for supper and shopping. We'll see how that goes!