Shall I Go Out?

After breakfast, we ventured out, armed with a two-zone travelcard - off peak of course. We finally figured out that you just needed to do a bit of walking across a quay, then hop onto a Jubilee Line into Central London.

We decided to go all touristy today, and got ourselves tickets for the hop in hop out bus ride. That included a cruise along River Thames as well. It started off bright and sunny, but halfway by noon, dark clouds started rolling in. We managed to do the obligatory visits to Downing Street, Trafalgar Square and the Big Ben before it started pouring heavily. Luckily, we were on the bus en route to Marble Arch when this happened, so we decided to skip the planned lunch at Edgware Road. Instead, we dis a full circle towards Piccadilly Circus, had pizza there before catching the ride home.

We were planning to go out again for dinner in Covent Garden, but to be honest, the chance foe that happening with me on board were slim to nil. It was half eleven in ye evening Malaysia time, I'm knackered and by the time I finished with the shower, I know I would crash. If I woke up later this evening, I might as well just order something from the room service menu and take things from there. Good Night!

Touch Down

The flight in was very comfortable indeed. It was full of students actually, in suits with a 1Malaysia pin on their lapel. They must be the top few who was awarded scholarship to fly off early for their A levels. All so young. Still teary eyed. Just like when I first touched down in London back in 1990.

One thing about MAS was their service. MH flights to London, being their flagship I suspect gives the best service because of it being such a lucrative sector for them. I had flown on KLM business class before, and it was worst than coach on MAS in terms of service and food. I better say too much about business on MAS then. It would make you jealous!

Anyway, I skipped dinner on the plane and managed a six hour nap, and starving when I woke up. Luckily, there were some snacks and drinks on offer. After chatting with some of the students and colleagues flying in for the same meeting, I felt asleep again, this time for a coupe of hours, just in tine to wake up for breakfast. The nasi lemak the cabin offer was actually very good.

We landed on time. Immigrations was straight forward as we were the first international flight in onto the Terminal 4 that morning. When I was writing this blog, I was on the transport to the hotel we would be staying in for the rest of the week. No free wifi unfortunately, and I couldn't be bothered to activate data roaming as it would cost a bomb. I would wait until I reached the hotel. Hopefully there would be free wifi there.

I would be free foe the rest of the day and the troupes were discussing the plans for the rest of the day. In the end, we settled for hop in hop off city tour, then dinner tonight at Covent Garden. Looking forward to that!

Boarding soon

At KLIA now, and just crossed over to the Satellite Terminal. Grabbed a sandwich at O'Briens and off I went utilising the free wifi here. It was only available for 2 hours though before your address is blocked. Connection rather sluggish and start-stop, and I ended up using my iPhone for connections.

While I settled down, the other people in my group started to show up. I had to have the coffee as it was pretty clear that I would probably fall asleep soon. That was good since I was hoping to be able to sleep all the way to Heathrow. It should be early morning when I touched down, and I couldn't afford to fall asleep then. I planned to go see the town on the day. Will write when I touched down and have an Internet connection. Bon voyage!

First Entry

Got my luggage checked in. Plus the big jacket of course as I did not really want to take any chances as far as the weather was concerned. Stepping into the KLIA Express with just a 1.5kg sling bag was should I say, liberating. iPhone in arm, tuned to some podcast, I began chirping away on the phone, with this first entry of the journey.

I realised that I may be a tad too early, but I prefer to get the bags sorted out and just chill out later. Maybe settled in at one of the cafes - hmm! Better check how many ringgits I have left in my wallet. No Golden Lounge this time I'm afraid!

I decided that I would be sleeping the whole journey this time around. At least the first day would be a whole day of chilling. Maybe I would take the tube into Central London and reminisce about the days there when I was a student! So watch this space!

Sekinchan Ikan Bakar

If I were to be asked to give a one word review for Sekinchan Ikan Bakar, the word I'd use would be "embarrassing". I have heard so much reasonably good review of the chain, that when we came across an outlet on the way to I-City the other evening, my sister and I did not give it much of a thought. Anita was also into ikan bakar, so all was left was to get our boys to agree, and as their cousins were also along for the trip, they did not say much. We have already given them dinner prior to going out, so they were not too fussy about it.

The outlet we went to was in Shah Alam, right opposite I-City. Since we arrived there pretty early, well before sunset, we planned to pass some time there. So we sat down, and naturally, ordered some ikan bakar. Now, let me explain to you about how the order works. You don't actually ask for a menu for the fish. You go to the counter to choose. Unfortunately, this was where the problem lied. The workers at the counter did not know who came first, so, the more pushy you were, the more likely you would get your order first. And then, there was the risk of them messing out your order and until today, I was still trying to figure out how they could tell which one was your order. The restaurant was only a quarter full, and the still managed to mess up our order. And then they got the cheeks to say that it was our fault. To compound the matter further, they also messed up our drinks, which we ordered from the table, with the order clearly written. It was just plain embarrassing.

To be honest, grilling fish was not really that hard, and with the right equipment and experience, you would likely get it right most of the time. You have to make sure that you marinate it right, and perfect the sauce and air asam. Well, not only that the marinating sauce was worst than your typical teenagers running a pasar malam stall affair, even my clueless maid could make a meaner air asam. We ended up with a sour taste in our mouth - pun intended of course.

Save & Close

Ikan bakar - or grilled fish - if prepared the right way was a joy. It was plainly clear that Sekinchan Ikan Bakar had lost their focus as not only the messed up the actual meal, the bad customer experience we had made it unlikely that we would be giving the place the benefit of the doubt, even at another of their outlet. The workers there, being a mixture of locals and foreigners clearly couldn't clear less about how we felt. I shudder to imagine how they would cope with a full house. I would unfortunately label their outlet under "one which I would avoid". Please let me know if you have had a different experience, preferably indicating the venue which the fish was better. Bad service at these outlet were a given I was afraid.