The Journey (Part 1)

Let me start from the very beginning. After hugging and waving everyone goodbye in KLIA, I took a flight to Changi Airport. It was about 12am when we arrived. Our next flight would be at 7.30am to Tokyo. We spent the night trying to sleep at the airport lounge. I slept for about 2 hours only because I was worried about the bags that were with me. The adrenaline was pumping so the lack of sleep didn't really bother me at first.

I realized how tired I was on the flight to Tokyo. Flying economy class didn't help either. The headrests were at an awkward position and the chair had very little recline to it. Plus, the noodles they served for breakfast didn't help my appetite; I felt a little sick. It felt like the longest flight I ever took! I was waiting for the plane to land because I wanted to get out of the almost cattle-like conditions of economy class travel. I slept a little on the way but woke up to a crick in my neck due to the awkward position of my head when I fell asleep.

When I got to Tokyo, it was like "Yay! I can say that I've been to Japan". I was hungry and wanted to get something to eat. Unfortunately, I didn't have any Yen on me. I was looking around and found a shop selling sushi. As I approached the shop, it was like whoa! No way I'm paying that much for a box of sushi! It was 1600++ yen for a box and if I'm not mistaken 1000 yen is RM32. I'd rather starve than spend 50 bucks on sushi! So anyways, we were waiting for our flight to Chicago and after a while, there was an announcement that it was delayed. But thank goodness by only an hour or so.

At the gate, we were hanging around with the other passengers who were on the same flight with us. The Tokyo-Chicago flight would be the longest one that we had to endure; 11 hours. I could hear the flight attendents calling names of passengers on the intercom and usually, I don't pay attention. But this time I did and I thought I heard my friend's name mentioned. I told him so and he didn't want to believe me. Then I heard my other friend's name announced and then mine. I started to have this sinking feeling in my gut and wondered if anything bad happened. Lost baggage, overweight bags or maybe, they couldn't connect us to the flight.

I approached the counter and the Japanese women behind the counter asked for my boarding pass. The looked at it, typed something on the computer and printed a new boarding pass for me/us. Oh, okay...they were just issuing us a new boarding pass because the flight details were slightly changed due to the delay I thought. I allowed myself to heave a sigh of relief. She handed the pass back to me and smiled, "We've upgraded you to Business Class".

Still feeling rather dazed due to the lack of sleep. It took a while for the news to sink in. I looked at my boarding pass, it was a different color...with Business Class printed on it. "Hmm...what is this?", I thought. I looked at my friends and they looked back at me. "Business class...". Slowly, we started to smile stupidly and then started to make Business Class jokes. We were going to fly Business Class!!!! It was the best flight I ever took in my history of air travel. They give and give and give you stuff in Business Class.

When I was flying from Singapore to Tokyo, I asked the flight attendant for a toothbrush as I had not brushed my teeth since I left my house. She politely told me that they didn't provide that amenity for Economy Class. This time, I got a bagful of goodies; eye shade, socks, slippers, lotion and yes a toothbrush. I selected my food from a Menu and what I wanted to drink from a list. The food was delicious!! I had two starters; a salad and a japanese starter. My main course was Basil Baked Chicken with rice and a glass of Chablis. Come to think of it, I actually had 4 glasses on my table...water, wine, orange juice and tea. I said glass didn't I? The proper utensils were a nice change from the plastic that is so commonly used in Economy Class. Dessert was either Eli's Cheesecake (famous Chicago dessert) or fruit with cheese. I choose the latter; the cheesecake slice looked too big to finish.

I slept on most of the flight as there was more legroom then I could ever dream of and the seats reclined to an almost 180 degree postion. When I got to Drake, my friend asked the other Malaysian students that were on the same flight with us if they got upgraded. No one got it except for us 3 monkeys. However, the flight from Chicago to Des Moines is a totally different story. Our initial flight got cancelled and then we were rebooked onto another flight which was delayed twice! We were supposed to leave at 6.45pm but ended up leaving at 10.20pm!

I really liked the population at Chicago, a mix of blacks, whites and asians. Thankfully, there was no problem at Immigration and Customs. They didn't even bother to check my bag. TSA security was okay, had to take my shoes off and one of the locks on my bag was taken and the zipper damaged. But, nothing went missing from my bag which is more than I could hope for. Americans are generally okay but then again, there would be a few who might not be as nice as they seem.