Friday, January 12, 2007

the last day which became the first day



The last day before our departure to Indonesia was unusually cold, especially at Christmas Eve in Australia. It is summer in the end of year and the first two months of the following year in Australia. Different with Europe and USA. We went to city having a walk and lunch and wished that it was not the last day for us in Melbourne. We love this city already. I am pretty sure enough that we’ll be missing this city, the people, the surrounding, the transportation (I really mean it!!! Be damned all the buses in Sydney!!!), the system, everything! But, well, show must go on, right?

Arrived at Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne almost midnight at Christmas Eve and accompanied by our pastor and his wife, all things that had to be done went pretty well. We did not have much problems with the check-in, our luggage and even the safety check. And there we were waiting for boarding, trying to entertain ourselves by purchasing some more liquors and walking around the stores nearby. From faraway, I heard Christmas tunes played. And when I was sticking around in small shop, Christmas Celebration in City of Melbourne was playing on TV. I wish I could be there watching it live. It would be an extraordinary experience and I would never find such event in Indonesia – or I will but it won’t be as safe as attending the event in Melbourne. We’ve got some delay about thirty minutes (I thought there would be no flight delay when you deal with a developed country like Australia?).

The journey by the plane was ok, though, as long as you’re not pregnant. Since we only got economic class (with really expensive price that actually could cost us for business class ticket!!!), we did not have comfy-enough space either for sitting or for sleeping – not to mention that we had bad weather in the air.


Before six o’clock in the morning (local time), we already stepped on the Kuala Lumpur Airport for the first time. It was outstanding. It was so big. It was clean (something that I later on found it extremely different with Juanda Airport, Surabaya). It was modern. Perhaps it was the best airport I have ever seen. The airport has two big buildings side by side. If you need to go to the other building, you have to take a ride on any monorail they provide every five to ten minutes and it takes another three minutes only to go to.

Having finished our checking-in and had some breakfast, we were waiting near the gate we were supposed to depart. Forty-five minutes went by and there was no prospect of boarding call for passengers because it seemed the gate door stayed closed. Suddenly we heard a final boarding call to both of us only! It turned out we had been waiting near the wrong gate which explained why that gate door remained closed! The officer even asked us, “Kenapa lambat ni?” (we were in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, remember?). Then, there we were sitting in a smaller plane with only one hour journey and a few passengers. Something which could be noticed soon was that we already heard our local language in the conversation between passengers.

One hour later, we arrived at Juanda Airport, Surabaya and were welcome by horrible cigar-smog smell in air-conditioned room (ckckckckck)! And when I went to the toilet, it was quite dirty. It turned out the last person who used the toilet did not flush it, so it was pretty disgusting for me to use it.

Hot weather. Extremely crowded. Cigar-smog pollution. It took only a few minutes for me to get sweat here while I never got sweat as I was in Melbourne.
Yet…, it was honestly nice to get home. We probably just need a few times to have ourselves adapted.

Thursday, 11 January 2007

10:14 am

2 komentar ajah:

Anonymous said...

Hi Jess, how are you..it's been a while since our last email :)..hope you can enjoy Surabaya as much as you enjoyed Melbourne..take care..

~ jessie ~ said...

Hiii... how's your holiday?? I read about it in your blog. Enjoyed it? We are trying to enjoy Surabaya but sometimes we have a great desire to come back to Melbourne :D