Wednesday, April 22, 2009

My Malacca trip, Day 1

It's been awhile since my visit to Malaysia.

Last weekend I had a chance to visit Malaysia again. But this time I stayed in Malacca.
Malacca is located on the West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia facing the Straits of Malacca, about 147 kilometres from Kuala Lumpur between the states of Negeri Sembilan and Johor.


APRIL 17, 2009
I flew by Air Asia (yeah..... my Vice President's favorite), flight no. QZ 7562 from Jakarta.
I and my colleague accompanied ten O.R. nurses for ASEAN O.R. nurse meeting (April 17-19, 2009). The event would be followed by our sales training (April 20) and midyear review meeting (April 21).

We landed in Kuala Lumpur at around 10.30 AM local time. Usually Air Asia land at KLIA, but it's been shifted to new aiport, LCCT (Lower Cost Carrier Terminal). It's small but still have shops and cafes.
We were picked up by two vans. Malacca is 1.5 - 2 hours away from the airport.
Unfortunately, the engine of the van that I was riding was over heated and it just stopped just after 15 minutes we went out the airport!
So the driver called his office to get replacement and he also called up the other van. The other van turned around and went to us. My driver said it would take 40 minutes to get the replacement. It was a hot afternoon and we were in toll way.


We decided to go in to the other van, moved all of our luggage to its trunk, although the driver it wouldn't fit. But we did! We were crimping inside, but at least we were moving.
The driver played house music and rap music, what worsen it was that it was in Mandarin!

After 1.5 hours, we stopped at a resting point, the engine was at border level of heat. The driver had lunch, while the rest bought some drinks. I and my colleague bought drinking water for our guests. Not long, the replacement van came so we moved again to the new van.
On our way to hotel, we saw a car accident in front of us.

Finally, we arrived at Avillion Legacy Melaka Hotel.
As the Team Coordinator, I made sure hotel check-in of our group members and distributed the gimmicks. After got refreshed, we went to the ballroom and the event started.
Tonight's dinner was at Portuguese village settlement. They performed traditional Portuguese dance and song. Roasted oyster with butter and garlic was soooo yummy!

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