Relaxing @ LAX

Here I am, at LAX, another (not so) foreign airport, waiting to board the plane home. I didn’t manage to blog earlier so here’s a summary of what I’ve been up to for the past few days.

After a seemingly endless but thankfully comfortable flight across the Pacific on board MAS and 11.5 hours later, we landed on LA LA Land [I slept poorly on the flight, despite the reclining seat and ample leg room]. I had been here before many years back and this is my fourth visit to the USA. So, despite the long transit, we decided not to go venture downtown and instead opted to relax at the airport. Well, we could have taken an earlier flight but that’d mean arriving just after midnight at our destination, Washington DC, and we’re not too keen to travel into the city and having to find our accommodation too [not to mention, forking out for an extra night]. DC has a steep lodging tax of 14.5% by the way and even the most economical motel or B&B would still hurt. Also, based on my Internet search, most of the cheaper hotels/motels/B&B are located in rough neighbourhood. So it’s a no-brainer; we’d rather endure a 10-hour transit than the alternative. As for accommodation, I’m thankful for my TKCOGA network – I managed to contact and secure accommodation at a hall catered for Malaysian students in the city, and because it’s catered for students, it cost us only a fraction of what we’d otherwise have to pay.

We arrived at Washington Dulles Airport [located in Virginia] early on Tuesday morning, where a cold, crisp early spring morning greeted us [I had another sleepless night on the plane so I arrived looking like a zombie with my bloodshot eyes]. We were waiting patiently for our bags to make their appearance at the bag carousel when someone came to meet us - it turned out that the chap who I’ve been contacting for help on accommodation had turned up to meet us! How very thoughtful! I was so touched especially because I had earlier assured him a few times not to trouble himself. We were actually planning to take the coach and metro to the city.

He brought us to his home in Vienna, Virginia. It was a very cosy and pleasant family home. His wife cooked breakfast for us and even invited some friends to join us for breakfast. Again, how very thoughtful! The hospitality was touching. We however declined his invitation for us to spend the night there, as we already had booked the students’ accommodation and besides, I just hate to impose on people like that, and especially people I’ve only met too.

After breakfast, we left for downtown, thanks to a free ride from another new acquaintance we just made. Checked into the students’ accommodation, freshened up and after prayers, set off for the National Museum of Natural History. Spent a couple of hours there before walking up to Chinatown. Our hopes of getting some souvenirs there were dashed [as we could not sight any stalls selling any souvenirs] but we did manage to buy some chocolates! Yeay!

Back to the students’s hall and spent the night indoors.

On Wednesday, we checked out of the students’ hall and took a cab to our hotel. After storing our luggage at the luggage room [it was too early to check in], we took the metro and then changed for the bus to the Tyson’s Corner Centre mall. It wasn’t a factory outlet mall as I originally had thought. It was big and sprawling and yet I didn’t spend much. Hurrah to me! It was an unusually mild early spring day so after returning to the hotel and checking in, we ventured out again to the White House and managed to buy some souvenirs too!

Our conference started on Thursday and the good weather lasted til the afternoon. Then it started raining... and it didn't stop until late Friday. The weather turned freezing cold, the wintry showers didn't stop and yet we went out again on Friday evening to find last-minute souvenirs and buy stuff. We were sure glad to return to the comfort of our hotel rooms. I happened to look out of my hotel room at about 9 pm and discovered it was snowing. Oh uh!

This St Patrick’s Day morning [well, it’s still Saturday here], we went out to find yet more last-minute bargains and even took the metro to the Pentagon City mall. We returned to hotel at 1240, having requested a late check-out. The weather had improved, no more rain or snow, but still freezing cold with the temperature struggling to reach 0C! It was cold, even by my standards [I can normally stand cold weather, can tolerate that better to hot weather] and I was clad only in my denim jacket [I refused to bring my winter clothes].

Took the cab to Washington Dulles Airport at 1345. Endured a long queue at checking in and a severe checking in procedure [including removing shoes and storing toiletries in a plastic container]. Our flight was delayed by 1.5 hours and we finally arrived at LAX slightly after 8 pm. Thank God our flight was after midnight. And thank God our flight was today and not yesterday [if I’m not mistaken, some 1400 flights were cancelled yesterday with thousands of travellers stranded]. I was, however, not pleased when I was told that there was no reservation made under my name and it was a good thing that there was an empty seat left in the Golden Club class [earlier, we were told that the particular class was full]. Otherwise, I’d probably have to catch tomorrow’s flight out and check in at an airport hotel... and right now, all I wanna do is just go home.

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Washington DC...
- home to good, fine museums
- home to fine buildings
- home to the White House, where the President resides
- home to a mixed population of residents from diverse backgrounds
- ... and also home to the homeless [yes, believe it or not]. Mr George WW3 Bush has better take a walk to see how some of his fellow city residents live.

My conference observations...
- lack of good-looking eye candies
- loads of genius people [and balding too] - professors, lecturers, economists, researchers... and of course there was the serial shopper from the other side of the globe
- an Adam Sandler doppelganger who was actually a professor at an Ivy League university
- a cute [albeit somewhat balding] bored-looking chap from Harvard Business School with playboy looks became my focus of attention for most of the time [if only to keep me awake].

Other observations and thoughts...
- some people are just loud, talk as if they’re nursing a cold, and while this airport is not unlike most other airports I’ve been to, it all seems different somehow.
- some people are quite friendly and helpful.
- some people act like they have all the authority.
- I don’t think I’ll return to this continent. I can’t stand long flights [I can stand up to 13-hour flights, and that means only Europe in the future] and I don’t like the effect on my body clock. Besides, I’ve been here before; once to the West Coast and three times to the East Coast.

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I have to go now. Oh God, another 24-hour journey to be endured. Let’s hope I can sleep this time around.