Friday, January 01, 2016

Osaka, Here we come! - How to Fly In Peace and Quiet to the Land of the Rising Sun

Since we are traveling to Osaka on AirAsia flight, I took extra cautions making sure we don't bring more than the allowed quantity / weight of hand luggage, and getting to the airport as early as possible. I certainly do not wish to repeat my last AirAsia flight experience where I ended up forced to check in my luggage at the last minute and running like hell to the boarding gate as my name was being called for final call. With AirAsia, it's better safe than sorry.

In fact, we were so early for this trip that we finished window-shopping at all retail outlets in KLIA2! 

Our flight was past midnight so we decided to bathe the girls and change them to their night outfit before boarding. Expecting the baby changing room to be like KLIA equipped with a large basin equipped with hot water, we were hugely disappointed to find KLIA2 baby changing rooms much smaller and only consist of diaper changing area, a small sink, a breastfeeding area and maybe a small improvement of hot/cold water dispenser to prepare formula. To be honest, I prefer KLIA's baby changing room.

KLIA2 however, does have shower cubicle at a few restrooms (with only cold shower though) so we were able to get the girls showered and changed to their night outfits (although we forgot to pack towels and had to dry them using their previously worn shirts!)

We were wayyyy too early at the airport and the girls became very restless with nothing much to do! They watched aeroplanes arriving and departing from the viewing gallery, chased each other in the airport, watched Shaun the Sheep which I downloaded and saved in my iPad to while the waiting time, and basically kept very active - so in a good way, this will guarantee them to fall asleep upon boarding the flight later on that night.

Nothing much to do but look at aeroplanes

At 10PM, we finally could check in our luggage and obtain airline tags for our stroller. And finally,  FINALLY! we got to enter the international departure area!

Happy faces of finally being able to enter the departure area.

The girls were in high spirit and really made us exhausted chasing after them!

It's been awhile for us since we last flew to another country so we were really impressed by Malaysian Immigration's latest security screening procedure - the iris and facial recognition device. What we have to do is to look straight into a camera device that scans our iris and face and then matches it with our passport photo. Apparently this is a new security procedure only implemented last year following MH370 incidents and an added measure to combat transnational crime such as human trafficking and drug smuggling.

Everyone managed to go through this process smoothly except for Khadeeja who was very uncooperative! She ran away, laughed as we chased her and when I finally was able to catch her and lift her to be scanned, she refused to look at the camera. I had to trick her that there's Shaun The Sheep in the camera in my desperate effort to get her to look at the camera! Glad the trick worked though, phew!

Mommy, look! KLCC...

After going through two baggage screening points, we finally were able to sit down in front of the boarding gate and just let the girl run around to expend their extremely high energy levels!

Khadeeja managed to lose her boots and ran around barefooted

They started chasing each other and being really noisy as we waited to board the flight. 

But we didn't mind so much this time knowing that they will most likely fall asleep once they are settled in their seats later.

True enough, minutes after taking this photo, Khadeeja complained she was really sleepy and then slept throughout the flight while other kids started to fuss and cry!

Both girls busy flipping through the in-flight magazine before they zoomed off to dreamland...

Actually, AirAsia teamed up with Optiontown to offer empty seat options (ESO) in the event the flight is not fully booked. The idea is to sell off empty seats to  passengers so they can maximize their comfort level i.e. buying empty seat next to you or the whole row or upgrade to premium seat / flatbed at really, really cheap price (75% off the normal price!).

I didn't take up the offer though and ended up regretting it because I had to share my row with a Japanese couple - and I sat at the window seat, so it was cumbersome for me to get out to stretch my legs or go to the restroom without disturbing their sleep. Throughout the flight, I wistfully thought of how comfortable it would be if I had bought the flatbed.

But luckily, the couple did not snore and did not mind so much when I apologetically asked to be given way to get out of my seat. Still, I was really glad when the cabin crew announced that our flight will be landing shortly.

Overall it was a smooth flight and we were quite well-rested by the time we arrived at Kansai International Aiport. Next, will blog about our first destination in Osaka. Stay tuned!