Text 10947, 75 rader
Skriven 2014-03-15 17:02:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: malaysia 329
====================
I'd booked a Cathay flight CX1724, but it turns out that
it was a codeshare operated by Malaysia, not a big problem,
I thought, as this airline has a fine reputation for service
and had a pretty good one for reliability.

The Golden Lounge is open, having undergone an extensive
remodeling. It's quite pleasant in its new incarnation,
extremely spacious with decent catering. There is a bar
on the left as you enter, with a limited but choice
selection. When we were there, the bartender was kind of
hiding off to one side, which was okay, as there were no
customers before we walked in.

Ch. Liversan, a good basic Bordeaux, was the red of the day,
and Lilli drank herself silli on it (not rilli). It didn't
particularly go with the food on offer, of which I had a
creamy, pretty nice chicken korma, as well as a couple
prawns in tamarind and chilli, from which I took all the
chiles I could find. Lilli went by the sandwich station and
the breakfast food station, as that's more her type of
thing. To go with my spiced-up South Asian food, I drew me a
Carlsberg, followed by some delicious mango juice.

MH 78 KUL HKG 1925 2300 738 23AC

Our gate was a train ride back, and we allowed ample time,
which meant chilling our jets for a few at the gate, as
boarding wasn't anywhere near when they said it would be.

Document checks, security, and eventually boarding were
reasonably orderly despite some old nyonyas insisting on
pushing to the front (how old? my age minus 10 years).

We got seats in the wayback with a blocked middle. The digs
were comfy enough; the pitch seemed to be a bit better than
the claimed 30".

Not to be outdone, the meal on MH was the meat of two
chicken thighs in a dark soy sauce with somewhat mushy in
the middle and crunchy on the edges noodles, not bad for
that. Better than most of the business class food one gets
on United or Lufthansa.

We came in more or less on time, but it took a while to
negotiate the bowels of the airport.

The Marriott Sky City had e-mailed me the day before; the
hotel seemed to imply that we were going to be picked up,
which given the price I'd paid seemed unlikely. Nonetheless,
we looked (in vain) for an escort when we arrived and went
off to immigration with the polloi. This turned out to be
fairly quick after we were funnelled into a room all of
whose booths said "go to another booth." It turned out 
they'd opened up another bank of officers for us, and we
were out a couple minutes after we discovered that. After,
we hot-footed it to the hotel transfers desk and were told,
with apologies, to wait five minutes, after which we were
shown to our car, a Lexus SUV, just for our mile trip to
the hotel.

As a gold member I rated an excellent suite with what passes
for a water view in these parts - this part of the harbor is
a parking lot for empty container barges, with dredges here
and there getting ready to deepen the channels so even more
traffic can be packed in. Unspectacular, but that's not the
hotel's fault. The bathroom was superb.

We went down to the bar for a nightcap: Remy VSOP was
available for 10 HKD more than beer, so that's what I had;
Lilli's Oyster Bay Merlot was acceptable but not for the
same price as Remy VSOP.

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