It's a long way to Kuala Lumpur

and even further to Ningbo.

After a slightly delayed departure, we finally arrived at 8 am. The flight was pretty straightforward, which was helped by the fact it was on one of the relatively new Airbus A380 aircraft, which have two decks although how it gets off the ground is beyond me. I gather that Business and First Class are tremendous but for those of us in cattle class at the very back of the plane, it was a little less sumptuous.

Still, we started well with a couple of cans of imported Carlsburg (not the dreadful copy brewed in Northampton - sorry Simon!) and this was followed at regular intervals by the usual array of hot meals, cold meals, lukewarm meals, snacks and drinks.

After arriving, it then took about 30 minutes by taxi to get to the Prince Hotel in downtown KL. And very nice it is too with comfortable air conditioned rooms and a view (see below) towards the Petronas Twin Towers. After a short kip and wash and brush up, Chris and I headed off to the towers and the surrounding area (including park). I've dropped a couple of photos in below.

This city has some very impressive high rise buildings and wherever you look, a new building is in a state of construction. I'm sure it bears no relation to the city of 50 years ago. The other impression is that it has a pretty laid back feel and most people seem relaxed and cheerful.

This evening consisted of a couple of beers (2 for 1 in the hotel bar) and then a meal in a Japanese restaurant before getting lost on the return journey. Still, it did mean we got to see some more of the local sights and 'night life'. Thank goodness for the towers as we used them to navigate back to the hotel. Without them we'd have been halfway to Thailand by now.

Anyway, it's time for bed and an early start in the morning as we're being picked up at 8 for the 45 minutes or more journey to the Seminyih campus.