A summary of my manifest destiny...

So I have now finally arrived into Malaysia for about four days, and slowly but surely the transition is starting, first with the time zone adjustment, and then the weather acclimatization, and finally getting administrative paperwork done (immigration, accounts, driving, etc). Here is just a sample of what I had to do to get to the point I am am now...

This was my last major holiday meal with my family back in Boston. Not seen in the picture are my many aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews who took time out of their day to send me off. As you can see we had a nice spread of turkey day fare to last a while. To this day I still yearn for them...

Here is my friend holding my Virgin America ticket to Los Angeles CA the day after Thanksgiving. I didn't do any shopping as my luggage was already maxed out and more, so I had to shuffle some things around to get under the weight limit. Luckily Happiness didn't add too much of a burden, besides his big head...

On board VX I helped myself to free food and drink during the flight, as well as entertainment beyond imagination (okay it was just Green Lantern and the Hangover 2 but still awesome)...

My arrival into LAX before pickup by my aunt/uncle/cousin headed towards Orange County for the weekend. I ended up staying in the LA proper area afterwards.

Just a sample of my large extended family having a nice meal on my cousins. It was a wonderful experience overall in Southern California for the most part, until...

... the day before check-in to my flight on Malaysia Airlines transiting through Taipei, Taiwan. As luck would have it, high winds were expected throughout the Los Angeles area thanks to Santa Ana, not Santa Clause...

As you can see, those high winds cause a backup of flights, resulting in mine taking off at 1:30am on Thursday morning rather than 11:10pm on Wednesday evening.

When I finally managed to settle into my seat, and what a seat it was... I was not dissappointed, to say the least... an awesome satin blanket, comfy pillow, and the capability to lie down instead of angling to sleep a few hours on a thirteen hour flight definitely helped the cause.

While in Taiwan, our transit was shortened by half an hour, so there was not time to explore the area or grab a souvenir, besides this shot of my gate. Strangely enough they made us step out of the gate just to re-enter for security purposes at the exact same boarding...

Here's my transit pass and original stub to show I actually belonged on the the flight.

This is proof that I finally made it to Asia...

And the wonderful Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I live about half an hour outside the city, in a place called Petaling Jaya, which is a city in itself, but the trek to the federal district was nice.

Karen and I are finally re-united. Imagine that... two K's managing to come back together after a long duration apart.... now if only the other two K's can do the same (Koreas: North and South).

I wanted to say that I still miss Boston and my whole family back home, and hope that you all have a good holiday season coming up ahead. Please also do visit the area, even if not KL, but within the connecting regions, we welcome you the only way Malaysians do, with great hospitality! (Thanks to Malaysia Airlines for the paraphrased catchy slogan...)