LIMA 2013, Part Four: onto the tarmac

Don't fret, there's more than just the three of our faces in this post ;)

28th March

I was anticipating a day of more freedom(and some boredom) the night before. Then I woke up in the morning and checked my phone. Oh! A text from Madam Malar informing me that Captain Kornsak will be bringing his mom for LIMA and would need my assistance. I had a bittersweet feeling upon reading the text. Bitter because there goes my freedom..and I wasn't sure who Captain Kornsak was since while my delegate & gang came, Mr. Ayuth and Captain Kornsak were always together and I don't know who's who. One looked more stern than the other, and I was secretly hoping it's the other one haha

When Madam Malar came to meet me on the 27th, I passed a welcome pack to her with my colleague's camera and pouch in it by mistake. In the morning, I took one of those and placed it in a corner at the main Info Counter so I could pass it to her when she arrived. Little did I know, a colleague mistook it for hers, and thus, leaving her belongings in it *face palm* Fortunately, Madam Malar realizes and came back to return the items at the end of the day. While the driver stopped the car in front of me, one of the two AO's(I didn't know who he was then) wind down the window and said "We're still here!" LOL Random, but I was hoping that he was the one that's bringing his mom because he seems like the friendlier one.

As they were arriving at 10.20am, while I was waiting for their arrival, one of the policemen hurriedly asked me to stand next to the red carpet as there weren't enough people. The Yang di-Pertuan Agong(King) was coming out of the hall any moment and I sorta needed to be there for crowd control. I thought it was fun so I stood there, though I know I won't be much help since I'm small in stature. We waited and waited for the agong..till Captain Kornsak and his mom came! I felt bad to leave them wandering around the hall while I stood there waiting for the king, so I quickly ran to the info counter(which had many volunteers) to find a replacement for me.

I was then replied with a rather insensitive and irresponsible comeback. A volunteer at the Info Counter said I didn't need a replacement because there was enough people at the red carpet and he mentally held on to his minions, not wanting to let them go. Yeah, sure. If there were enough people, the policeman wouldn't have approached me, you dumbass! I glared at him and stomped back to the red carpet, fuming. I bet I camouflaged with the red carpet since my uniform was red and so was my face. I didn't want to argue with him further since I didn't like him since day one anyway. Then, Charmaine came to the rescue and took my place so I could go find my lost sheeps. See? That's what a good friend do.

Frequency in the exhibition center was still bad, but I managed to find my lost sheeps! :D I brought them to the Coffee Painting booth under the Tourism Malaysia area. I try to be a little tour guide when I can. Shhhh.. After helping them take photos with Amanda, the Malaysian coffee painter, the Teh Tarik King started to do his stunts!

Since the Langkawi Development Authority(LADA) booth was just next door, which the teh tarik guy was at, I urged them to watch him perform. They found it rather amusing and I, being the kiasu Malaysian, squeezed my way through to the front to help them take two cups of teh tarik when the performance ended  haha

Teh Tarik King of Alor Star, Fakir Jamal is known for his dance moves while pulling tea. For first timers hearing of this drink, teh tarik(pulled tea) is an Indian milk tea, found in Malaysia. Made up of black tea, condensed milk and evaporated milk, the pulling of tea is done to cool off the hot tea till an optimum temperature to be drank, give it a foamy top and let the mixture mix well.

After touring around the exhibition hall, Captain Kornsak's mom went for a toilet break. In the meantime, he browse around the National Aerospace Defence Industries(NADI)'s booth for guns and explained to me about the bullets. Gup and Char came to join us after a while, we got his mom and off we went to watch the airshow :D

They're the ones sitting down. (Photo credits to Char)

(Photo credits to Captain Kornsak)

In order to step onto the tarmac, one has to have a green or red round sticker on their nametag. This year, though we didn't have either, we managed to go to the tarmac a couple of times! Since we had the 'Organisers' nametag, the only trick was to either follow behind a man wearing a suit(like you're with him, a VIP) or avoid eye contact with the army and put on a serious face.

When the airshow has ended, we followed Captain Kornsak and his mom to the tarmac to take photos. I like being on the tarmac, but the happiest was definitely Gurpreet, I believe. She loves going there, you can see her face literally lit up! I find it cool, but I don't know much about planes, so I'm not crazy about it. What I was crazy about though, is the insanely good lightings for photo taking! No doubt, it was a sunny day and my feet felt like they were on fire!

Captain Kornsak and his mom went around the tarmac to take photos. It's nice seeing a mother and son walking around together..the mom being all shy while her son forces her to stand with a plane so he can take her photo. Reminds me of my mom who wants us to take her photo everywhere she goes haha

As they went around, instead of waiting for them in the scorching hot sun, we took the opportunity to take our photos! Planes were flying while we were at it, I think the air show was still going on. Honestly, I can't tell which plane is which :( Only Gurpreet is capable in doing that amongst the three of us.

Above our heads is the compartment for the engine

Before Captain Kornsak and his mom went back, he invited us to dinner at night. Yet another appointment to be jot down in our mental schedule. On this day, the 28th, we had three appointments: 1)Mezzanine's sort of farewell dinner(since he was going back earlier than all of us) 2)Dinner/snack with Captain Kornsak and his mom 3)Faris for Starbucks.

As they were waiting for Madam Malar to pick them up, his mom offered her place if we were to visit Bangkok, Thailand one day. Score!!! That means free accommodation for us to spend more on food and shopping!

Rest of the day was spent going around the exhibition hall, taking pictures and talking to friends.

The famous Amir-Dora couple

Made a pit stop at Amanda's Coffee Painting to see the progress of the wayang kulit painting :D At that moment, she was customizing one of the fighter jet paintings for a company. The writings were small and thin..so precise!

(Photo credits to Char)

The clock strike 5.30pm and the exhibition is now closed. We were all called back to the OO and was told by Miss Azlin that we were needed to attend the Award Ceremony at 6.30pm and so, we were asked to mingle at the Tea Break Lounge, which later in this post, you'll see if we mingled or not haha

(Photo credits to KH)

Listening attentively..though you can probably tell we were all kinda drunk tired. (Photo credits to KH)

We reached the lounge area and there were a few ceremony attendees around. Obviously we're not going to mingle with them as they were in their own world. So, we mingled with our friends and the cameras! :D

Faris, Khairul, Muiz (Photo credits to KH)

Faiz aka White Teeth aka Pilot (Photo credits to Faris)

Syaim, the photographer! (Photo credits to Syaim)

We've made some rather good friends this LIMA. Muiz is one of them :) He's actually a year older than us, but he's kiddy(note: not childish), adorable and has this funny laughter that can be either cute or evil. So, since we tend to look out for him and he sticks with us a lot, we call him our 'adik', younger brother and we're his 'kakak', older sisters hahaha It's fun in a way.

The adik and the kakaks (Photo credits to Syaim)

The award ceremony started soon after we were done with snapping photos. Our former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Bin Mohamad graced the ceremony with his attendance and presented one of the few awards. Basically, airline companies are awarded different categories.

At the end of the ceremony, it was go home time for us all! As Dr. M was on his way out, everyone crowd around him for a handshake or a photograph. Everyone was in fangirl mode hahah

(Photo credits to Faris)

Happy to get off work! (Photo credits to Char)

Our schedule was pretty tight to begin with, so we were pressed for time. Before Appointment 1, the three of us rushed to the laundry shop only to be rejected...again! For two days in a row, they're not accepting any laundry as they have an overwhelming amount of clothes to be washed. Funny thing is, there's only about three laundromats along Cenang Beach, which sucks because it's a tourist vacation destination.

Along the way, we met Mezzanine. We headed for India Palace after stopping at our regular Melati Dobi. Yay! Yummy Indian cuisine for dinner :D

Char and I decided to share our food since we weren't that hungry. Thank God we all shared because the portion was kinda big..and I wouldn't have been able to stuff myself with all of it.

We ordered cheese naan, Kashmiri naan and another type of naan which I forgot what it's called. Gurpreet got herself her favourite Paneer, an Indian cheese with some sort of gravy. I don't remember what Mezzanine got, but it's chicken.

naans!

Strawberry milkshake and paneer

We chit chatted for a bit before Captain Kornsak, his mom and their driver came over from Kuah. They wanted us to start another eating session, but we were too full! Actually, I knew we were going to have dinner with them, but I decided to eat first as I didn't want them to pay for our dinner..kinda feel bad.

We added each other on Whatsapp to keep in contact while his mom was busy Whatsapping on her iPhone 4 haha According to their Malaysian driver, Captain Kornsak likes disturbing and teasing his mom, like we can tell. For instance, when the food arrived, he told his mom to stop playing with her phone and eat. Like, which kid does that to their mom? haha

Madam Malar and her friend came towards the end and was expected to finish up the naan they ordered too much of. In the end, no one ate it and we just left. What a waste of food :/

Hurried to our final appointment of the day- Starbucks with Faris. The three of them were talking while I was busy zoning out hahah I have no recollection of what was talked about at all though my eyes were open and I was consious enough to just sip the coffee. Oh! I remember complimenting him on his teeth though, and that's all I got. I'm actually surprised we walked him back to Sandy Beach. I was probably sleep walking then.

Let's sleepwalk to the next post, shall we? XD