Sunday, April 13, 2008

Day +648 : To Miri

I am fine today.

Richard and I went to the Sibu airport early in the morning. His flight to Kuching was rescheduled from 8:30am to 9:30am, but my flight to Miri at 9:05am was on schedule.

The airport security staff was a little bit confused when Richard showed them the web check-in boarding pass as they never encountered any passengers using it before.

After some explanation, they remembered that in fact AirAsia did give them a sample of the boarding pass which was sticked on the nearby partition. They let Richard to the boarding hall after verifying that the boarding pass was the same as the one given by AirAsia.

The Fokker 50 - a propeller powered 50-seat airline. It flies at a speed of 460km/hr at a altitude of about 1300 feet. It takes about 1 hour to fly from Sibu to Miri. A Boeing 737 normally flies at a speed of 800km/hr which is a lot faster than the Fokker 50, but unfortunately, due to low volume of passengers, it is not economical to use Boeing for the flight. Most of the time, the flight path to Miri followed the coastal line.
Skyview of the green land of Sarawak.
These are Twin Otter in Miri Airport, 20-seat aircraft for inland flight. My wife and I together with Daniel and Joseph (Adriel and Aaron was not born yet) on board on this type of aircraft to go from Miri to Mukah and then from Mukah to Sibu in 2003. The flight was very shaky and bumpy. Sometime it even drifted with the wind. We chose a seat near the pilot and managed to see completely how the pilot maneuvered the aircraft.
The ground staffs were busy loading baggages into the Twin Otter
My house in Miri. It is a single storey semi-detached house. Next to my house is my sister-in-law house (my wife's sister house). My wife and I stayed in the house less than 2 years before we shifted to KL. It is now rented out to an expatriat who work on the oil rig. This is the first time ever I meet him since he rented the house almost ten years ago. He is a good tennant :-)
In the afternoon, some relatives from my wife's side treated me with a very delicious lunch in a hotel in Miri town. We took a photo after the lunch. I saw this giant mango in one of the Miri markets. I guess a piece should weight about 2kg.
Dinner with Dr. Choo and his family. Dr. Choo is a dentist who treats me like his brother. While I was working in Miri, he used to treat me and my wife with delicious seafood and venison(野味) :-) He is a highly respected and committed Christian. On my right are his wife and daughter.

I attended the Sunday service at Mei Ann Methodist church in the town - a church that I attended and served while I was staying in Miri. I am so grateful to God that I am alive to worship in this church, and this is the first time ever I attended the church service since I left Miri.

See you next post :-)

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