Cheap Airlines: Bargain with Hassle

Melbourne Grand Prix finished last Sunday. The team of Virgin Company, being the parent company of Virgin Blue, however, couldn't even make to the end. It was said because the fuel tank of the car was designed too small as the engineers miscalculated the fuel needed.

Apart from the misfortune case in Grand Prix, Virgin Blue has been awarded as best low-cost airlines by a number of different organisations. It is Australia's second largest airline. Unlike most low-cost airlines, Virgin Blue has an award-winning frequent flyer program, Velocity Rewards. It was the first in Australia providing 'any seat, any time' reward redemption. Its International subsidiary, V Australia, has been successfully operated since 2009 when the first flight between Sydney and LA took off.

Jetstar, Tiger airways are the other two domestic/international low-cost airlines in Australia. They have reduced the domestic air fares dramatically and stimulated domestic travel. They reasonably punctual and reliable.

However, not all cow-lost are that easy to be trusted. One of the biggest low-lost airlines in the world, Air Asia, announced the suspension of flight between Kuala Lumper and Tianjin last year. The route has been suspended for about three months due to 'weather conditions'. Customers who had booked tickets were given fully refund however no further subsidies were placed. As the decision was announced only a month before the suspension date, it was more costly to re-book another ticket from other airlines. Customers were complaining this decision on its official website as well as other forums. Similarly, some flights between Chengdu and KL were cancelled, with a full refund into passengers' accounts.

Sometimes, things can even go worse. At least passengers can get a full refund from AirAsia and they were given advanced notification. Viva Macau Airline, which is an ambious new-born Macau-based internation low-cost airlines which offers cheap route from Macau to Melbourne, Tokyo, Jakarta, Hanoi and several other cities, got its business license of air carrier revoked by Macau authority. The airline was not able to pay its fuel bills, which lead to hundreds of passengers stranded at the airport. There were total 33 flights been cancelled before its license been revoked. Refund plans are announced and some 1,300 cases were received.

Oasis Airlines, an ex-Hong Kong based low-cost airline, ceased its operation in 2008 after it went to bankrupt. Several other cases can be found in China, where civil aviation is highly regulated and competition is heated.

Despite all these risks, cheap airlines are surely providing more opportunities for passengers having lower budget to travel. What we need is a better regulated market which can prevent this hassle from happening.

Flow, aka how I am planning to re-encounter with happiness

Today I took an IELTS (International English Language Testing System) test in RMIT in the morning. During the test I read a invaluable article in the reading setion. It was about the way in which we could achieve happiness.

Hapiness, is such a deep word that we are trying to avoid in a conversation. (Ni Xing Fu Me? Are you happy about your life?) I personally experienced several periods of unhappiness and of course am eager to pursuit such a mood.



The article in the IELTS test cited a term 'Flow' in a psychological manner. Such term refers to the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.(WIKIPEDIA) Staring at the colourful chart on its wikipedia page, I somehow rememorized the story of Rainbow Flower, a childhood classical. For those who have not been aware of this story, it was about a kind girl who received a rainbow flower from an elder lady. The flower has seven petals and each of them could fulfill a wish..... It was a beautiful story that I loved it so much.

So back to the topic of happiness. I realize that the process of achieving personal goals are at the same time gaining happiness. Diet, gym, exercise, language study and so on... By achieving such goals, you will have a Flow in you and you are happy.

Lonely Planet Has Come to Town

A whole new series of Lonely Planet, who keeps on ripping off its fellow Australians to feed people in UK and US, has arrived in town. They are now on sale in Augus & Robertson Bookstore, with an amazing price of $51.99, which is such a discouraging behaviour that made me more determined not to buy ANY books in Australia. I do care about the carbon offset of long distance international postage, but I also care about my bank account which is on the verge of deficit on the arrival of the bill of university tuition fee.

(US version of Discover. Pic from Lonely Planet Official Website)
However such behaviour does not stop me from entering the bookshop and have a little look of the book. Obviously lonely planet has launched their new campaign by inserting a little cute bookmark introducing their different series of travel guides. And the new one, Discover, has been defined as the book suitable for people who "focus time and planning on those can’t-miss experiences". For me, it looks like a country version of Encounter guides, which were in full colour and such such.

I assume that as the emerging of more and more full colour travel guide books, lonely planet is seeking a way to survive. Country guides are probably for those who will stay in a country for a long time and set their steps on every small town with less than 2,000 people and enjoy every restaurant and hostels around the country, while Discover guides are for fast-pace travellers, who would rather plan their itinerary ahead based on the photos and descriptions of the travel guide.

I happened to have bought a Country guide of Japan from Amazon UK at £8.99 the day before yesterday, after a desperate hunting of suitable travel guide of this country. I would certainly have bought a discover guide instead if I knew, for I will only be in Japan for two weeks and I need a simulation of photos and full colours. Unfortunaly, this is life.

One more thing, the guides have been pubulished as two versions, AU and UK version (red cover) and US version (green cover). I wonder why. Spelling?

AU and UK version of Discover. from Lonely planet official website.

Malaysia Journal 3 - Books, CDs and Movies

Books

The bookstores in Malaysia, especially around KL, are so to my taste. They have large collections both of English and Chinese publications. Especially Chinese publications, they are from China(mainland), HK Taiwan and even local Malaysian and Singaporean presses. It is very hard in mainland China to buy books published in HK or Taiwan, especially when the books are politics-related.

There was one bookstore in PJ (a district near KL), called Popular Book. (大众书店）It's kinda of interesting to realize there was no Bahasa Melayu on this website, only Chinese and English. The company was established in 1984 and now have some 60 store around Malaysia. Asian Weekly (亚洲周刊), a HK based international Chinese magazine, publishes weekly Chinese book bestseller lists from leading bookstores among Chinese speaking cities, among which Popular Book stands for whole Malaysian Chinese Literature.

Another bookstore I visited was Kinokuniya (纪伊国屋书店). It was a Japanese based global bookstore chain. It was located at Level 4, KLCC. It was such a big store that you couldn't even miss. Interestingly, the Chinese books are far more than the Japanese books in that store. Kinokuniya also operates a store in Sydney and said to be the biggest in Australia. Borders, a British bookstore chain, is also very popular in Malaysia. They also have large Chinese collections.

The books in Malaysia is very cheap, compared to Australia, who has stupid publication restrictions which are supposed to aim at protecting local publication industry. The Chinese publications are also reasonably priced, taken exchange rate factors into account.
CD

There I went to a lovely CD store in KLCC, in which you can first happily and later a little embarrassed ask the shop keeper to test the CD for you. You can pick up any of the CD and present to the shop keeper and they will unpack the CD and lead you to the CD player even though you don't want to buy it. So after listening to half a dozen of CD, I bought four local Malaysian albums which I supposed were nowhere else could be found in other countries.

I always remember in an Indonesian movie I have seen, there was a female singer in a bar at KL, her voice was so beautiful and I believe she was singing in Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Indonesia, which two were basically the same. So I requested several albums contained Bahasa Maleyu. I was amazed at the popularity of English songs, though. It seemed very hard to find an indie or acoustic album totally in Bahasa Maleyu.

Movies

Malaysia is definitely heaven for a movie bug like me. American, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian, Indian..... original soundtrack and English-Chinese double subtitle. The prices for student were so cheap (only about RM10 - CNY 20 or AUD 3.3) that I watched 4 movies in total during my stay in Malaysia.

I saw a local Malaysian film which was such a novel experience to me. It was about a poor street boy whose daily activity was racing motors with mates and delivery mails as a job. Then accidentally appointed to be temporary boyfriend of his beautiful rich boss, whom he secretly loved. The boss was from a rich family and her friends were all sort of upper class. After several up and downs the two fell in love and.... Well, personally, I don't think they will live happily ever after, which the movie tried its best to convince its audience. During most of my stay I interact with local Malaysian Chinese and barely spoke to Malay unless I have to. So the movie showed me a different view of Malaysia which really was a pleasure. An interesting phenomenon in this movie is that not a single woman wore a headscarf, which I though was a requirement of Melays.

Great Ocean Road

After being in Melbourne for almost 2 years, today I finally grasp a chance to visit the Great Ocean Rd.

The road was being constructed since 1918, after World War I. 3000 soldiers were back from Europe and apparently had nothing to do in that period of time. Therefore they were assigned to build such a road in a manner to memorize the soldiers who died in the war.

It took about 12 years for the road to be completed, then it became a tourism hotspot of Victoria. Hundreds of thousands of tourists came to boost the local economy every year. Honestly I was very impressed by Australian involvement in WWI, whose continent the fire of war didn’t reach at all. Everything they did in the war was for England - their motherland.

Then I heard a terrifying story about how a ship from England crashed to the cliff a hundred years ago. Only two survived. They now develop this area as a tourist attraction which I do not appreciate at all. I have to admit I am a little suspicions and concerned about the welfare of the passed-away.

The scenery, I’d say, is fascinating. However I am not sure if it is fascinating enough for one to sleep in a van for 7 hours ups-and-down on the rugged road to just have a look of the stuff which they could find on every website.

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Malaysia Journal 2 - Baba Nyonya

How lazy I was to hold this topic until a month after my visit to Malaysia! Writing journal is never a easy job, especially when writing about something you don't really know about and in your second language.

Baba Nyonya (峇峇娘惹 in Chinese) refers to the descendants of the Chinese who immigrated to Malaysia during 15th and 16th. It was used as a term to separate the Chinese arrived in Malaysia after that time. Before 1960s, Baba Nyonya were considered as Bumiputra (literally means 'sons of earth', referring to native Malaysian people, predominately Malay ethnic), and enjoyed all the privileges as in the law. However the violence between Chinese and Malay in May 13 Incident (1969) and promoted the implementation of a group of policies in favour to created more opportunities of Bumiputera, and therefore reduce the economical power of Chinese Malaysians. The definition of Bumiputera then narrowed to Malay people and several other indigenous Malaysian ethnic groups.

The term of Baba-Nyonya originally means Grandpa and Grandma, while Baba refers to the male and Nyonya female. This race is considered as upper class in Malaysian society. They could speak English, Malay and Chinese so that they could establish business relations with each of the groups. Their loyalty to British Crown during colonial time and their social connections accumulated a huge amount of fortune for them.

Baba-Nyonya was famous for their astonishing architecture, costumes and customs. Their lifestyle was influenced by both Chinese and Malaysian cultures, and, on degree, Western cultures. They lives were extravagant in whichever way. It is said that they must have 12 dishes in every dinner. Considering their sizes of family, I am little convinced. The traditional clothing for Nyonya is Kebaya, a traditional Indonesian clothing. It now can be found on the Air Attendants from Singapore Airline.

Now Baba Nyonya has lost its status as the policy is no longer in favour for them. Many of them has immigrated to Singapore, North American, Australia and New Zealand. Some of their mansions are kept well as a place for ancestor memorial or a meseum. They are a nice place to visit and to take photographs. Especially wedding photographs.

Kitten of Nyonya.

A Combination of different cultures

Ancestral Hall

Go West, A Lucky Luke Adventure - A Movie Review

French animations always have a fascinating sense of humour and beauty. Though the story itself is little bit of cliche, hero won, gangster lose, the greedy richman got what he deserved. The figures in this movie are very formulaic and predictable.

However, I still love this movie. It has a sense of humour what Made in Hollywood don't acquire.

The story was simple. It started in New York City in the period of California Gold Rush. Lucky Luke was a handsome and clever detective who was also a cowboy riding on his romantic horse. His role in the movie was to catch the Dalton Brothers and send them to prison. The Dalton Brothers were a foursome gangster who were famous all over the country by their passion of robbing banks and playing guns.

After a dramatic and wild tram ride, the Dalton brothers managed to escape from the police under their eyes. They hide the money they robbed from the bank into a wagon and hope to pick it up the next day.

However the next day turned out to be a day with dozens of wagons gathering around the square. They were a group of fresh-on-boat foreigners who were deceived by a dealer, Crook. They bought a land from that Crook in California at a very low price under one condition, that they must arrive their within 80 days, which seemed impossible at that time.

Lucky Luke showed up and caught the Dalton brothers, who were actually relectant to leave in order to search their money among the wagons. The foreigners begged Lucky Luke to help them find a quickest way to California.

During their way to the west coast, they encountered the 19th century USA and all the cats and dogs. The Chinese couple who had a restaurant wagon was also entertaining.Another astonishing plot was the big 3D screen showing as a prophecy of modern lifestyles by a Indian wizard. Kids were somehow chewing pop corns.The whole movie was in French without a single piece of English conversation. I must say it can touch the softest part of your heart, awakening childhood memories.

（The Copyright of the images belongs to their original owners)