The last time I boarded AirAsia XL promo from Hangzhou to Kuala Lumpur was January last year when we visited my parents-in-law in Malaysia.

With 5 flights a week, AirAsia is the first airline in the Southeast Asia region to provide a non-stop service flight to Hangzhou. They now fly to Australia, Uk, India and very soon to Japan. I was on a 737 (economy class) and it must have been the tightest seat pitch I have ever experienced!

This time, the new aircraft was equipped with in-flight entertainment systems in all seats. This include touch-screen system with lots of entertainment content as well as cool applications, including games, interactive moving map, shopping and in-seat chatting system.

Chatting is free, but you need a small fee to access other entertainment services.

An USB port is also available at each seat for games controllers, or power charging your personal electronic devices. It is said that AirAsia will be the first airline in Asia to deploy OnAir mobile communications services. This will enable passengers to use their mobile phones and BlackBerry-type devices to send and receive SMS messages, emails, and to make and receive mobile phone calls in flight.

The flight back last week was an 5 hour evening flight. I only manage to get an hour nap

I actually don’t prefer AirAsia for long haul.

AirAsia always portrayed itself as having a better, friendlier and prettier cabin crew than other 5 star airlines. But that’s not what I see from Kuala Lumpur to Hangzhou flight. They are inattentive and despite the call light being on for 20 mins, no crew came to attend to you.

The last time I traveled a midnight flight with AirAsia X, there are times when they off the lights for passengers to sleep. All of a suddent, I was awaken by the noisy cabin crews from the back of the curtain beside the emergency exit. They chit-chat and giggled so LOUD that someone had to come up and ask them to lower their voice.

This time, the same flight, same cabin crew… chit chat, chit chat…CHIT CHAT…. so LOUD.  And the other thing is, there’s only 1 Chinese-speaking crew on board. I can heard some crews say “Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese!“, walk away and ignore the Chinese passengers, leaving them with lots of question marks. There was one incident that really surprised me. When the passengers were boarding the air craft and looking for their seats, an air steward was blocking the path of a little chinese girl. She politely said “Excuse me” but the air steward gave her a glance and ignored her. Again she politely asked him to let her through but there was no response. It wasn’t until I stared at him that he let her pass. Does this award winning Airline train their crew this way?

Thank God that I never witness any behaviour like the one below despite the service at AirAsia X.

The coolest cabin crew from one of the airline in China.

Popularity: unranked [?]

The Toilet Restaurant from Taipei, Taiwan has come to HangZhou. The toilet dining concept is about sitting on a toilet seat and serving your food on a toilet bowl, a bath tub, a bidet or squat bowl, practically, everything you see around you has nothing to do with a real restaurant.

ShenZhen has one already, and the Taiwanese owner plans to open the network of toilet-themed restaurant across the world and more is to come in China. I hope they skip this city – Shanghai!

HangZhou, China:

HangZhou branch. Photo credit: ChinaDaily

Interior decorated with toilet seats and sinks. Photo credit: ChinaDaily

Taipei, Taiwan:

These photos were taken from the main toilet themed restaurant in Taipei. Just don’t order the brownies like curry

First Toilet theme restaurant in Taipei.

Taiwanese style Curry in Western-style toilets bowl shape

Ice-cream in China-style "squat pots"

Popularity: 21% [?]

Ok, we are off to Kuala Lumpur today for the Chinese New Year holiday in China. Although our flight to Kuala Lumpur was at 12 midnight the next day, we left Shanghai at about 2pm. Normally it only takes 2 hours to drive from Shanghai to Hangzhou. However, the recent heavy snow meant that the highways could be sealed off and it might take longer for us to reach the airport. Fortunately it stopped snowing and the trip to the airport was pretty smooth although it did started to snow lightly just as we were about to reach the airport terminal. At this point we were worried that the snow might cause our flight to be postponed or worse, cancelled.

In the car to HangZhou. Traffic jam in the journey… It tooks about 3 and a half hours drive today because of the snowstorm.

AirAsia advertisement can be seen everywhere at HangZhou airport.

HangZhou International Airport

Most of the flights are either canceled or delayed.

Lots of people were at the Hangzhou airport waiting to go home for the Chinese New Year. With no where to sit and 7 hours to kill, we placed our bags on the trolleys and sat down on the edge of the trolleys. We literally had our lunch on the trolleys. While waiting, we saw a group of Taiwanese arguing with the airport officials. Apparently, they were upset that their flights were delayed while another later flight took off. The airport official was having a hard time dealing with this rowdy crowd and had to call the security in the end to help calm them down. Two airport officials were pushing a trolley among the crowds offering hot water.

2 hours before midnight, we checked in. There was some confusion during the check-in as some of the passengers were confused about the way AirAsia charges for check-in luggage. The AirAsia flight we were going to board was the first flight from Hangzhou to Kuala Lumpur. There were quite a few AirAsia senior personnel there to make sure everything went smoothly.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Just a short post, since I posted this in my Sony Image Station album. HangZhou is one of the important tourism cities in China, about 2 hours train from Shanghai, is famous for its natural beauty and historical and cultural heritages. Will be heading to Nanjing tomorrow.

Popularity: 11% [?]