Couple of days ago, my friend called to say she’s back from China. They had a fabulous time shopping and eating in Shanghai and a great get-together with their “long time no see” relatives in Shenzen. However, the start of the trip was rather eventful.

Apparently her niece was not held back by Immigration at KLIA due to some personal issues. As they had checked in as a group (there were 8 of them in the group), all their luggage had to be pulled out from the cabin just to retrieve her niece’s bag. As a result the flight was delayed. Can imagine them boarding the plane like unpopular VIPs with plane load of dagger eyes flashing at them!

I then recalled an incident last year where her niece joined us for a tour to Korea. While waiting at the departure lounge at KLIA, her niece suddenly commented that she hoped there’d be no flight delays or cancellations because she had a bad experience when she went to Sydney few months’ ago. Her flight was first delayed for several hours and then finally cancelled altogether until further notice! Both my friend and I never had such unpleasant encounters before so we told her to stop her morbid thoughts.

All was well and overall we had an enjoyable trip…. until the homebound flight. After taking off from Incheon airport and flying for more than an hour, we started to experience some bad turbulences and sudden drop in altitude. Next, the captain came on the air to announce that the plane had developed some technical problems, therefore had to fly back to Korea for an emergency landing at Kimpo airport. The crew stopped halfway thru serving meals. Anyway by then, no one had anymore appetite left. Most of the passengers were really worried and praying hard. Thank god, after what seemed like ages, the plane finally touched down safely at Kimpo airport. Everyone heaved a sigh of relieve and disembarked. But it was some 3 hours later before another plane was available to fly us safely back to home sweet home. Thanks to Korean Airlines for making unforgettable mark.

It’s perfectly acceptable that glitches are bound to happen in the course of our travels but occurring in such consecutive and rampant manner would surely fray anyone’s nerves a wee bit at least. Gives one the inkling that her niece is somewhat a jinx or a jonah.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 8:59 pm and is filed under General.