Day 1: Lunch in Kuala Lumpur

Anna dropped us off at the airport at 11pm. We didn't have any luggage to check and were soon waiting by our gates, dozing off and looking forward to leaning that seat back and sleeping. The lights were on for the majority of the flight as the flight attendants walked the aisles selling stuff. I curled into fetal position and tried my best to sleep, dreaming of business class. When I woke up, my leg room had been taken over by Will the Botanist and the guy on my right.

Last week I had posted a message on Couchsurfing asking for things to do during our layover in Kuala Lumpur. As we only had a couple of hours, everyone suggested we take the train to Sentral and make our way over to Chinatown for some grub. Maybe it was the smell of garbage or the sweat covering my forehead but KL made me think of Hong Kong. It was the first familiar thing I had encountered in months and as strange as it sounds, yes, the smell of garbage was comforting.

We wandered through the bright streets of Chinatown lined with little trinkets to lure tourists in and took a turn into a dark alley where chickens were kept together in small ages and plucked, skinned, and chopped right before our eyes. Feral cats strutted by as Will the Botanist and I continued our journey to find lunch.

People always ask me what I miss the most about home. I always say my dad's cooking. But fish ball noodles is a pretty damn close second.

When I entered Malaysia, I had to provide them with a set of fingerprints. For some reason, at departure they didn't match. After three failed attempts, the lady at immigration shook her head, smiled, and said it was okay. At security, the man on duty was engrossed with his phone, too busy to pay attention to the people beeping as they passed through the security gates. Imagine the things and the people I could've smuggled!

Gate Q14 was at the end of the departure hall. I asked one of the Air Asia employees where I could fill up my water bottle. He said it was really far so I went back to my seat in the waiting area ready to suffer an uncomfortable wait. Five minutes later, he came up to me and handed me a bottle of water before rushing back to his post. I waved at him while lining up to board the plane.

We knew we were getting close as the city lights became brighter and brighter. I started to get nervous. My last 10 months had been spent in a foreign country and it was tough enough getting used to it and fighting homesickness. Who knew what would happen in another new country. I had done minimal research on Japan. For all I knew, I could soon find myself on the ground in the middle of Osaka airport having a panic attack.

Luckily I stayed on my feet the entire time as we hurried out of the airport to catch the last train that would take us to Osaka station. There we would meet Akira, a Japanese couchsurfer that Will the Botanist had stayed with the last time he was in Osaka. We would be staying with him and his wife Hitomi for two nights.

If I needed any confirmation that I was in Japan, this line of vending machines was it. I snapped a quick photo just as the train came to a stop. Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur to Osaka. Three countries in one day. Exhausted and hungry, we dragged our luggage to a convenience store and stocked up before heading back to Akira's. In my sleep I vaguely remembered something soft crawling on me...