Journey to America I

US Day 1 – Chapel Hill

Upon boarding Qantas Boeing 747 (and for unknown reasons being upgraded from Premium Economy to Business class seating, which is awesome), off I flew across the Pacific Ocean, arriving in the Los Angeles International Airport, US after more than 14 hours. Gosh, this is the first time stepping my feet on the American continent!

As a Malaysian passport holder (i.e. a Muslim country citizen), I have to go through a more thorough review and paperwork at the US customs, which resulted in me missing the check-in time for the subsequent transit flight on American Airlines from LA to Dallas and Raleigh Durham. Due to the delay, Qantas kindly offered me a lunch voucher in compensation though it’s not their fault. Anyway, I still managed to make it in time for my scheduled flight, and my luggage was to be flown in on the next flight.

Around 8pm (GMT-4), I arrived safely in Raleigh Durham International airport. It was great meeting up with Eric at the airport. It was interesting that we met again in an airport, since we last parted at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport back in 2004 when he left for US for his studies. That was a long long time ago. He has since graduated and is now pursuing graduate studies (while I am still struggling in medical school). As my luggage is expected to arrive on the next flight, we went out for a simple dinner at a Chinese restaurant before returning to the airport to pick up my luggage (which thankfully arrived safely on the subsequent flight).

The next morning, Eric brought me out for a brief tour around the University of North Carolina. Visited the famous old well (which is on the logo of the university), the bell towers and the pretty impressive Kenan Memorial Stadium among others. The campus was so huge that we only walked around the north campus on top of the hill. Later, we drove around the south campus where the newer buildings including the medical school and medical centre are located.

After a short rest back at home at noon, we went to an Apple store to get my long coveted Macbook-pro. With Eric’s tertiary education offer, the 13″inch 2.26GHz processor 160GB hard disk and 2GB memory laptop costs me only USD1099 (about AUD1400 equivalent), plus a free 8GB ipod touch and a Canon printer.

We decided to have late lunch at the Cheesecake factory, and as we were quite full after ordering some pasta, we decided to have to-go cheese cake (US slang for take-away). Reached home, and due to jet lag, I fell asleep around 5pm till the following morning…