You don’t realise how accustomed you’ve become to your surroundings, until you go somewhere else, right? I mean things like signs and directions. At home, you know what to look for; the fonts, colours, positioning etc. you just know where to look for motorway signs, or street names, or underground maps don’t you?

So am I starting to get ambivalent now? Either that or the signage here is clear and I’m getting too clever for my own good! Let me explain.

I arrive in KL having never been here before, and manage to walk (confidently, as in, what Staffs would call ‘the strut’) straight through the airport to the shuttle train without so much as glancing at a sign (well of course I looked, I just did it subtly, without getting out my guidebook, or asking at the information desk, which I managed to clock en route, just in case…) I then fail terribly, and in full view of a family of three. 

Having considered the need for coins for the monorail in town, found an ATM, got out some Rans, found a shop and bought water (tick, mum!) to get change, found the KLIA Ekspres ticket machine, purchased my ticket into town, and spotted the (brightly coloured in purple) lift down to the platform; I was feeling suitably smug at how unlike a novice I must have looked! But schoolgirl error to follow… 

I clock that the Ekspres platform is on level 1, and whilst everyone else waits by the purple lift, I slip across to the empty one across the hall and press button #1 😉 I’m soon joined by mum, dad and their daughter, Gap Yar, who claims she knows where she’s going… In silence, we all descend to L1, only to emerge into a car park? Hang on, this isn’t right? I think back to how there’s a fifty-lane road separating L1 departures from L1 car hire at San Jose airport… Ok so back up, back across the hall, and back down in the purple lift (where everyone else who’s clearly NOT a novice was waiting ten minutes ago), and follow the signs.

#stoptryingtobeclever

Fortunately for me, the people waiting there ten minutes earlier are already safely on their way and not around to see my faux pas. In fact, the only people who are still around are mum, dad and Gap Yar who’ve made exactly the same mistake as me! We nod in acknowledgement, exchange libel about the ‘poor signage’ and enough is said… 

Now where’s that Ekspres?

#beenheremillionsoftimes