I knew someone who described airplanes something like that. She told me about it as we were hiking around a desert mountain in the southwest US picking sage. It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies. Not a cloud or sign of civilization around. Then she said that phrase: "glittering speck of emotion." I didn't know what she was talking about and she pointed up to the sky where there was a plane flying high above. There's so much energy and emotion in planes, she explained. Everyone on board is feeling something. Someone is going home after a long time away; someone is leaving someone they loved; someone is going to a funeral; someone is flying for the first time; someone else is going on a great journey to a place they always wanted to see. All of those emotions are crammed into that tiny silver speck of glittering light in the sky.
This was so long ago that I can't even remember who my friend was or where exactly we were. But I remember the scene and the sentiment. That was a wonderful day.
So anyways, speaking of airplanes, I bought my plane ticket to Malaysia a while ago. As with any purchase, I did a lot of research. I started by searching some nifty sites like Hipmonk, Matrix Airfare Search, and Momondo. These were the best sites I found to start my search from. These sites are cool because they are aggregators which pull results from all over, but they also search a wide range of dates. They can tell you which airline and date has the cheapest ticket. When you're not on a fixed schedule, this is the way to go. So I started searching for flights from the nearest international airport to the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. I figured that would be the cheapest. These sites also let you simultaneously search nearby airports too, so I included the nearest large airports. Only after a long time of checking and re-checking prices did I decide to check for flights from here to my actual destination, Penang. Lesson learned. I should have searched my direct route from the beginning, because the price to fly to Penang was exactly the same as to Kuala Lumpur. Once I figured out the cheapest destination and date and airline, I went directly to the airline's website to check the fare there. The price was better and the policies were more lenient and the fees for amending the ticket were lower. I ended up getting a one way ticket from the Big Decayed City to Penang on Cathay Pacific. This is one of the better airlines out there, but also had the lowest price. Funny world.
On the downside, the whole journey will take about two days of travel time. I'll have an extended layover in Hong Kong, during which I expect I will become very familiar with their airport.
One thing to note about booking with Cathay Pacific (and maybe all the others) is their fare prices give a warning that there are only a few seats left at that price. Maybe that's true sometimes, but this time they seemed to be fibbing. I went back and checked the price a number of days as I debated and it stayed the same. I just went back and checked as of this writing and the price rose a bit, but is still reasonable. The price rose about 3.5% three weeks before the departure date, and about 5.5% now one and a half weeks out.
In a week and a half a whole bunch of emotions will be on my plane to Penang, and a lot of them will be from me.
