Switzerland trip - Day 1 - KLIA, Dubai Airport Transit and Zurich

The trip started with a car drive to the ERL train station by a neighbour at 6:15 am. Although there were only 5 of us, we got nine bags between us of which 4 will be declared as hand-luggage. 

The train system in KLIA was still under renovation. We had to use a shuttle bus service to get from the main terminal to the satellite building. After a small breakfast in one of the fast food outlets, we took sometime to visit the jungle park at the centre of the the terminal.

This is only the second time that I stepped into this forest oasis in the middle of the airport. Although small, it has a number of tree species and references were provided to interested observers. There are a number of tall trees.

The flight to Dubai (transit) via Emirates took 6 and 1/2 hours and we arrived at 1:00 pm local time. The ground view from the plane as we approached Dubai was just barren rock and valleys.

Had some food. McDonald's in Dubai airport is expensive. A simple meal for 5 people costs us RM80. Here is a self portrait at the McDonald outlet.

After another grueling 6 hour flight, we finally arrived in Zurich. The local time is 8:00 pm. Thankfully, the local tour operator was waiting for us at the entrance including the driver and car. We immediately headed to our hotel for the night, Hotel Montana, part of the Best Western Group of hotels.The temperature was -2.0 Celsius.

The hotel is very compact. You can see from the photo above, they only got a small common area. A good proportion of it is being used by the lift system.

It is also not that tall. Only 5 stories high. Like any typical building in Zurich, the facade looks somewhat similar to the pictures of the other buildings which I took from the balcony of my room. Even at 9:00 pm on a Thursday evening, Zurich resembles a ghost town. The cold weather forces people to be off the streets at night.

Next morning, we were able to identify the hotel as a form of a boutique hotel. As you can see from the picture below, it has stylish corridors with paintings and posters. To hazard a guess, it looks like a 4 star hotel to me.

Due to jet lag, I woke up at 4:00 am and instead of just lying in bed waiting for breakfast to be served, we decided to walk the street of Zurich for some fresh freezing air. Despite the temperature to be sub-zero, you cannot see any snow on the streets.

The city remains quiet. Not a lot of cars on the street
.

Nor was there any pedestrians as well.

In Switzerland, the postbox is yellow.

After breakfast from the hotel, we packed our bags and by 9:00 am we headed towards St. Gellens to visit a chocolate factory. It was a working day, a Friday but you still do not see any rush-hour traffic at all.

The roads remain empty. How I wish, this was KL!

More in the next posting!