Continuing from my previous entry, we touchdown in US (Dulles Airport) soil at 3.15 am Sunday Malaysia time, which is 3.30 pm Saturday US time. So it would felt like the 20+ hours journey took around 12 hours only based on depart time which is 3.30 am and arrival at 3.15 pm.
Anyway, we were tired, sore, dehydrated and sleepy at this point of time. Then came the immigration. There was a very LONG queue. I suspect peak hour since it's after all a weekend afternoon. After a long 2 hour wait, finally reached my turn. For me, I was rather surprise with how relatively easy it was.
Officer: So what's your purpose coming to the states?
Me: I'm came here for training by my company
Officer: What kind of training?
Me: Well, I'm a new hired in my current company, so they will be giving me some product and domain knowledge training. Since 1/2 of the team is in the US, so I will also be train in terms of culture of the team, how the team will be working with each other.
After 20-40 seconds inspecting my passport and visa
Officer: Okay, put your right hand fingers at...
And it was over... F*ck all those horror stories about US immigration... My Jr was however requested to aid be a translator for a Chinaman (Did I told u, I disliked Chinese from China?) which couldn't speak English. My Pakistan colleague however had an harder time, as after round 1 of immigration, he had to enter a special immigration counter. I think he took 10-15 minutes before he was finally through immigration and Hello Washington DC!
We thought the worst was finally over and looked forward towards lying on the hotel bed only to find out the limo our company rented for us was no where in sight. We were requested to find a guy/gal with a paper with our name at the International Arrival Area but I suspect after a long 2 hour wait, the dude decided to give the finger to these foreigners and hit the road. I tried to contact the driver only to get an answering machine on 2 tries. We had to resort to calling our team leader here, and she tried to contact the driver as well and also got the answering machine. We finally decided to get a cab to the hotel.
We got onto a airport cab, whose driver turn out to be a Pakistanis. A short 30 minute drive (which cost a f*ckin USD 50) and wala, we arrived at our hotel. Check in was relatively easy as they have been expecting us. I was bunked with my Jr while my other colleague had his own suite. Imagine my surprise when I saw this:
Our room had a living room, a kitchen and 2 bedroom with a double bed and a toilet each! Talk about luxury... I was expecting 2 beds not 2 bedrooms. And 3 TV all together...
We unpack, slack, poke around and bath till it was around 9pm, when we decided we want some yum yum to fill our stomach with. We asked for aid from the hotel receptionist and she recommend we ate at TGI Friday but since one of us needed to eat halal food, we ended up roaming the street looking for halal food. I had to actually run back to our room to gear up as it was freaking cold at the night (~16 degree and the hotel receptionist called it hot!?). We finally ended up at Pizza Hut, where me and jr dine and my Pakistan colleague had to eat himself. With the halal word out of the equation, we dine on a this:
A large meat lover pizza... The portion was enormous... The pix above was a 2 piece takeaway from original 8 pieces we were served (We takeaway 4 piece = 2 box). We tipped our 1st tip in US, as the bill ran $18 and we gave $20. Do note, tipping is a culture in the US. If you don't tip and come back to same place, be prepare to be thrown out or have a bad service.
Anyway after our late dinner, we did some shopping at 7-11 where my Islam colleague bought some chocolates for his meal. We return to the hotel at around 11.00pm and finally decided to call it a day. I awoke at 4am and decided to capture the journey in this blog before I forgot it.
Look forward today, as kwai mui will be bringing us around at around 10.30am and I will get to drive in the roads of US... Hahaha.... till next time...
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