go happy lucky

go happy lucky
I smiled back at the girl at the supermarket cashier when she said:
'Look, it's a lucky sum, 88.80, haven't had this number for long time.' 8 has become a really popular lucky number to Chinese population, for a very simple reason actually. It sounds like Chinese word for quick money. We have been paying more to have more 8s for our phone numbers, wedding dates, or any numbers. Luckily 8 will be more valued after it's been so reconfirmed by this current Olympics when deciding its grand opening time, 8:08 pm, 08-08-08, although I still hardly could believe such a superstition dominates so publicly an official event.
Of course people would say, since still you have to decide on some time, why not 8 time?

Actually it's not a real lucky day to me and my travel friend. Regardless of the high air plane ticket, we had reached the agreement the day before. We were to book the ticket from Bali to Kuching by AirAsia today. However, when I tried to do it this morning, something interesting happened.

When 'booking' if I clicked 'one passenger' ,the price would pop out; but when I corrected the number of us to 'two passengers', strangely the system showed 'no available prices for the date.'
As 23rd IS going to be the day, we guessed if it's possibly the system mistake, but couldn't help worrying, if it meant only one ticket was available, we would have big trouble ahead.

We logged on at different time, tried different web browsers, but all were same result. Finally I called to the airliner office. The service staff kindly checked on her system and soon confirmed our worst guess.

'It is our last ticket available, as we don't over sell seats.'
This worried my friend. Of course I knew why. If we don't have this flight ticket, we can't apply for visa upon arrival to Indonesia and have to reschedule all our next flights afterwards. We discussed all other possible plans, trying to check other airliners, other time and came to consensus that we had only one step to go.

If we can't flight direct, we will fly first to Jarkarta, the capital, as there are many domestic flights between Bali and Jarkarta. Booking tickets for domestic flights in Indonesia seems not easy at present, with international credit cards, so we quickly decided only to reserve the flight from Jarkarta to Kuching, sparing the first flight to book only after we arrived there.

After we settled this, we said goodbye on MSN and went back to watch sports channel for Olympics. Still grateful at heart, I think, what a a real luck it is, having a travel friend who thinks alike, understands changes, and acts quickly with me.

So, a 8-8-8 rated pal?!