THE INITIAL STAGE OF THE JOHOR BAHRU - XI'AN TRIP

How I travelled from Johor Bahru to Xi'an, in brief.

   1st SEPTEMBER 2026   

4:20 p.m. Took the KTMB ERL Train to Kuala Lumpur.

9:00 p.m. Arrived in KL Sentral [20 minutes behind schedule]

9:20 p.m. Took the ERL Express to KLIA Terminal 1 from KL Sentral

9:45 p.m. Arrived at KLIA Terminal 1

Met Puan Noor'aini Mohamed Nor, an ex-colleague of SMK Taman Universiti, who was accompanied by her husband and two children. She was catching her flight to Balkan.

10:00 p.m. Group members [who were strangers to me] started to arrive at the Departure Hall.

There were 28 people which were divided into 2 groups.

Group 1 [10 people] flew to Xi'an via Xiamen.

Group 2 [18 people] flew to Xi'an via Guangzhou.

I was in Group 1.

We were notified our flight to the Xiamen, the transit stop, was delayed for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

11:00 p.m. Checking in at the Xiamen Air counter.

   2nd SEPTEMBER 2026   

12:30 a.m. Checking in at Plaza Premium Lounge [READ HERE].

3:40 a.m. Departed Kuala Lumpur on Xiamen Air, original time 2:30 a.m.

8:40 a.m. Landed at Xiamen International Airport, and there was about only an hour to clear Immigration and run to the next awaiting flight.

9:45 a.m. Departed Xiamen for Xi'an.

12:00 p.m. Landed at X'ian International Airport.

Reunited with Group #2 from Guangzhou.

Group 1 members waited for the luggage that never arrived.

Because of the 1 hour delay, our bags were not transferred to the next vessel.

All the luggage was later sent by the airline company to the hotel and we got our bags at 11:00 p.m.

3:00 p.m. Arrived at Citadines Hotel.

Some people already started their shopping activity earlier.