My trip to Southeast Asia (Day 1)

So, this first post will serve as an introduction and allow me to set the scene for a trip I took to Southeast Asia this past spring. I figured I would start out writing about my trip as an introduction to who I am and what I like to do. So here it is.
So, my little sister worked for years throughout high school at two, sometimes three jobs. Always dreaming of the day that she would graduate and then take off on a trip traveling around the world, meeting up with friends and family along the way. Prior to her graduation, she became involved in an organization known as the World Spirit Youth Counsel , which funded her to participate in networking and community outreach opportunities in Switzerland, Nepal, Brazil for six weeks, and Japan twice. After these experiences, she was ready to go. She spent the first five months of her year off traveling around South America, starting in Cusco, Peru, traveling out into the Amazon for about a month, spending a few weeks traveling around Bolivia, hanging out in Buenos Aires, partying in Uruguay, and beaching it up in Brazil. She then flew back home (NY) for about four days before flying out to Thailand, where she would spend about a six weeks doing yoga on Koh Phangan, then a couple of months in Nepal studying Buddhism. This brings us to my trip.
My wife decided that she wanted to plan a surprise trip for me as she had seen how stressed out and discouraged I had become with my work. She told me about it in advance to keep my momentum up and give me something to plan for. She had already told my sister and was planning for me to meet her somewhere in SE Asia. So we started planning. I wanted to see so many things, but did not have too much time/money. It was clear that the ticket would be the expensive part and that the food and lodging would be on less than a shoestring. I concluded that I would fly to Singapore, where I would meet my sister and we would travel up through Malaysia, Thailand, across to Cambodia, and into South Vietnam from which I would fly home. The only problem, my sister was flying over from Nepal and could only get a good flight to Kuala Lumpur, so we decided to meet there. Throughout the trip, I kept a journal, which will help me remember my thoughts, feelings, emotions and experiences as I post them for others' consumption.
My flight was from SD. I had spent so much time and effort planning this trip that I almost didn't want to go anymore. The night before I was leaving (after spending several nights without sleep in order to get all my work done in advance) I told my wife that if I hadn't booked everything then I wouldn't have gone. I knew in the back of my mind though that I was going to love it. I flew from SD to LA where I had to transfer terminals, which was the most confusing process of the entire trip. They sent me on a bus to another terminal where I was supposed to walk through to the front of the building, go outside, walk down the street to a different building, and check in for my flight to Hong Kong, which would connect me to Singapore. I finally found the other terminal, waited in a ridiculous line to check in for my flight after finally finding Cathay Pacific and was then on my way to the over-crowded and third-world-feeling gate that we would be flying from.
After waiting forever to board, I was introduced to the couple to whom I would be subjected for the next 16hrs.; a nice old Vietnamese lady originally from Hue and her weirdo white guy husband from Tampa. They were on their way to Vietnam for a month and she was very happy to hear that I enjoyed her city's famous soup (Bun Bo Hue of course). Comfy plane, didn't sleep much, but it went by pretty quickly. Nearly missed my connection to Singapore from there because the our liason was waiting for folks to bring to other flights as well. Made it to Singapore, but my bags didn't. I wasn't surprised because of the quick transfer, but it was 1:30 a.m., so I left my info and jumped in line for the cab cue to go to my hostel that I had booked in advance on Hostelbookers.com.
My driver was really cool and showed me around the beautiful city a little before dropping me off at my hostel. Miss Kay helped me out when I got to the Sky Orchids Hostel, but she didn't speak much English. What ensued was a group of international travelers from all over trying to piece together enough English for me to pay, get a bed, some sheets and go to sleep for a few hours. However, it was difficult to sleep knowing that in less than 20 hrs. I would be boarding a train to Kuala Lumpur to meet my sister, so I went up out to get something to eat. I some red curry and terriyaki chicken at a late-night hawker center, which was amazingly delicious. I had to change some money over at the restaurant and got ripped off, but it was okay with me, I just wanted the food. I looked around and observed all of the diversity of the beautful and clean city. I felt dazed, it didn't seem real. I went back to the hostel and talked briefly with some of the other travelers before catching some shut-eye.