There you go…
Oversharing on the road.
p.s. Will continue until I get home and start the long winding road of unpacking and adjusting to time zone and crying myself to sleep because I don’t want to go back to work…
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Someone asked me today, quite bluntly but I appreciate her directness – she started our conversation with this question, “Are you happy in your marriage?”, whether I get hit on a lot when I travel.
Have you hung out at the hotel bar? Airport lounge? And nobody ever hit on you?
Frequently. All the time. Never.
Let’s assume that I’m totally hit-worthy. I believe the reason why I’m never hit on is because I always seem like such a regular at the bar, and I enjoy talking to old bar tenders very much.
I’m at the airport now. My waitress told me that I’m waiting for “someone” because she’s not supposed to bring me two drinks at once.
Another reason why I’m never hit on could be that I just took a picture of my drinks, and I laughed out loud at some posts on Facebook.
Alcohol consumption + Crazy friends on Facebook = Preservers of marriage sanctity. Who knew?
By the way, I think I may be playing my role of an uptight, reserved worker bee too well? I don’t understand why some people at work are so confused after seeing the two Vodka Lin. They’re convinced that I was drunk and needed to be reined in. Really, honey? You’ve never met people who behave differently at work and outside of work?
How do I convince them that what they are witnessing is the real me in all its glory?
Ok. Maybe I do get a bit self-grandiose after a couple of drinks… But maybe that’s just me, coming out of my insecure crab shell?
Really, I should not be complaining. My original flight(s) to Beijing tomorrow had me leave the house at 4 am so I could catch the 6 am flight to SFO, with an almost 5-hour layover, and then on to my next flight to Beijing. I would have been in the back of the plane, in the middle seat, for both legs.
Last night as I was freaking out and crying inside about my 4 am EDT on Monday morning, I decided to see whether there would be a way for me to get on a later flight to SFO. What do you know? Up popped a non-stop flight to Beijing! Woohoo!
My original seat on this flight was 42F. After refreshing the page many many times, I moved up to 31F. Bulk seats do come with extra legrooms, yes. But they also come with increased chance of being seated next to a baby. (I am NO baby hater. But if I have a choice…)
More refresh. Refresh. Refresh. And now I am where I am.
I pray that 25E will be empty so I can fully recline (“Recline” in the cattle class is an exaggeration) without feeling guilty.
It is really sad that I will not be able to take advantage of free alcohol on international flights… (Drinking = Needing to “use the facility”)
Waiting to get on a plane that will take me to Tokyo Narita, and then onto Taipei. I am making my annual solo trip back home so I can pack 359 days of homesickness, guilt and filial piety into a 3-day visit. (I will spend 3 days traveling due to time zone change and the sheer expansiveness of the Pacific Ocean).
As my parents get older, the necessity of going home as often as I could becomes unbearable. The anxiety and sadness I feel every time I see them though becomes unbearable as well. I long to see the joy in my dad’s face as much as I dread seeing his tears. March on, little soldier. That’s what I have been telling myself since I gave the TSA agent my passport and boarding passes.
I will try not to talk about feeling like a Godzilla as soon as I land in Tokyo. But I will feel that way while stuffing my face with food that I have been missing all year.
And I will try and send in pictures to be posted here (and below if the Flickr plug-in works). Just in case you wonder what I have been up to. *Megalomaniac laugh* *Megalomaniac laugh*
Love and peace.
Please specify a Flickr ID for this gallery
I grew up in an area in Taipei right next to the then only airport. I have always been fascinated by and loved airports because to me back then, airports meant adventures and exotic places that I could only dream of, and more importantly, I only got to go there when my father came home from his stints abroad and we were there to welcome him.
Now that I travel for work on a regular basis, airports are now simply a transition place. They are simply some place I have to pass by, to tolerate, before I get to where I have to go.
Airports in general do not go through drastic changes. They stay the same for a long time. And that is why whenever I step into an airport that I have been to, even from a long time ago, I immediately get this sense of familiarity.
Yeah, I have been here. I am oriented. It is not scary at all…
Of all the airports I have been to, Narita outside of Tokyo occupies a special place in my heart. Unlike the other airports, even O’hare my “home” airport, Narita is not simply a point of transition for me. I must have come through here more than a couple of dozen times, half of the times on my way home. It is the same each time. As I step onto the wide walkway from the jetway, my heart starts pounding. It’s like before that I have been holding my breath, not sure that I would make it home. But now I am in Tokyo, I am only one 3-hour flight away from home. It’s real. I am going home. I get excited and emotional. And then quickly, my happiness takes a detour when I remember how soon I will have to go through this airport again.
It is a long walk of complex emotions as I move from the plane, through the security check point, and then to the gate for my flight to Taipei. Sometimes I dread saying goodbye so much that I have this irrational urge to turn back.
I want to show you the best thing at the Narita Airport: the automatic beer pouring machine. Look at the perfect foam on top! In order to make this video I had to have a second beer. Oh the sacrifice I made for you guys!
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I have made it a habit to take pictures of the view outside the window as I fly. Today as the plane was approaching the airport, the view outside so mesmerized me that I forgot to put my iPhone away. I ended up with 82 photos. I strung together these and the other photos I took on my previous trips to New York and Boston and made a 30-second video:
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As I was going through my photos on Picasa, I noticed the Geo tagging actually showed the landing path of the plane into Narita Airport. For a dork like me, it is beyond cool.
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Here is one of the pictures I took to show you the reason why I was mesmerized as the plane descended into Tokyo today.
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I really should go to bed right now. I haven’t slept since I got up at 6:30 am yesterday.
Long story short: On Monday, I found out that the meeting where I would be presenting a Power Point slide deck based on the big giant Excel file that I have been living with has been pushed up to as soon as I land and get into the office. The problem with that is I am one of the worst procrastinators. Actually. No. I prefer to think of myself as a Deadliner aka one who is highly motivated and miraculously inspired when the deadline is right in sight. I’d spend the majority of the time before the deadline ruminating, musing, plotting, strategizing and agonizing over the task. Then when there is no more escaping it, BOOM! I sit down and complete the task with a lot of unnecessary stress.
[Insert clock-ticking sound effect from 24]
And yes, I memorized the times so I could later blog about it! There’s no shame in that…
4:22 am. Finally finished my presentation. OH SHIT FUCK HELL I AM GOING TO DIE!
4:30 am. Shower. Done. Wow I’m Speedy Gonzales.
4:45 am. Still figuring out what not to wear. Priorities, people. They are what keep us straight!
4:58 am. Left the house. SHIT FUCK HELL I AM GOING TO MISS THE FLIGHT! I am so tired but I am not tired. I am so jacked up. It feels so weird to drive the car in this state of utter exhaustion. The car seems to be moving on its own without me exerting too much pressure on the paddle. I keep on looking at the new moon that’s beckoning ahead of me, grasping at the wheel afraid that I may let go or make any sudden movement.
5:06 am. There is only one lane open on the highway. The traffic is completely backed up. Red brake lights as far as my eyes can see. OH SHIT FUCK WHAT THE HELL! Why is there a traffic jam at 5 in the morning?! I quickly swerve off the exit ramp and take the alternate local route. In the dark. When I can barely focus. And why are the roads all of a sudden so curvy? And what happened to the street lights?!
5:22 am. Much to my surprise, I arrive at the airport parking garage in one piece. Now let’s hope that the airport is empty and the security line is not too long.
SCORE! Breeze through security checkpoint. Thank you Tuesday morning!
5:31 am. Arrive at gate. And they have not started boarding yet. I WON! I am so awesome! I’m woman. Hear me roar! Doing the victory dance inside my head. These people have no idea what a feat I have just pulled. Oh god, I want to climb onto the chair and announce to the world all the crazy shit stunts I have just pulled to be able to catch this flight. They have NO FUCKING IDEA what a victory it is that I am sitting here right now at this gate!
But I need to tell somebody! Otherwise this memory, this moment of my glory, too, shall pass. It will not be wise to call and wake up husband in order to tell him that I have made it despite my procrastination.
Note to self: Need to blog about this so as to gloat in self’s awesomeness.
I lost all consciousness as soon as they forced us to turn off our phones and took a power nap. Naturally I looked (more) like crap when I got off the plane. Don’t believe me?
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My eyes were bloodshot. The shadows underneath were not from poor lighting. I looked like a friggin’ druggie alcoholic vampire! What was worse was that my hair was completely limp and I was wearing a black dress shirt so I looked like…
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Fortunately the presentation went well despite my lack of inner monologue – the fatigue feels like drunkenness. Several times I told my bosses, “Did I just say that out loud? Sorry.” I either succeeded in glamouring them with my vampire eyes or he was in awe of my being a dead ringer to an evil wizard.
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I am dead tired but I don’t feel tired. I am running on pure adrenaline now. I am jacked up like Beavis and Butthead on their famous sugar high.
I am having an out-of-body experience. It feels as if the speed of the film that is my existence is out of sync with everybody else’s. I am moving around in slow motion while the world whizzes by and nobody knows the better. It feels like I am swimming in the clouds I saw this morning from the plane.
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What do you know. Come to think of it: I actually travelled through the clouds…
I am walking in the clouds now.
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Postscript: OMG. One of my colleagues just startled me by throwing a big exercise ball at me. (Exercise balls are one of the options for “seating” in my company and therefore they are everywhere in the office). I did not realize until tonight that they make an adorable Boing Boing sound when you bounce them.
“You sure we are the only two people left now?”
“You sure there are no surveillance cameras?’
I ended up dribbling the big giant pink ball down the corridors of the empty office building and to my colleague’s surprise (and I hope, admiration) dribbling it under my knees.
So it has been confirmed: I am drunk. Drunk from too much adrenalin.
Jerry: “I can’t go back to coach!”
This is from the 52nd episode of Seinfeld “The Airport”. The Hyperlink takes you to an 8-minute long collection of the best scenes from this episode. Watch from 7:20 for one of my favorite lines from my beloved TV series:
“Do you realize the people back here are getting cookies?!”
I don’t know why. I just loved it even back in 1992 when I had no idea that I would be flying frequently. In coach, nonetheless…
This post could have been titled “WTF Wednesday: How the Other Half Lives”. But seeing how it is already Thursday and I have been cheating via backdating a lot lately, I will just skip a WTF Wednesday post. This should help with my image anyway: soon I fear I will only be posting WTF posts and nothing else. Since my life seems to be full of WTF moments. Or it could just be me: I am wearing WTF Goggles as I go through life…
It suffices to say that Karma delivered. After my not-so-satisfactory-yet-definitely-great-blog-fodder-and-therefore-I-should-be-grateful-all-considered flights to Taipei, I was upgraded to Business Class for the leg between Taipei and Tokyo.
Prior to this, I had ONLY heard of the Lie-Flat Business Class outfitted for the Trans-Pacific flights. (From my beloved husband nonetheless, who will certainly get it from now on if he ever complains about his air travel…) Oh boy, was I excited. When I got to the plane, I was really nervous: I would have been greatly disappointed if for some reason this plane had only the regular Business Class seats. (Yes, one does get spoiled very quickly…) Wait. How come I could not find my row? It went straight from Row 10 to Row 19. Is it a cruel joke? The flight attendant pointed UP and said, “Your seat is on the Upper Level.”
WTF? Upper Level? There is an Upper Level? I mean: I knew there is an Upper Level on a 747 but I thought that was for the super duper Secret Society First Class seats: where they have a hot tub and possibly a stripper pole or something.
As I ascended the stairs, I could hear the angels singing, celestial music playing in the background. “Ahhhhh—–” Much to the chagrin of my seatmate, I started taking pictures as soon as I finished putting everything away. Oh my. So many choices in WHERE to store my shit that it took me a while to figure it out… (He soon exchanged seats with his wife…) I did not know that I would ever, ever, wish for a flight to last longer. Alas. It was not meant to be. The plane actually landed early. I only got to enjoy my Lazy Boy home theatre for a bit longer than two hours. So why couldn’t this flight have been diverted to Alaska? I would have been HAPPY… Very happy.
CODA: Soon afterwards, Karma delivered again. This time to balance everything out my flight from Tokyo back to Washington D.C. was delayed for TWO hours. And of course this time I was back to my coach class for the 12-hour flight. The reason for our delay? AFTER the Christmas Underpants Bomber threat, AFTER the airports around the world heightened security checks by adding a second checkpoint right at the gates for US-bound flights, AFTER we had all been searched and padded down by hand, thoroughly, some Einstein decided that it was a smart move to make a joke about a bomb with the flight attendant. She reported his dumb ass and he was hauled off the plane. Subsequently the cargo area had to be searched to rule out any suspicious material in addition to locate this guy’s checked luggage. Police and security guards were also on board to search the plane before we were allowed to take off.
Happy New Year!
These are pictures taken from the plane when flying into Washington D.C. (IAD), of course, before we were told to “turn off anything with an on/off button”. It was such a gorgeous view. I simply put the iPhone to the window and proceeded to Tap, Tap, Tap to capture these images. No professional photography required.
Moldy Grapes found in first class
These are the grapes served with dinner on one of my UA flights. Notice the white fussy thingy in at least two places? Mold.
No. I didn’t say anything to the flight attendant since I was for once upgraded to the first class, and boy, was I grateful! Besides, the flight attendant was pretty good at refilling my drinks.
Moral of the story: If you keep my glass full, I’m willing to look the other way. Literally. Thank you very much.
I know. I am a total sellout. Or an alcoholic. Or both.