My life begins anew in Singapore - a life that started to crown on August 19th at 6:45am and finally gave way to a sweaty, blubbering man-baby on August 21st at 3:00am.
It would have helped the start of the journey if I had gotten a full nights rest, but on second thought, it probably wouldn't have made a difference. When you're up for 24 hours+, your mind has little luck with processing the order of events. That's when your body steps up and pilots the self through whatever situations and conundrums it encounters. The mind just agrees and accepts it. The exhausted mind is indifferent. It cares not for the little old lady that is now sprawled out on the floor because she got in your way as you rushed to retrieve your baggage.
My day started with my overtly excited self deciding that 6:45am was an acceptable time to get up and take a shower. I was to meet Gabe for our final breakfast (fixslow) at the legendary Lucky Penny in San Francisco. I had so many things to take care of before I headed to the airport at 10:00am, but a promise was a promise, and Gabe would get her final breakfast with me. I had my usual of two eggs over medium, a serving of hash browns, and some toast. I went for sourdough this time. Why not?
As a going away gift, Gabe hooked me up with an awesome t-shirt that shows a speedway motorcyclist with the words "Who Loves Burritos?" The baby blue shirt had that pseudo vintage look and was apparently a little too small for me, but I joked that my broke Singapore living would soon make a skeleton of me and the shirt will work excellent.
After breakfast, I scrambled home to finish packing my suitcases and await the arrival of a lovely couple who intended to buy my bed. How about that for finishing clean? Coming to pickup and pay cash for my bed mere hours before I leave the country. That hundred and fifty would do me well in my initial days of Singapore. We made silly small talk about golfing and banjos as we heaved both parts of my bed down the stairs and onto their pickup truck. Goodbye people who bought my bed - I'll never see you again.
Ron arrived to deliver me to SFO airport at around 10am. He grumbled about oversleeping as he would have enjoyed partaking in one last breakfast with me. We filled his car with the ridiculously heavy luggage I was taking with me, as well as some odds and ends to deliver to the post office. On route to the post office, I got a phone call from my airline, Cathay Pacific, that my 1:05pm flight had been delayed to 6:35pm. Well shit.
On the way back to my house from the post office, we stopped to get a cup of coffee and I played a little game of phone tag with Paulo B. He was arranging to have me picked up in Singapore via some of his close friends from when he used to live out here. I told him to hold off, there had been a change of flight plans.
Back at my house, I scrambled to piece together what were the actual flights and connections I would soon be taking when I got another phone call from Cathay Pacific. This time, if I got to the airport within 30 minutes, I would be given a ticket voucher for Japan Air for a flight that left at 1:40pm. Ron and I jumped back into the car and within 30 minutes I was at SFO, getting my voucher, and checking in my bags. I was pretty excited to be going to Tokyo now instead of Hong Kong (even if it was just for a two hour airport visit).
9 hours on an airplane is a long time. Especially when you're stuck in the middle seat of an economy section. I didn't have any room to use my laptop - that juggernaut practically needs a full size desk. When I did manage to squeeze the bastard into an awkward, angled position between me and the seat, I noticed the movies I downloaded were corrupted. Damn. I entertained myself by watching the free movie entertainment. I watched Iron Man 2, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button several times.
They love to feed you on international plane trips. We got two full meals as we soared over the Pacific Ocean - keeping a steady pace alongside the sun. I wish I would have taken pictures of those Japanese style meals provided by Japan Air, but my glutenous ways tore through those meals with such obscene abandoned that I perhaps frightened the passengers next to me (furthermore, fishing my camera out of my backpack was a task that would involved swearing and violence in such close quarters). My first meal was the choice of Braised Beef with Noodles or Curry Chicken and Rice. I went for the curry chicken. It came with a little salad, two pieces of inari, and a little yellow cake. My second meal was standard penne pasta with tomato sauce. It came with another salad, a fruit cup, and a wheat dinner roll.
By the time I landed in Tokyo, it was midnight San Francisco time, but 4:15pm Tokyo time. I had already been up 16 hours. I chose to walk and get some much needed exercise as I moved to my next terminal for the Singapore flight. The conveyor belt people mover I walked along side was filled with sleepy eyed people. A little girl ate shit right at the end of the conveyor belt, which created a domino effect of people stumbling and falling as they tried not to topple on top of the little tyke and her mother who struggled to pull her up. I would have laughed at the silly situation had the girl not been hurt, but she sounded pretty upset and I could hear her bawling for quite a way down the hallway.
I had the opportunity to exchange some US dollars for some Yen and buy a bizarre looking Japanese soft drink. It had always been a goal of mine to drink a crazy beverage in Japan - the country that still kept Zima in production. Looking at the soft drink vending machine, I opted for the one described as "A Health Fizzy Drink, Increasing the Vitality of Men Going All-Out Every Day." The bottle can was covered in cartoon kitty cats with a video game advert on the top. It tasted something like a diet version of Peru's Inca Cola. And if you've never had that, I dunno what to tell you. I debated if I would buy any further Japanese snacks, but the anger in my stomach after the soft drink convinced me to keep the leftover coins for souvenirs.
The plane ride to Singapore was another 6 and a half hours. This time however, I was awarded with an aisle seat with a vacant window seat. The plane gods were smiling on me. I stretched out between the two seats and loaded up the old James Dean "East of Eden" on the plane's video system. My meal for this flight was a beef sukiyaki with a soft boiled egg over rice and pickled salad. I finally got my first rest somewhere in the middle of EoE and woke up after 3 hours or so of solid sleeping. We were about 2 hours away from Singapore and I fought off the further exhaustion that haunted me after my tease of sleep.
Like a zombie, I stumbled off the plane and headed through the last terminal I would see for a long time. I walked by a duty free liquor shop and tried to purchase two bottles of Jameson, but the cashier told me I had to purchase from the shop downstairs after I got my passport stamped at immigration. Immigration worked out fine, but the damn duty free liquor shop had no Jameson! I had to settle with a bottle of Hendrix, a bottle of red wine, and three bottles of Heineken. Yes, they actually sell 3-packs in Singapore.
I was following the path to my luggage claim when I was waived down by Paulo B's friends Eric and Jkai. Seeing someone resembling friends in this land of strangers, I walked towards them and out of the main security area. I learned, shortly after, that I had just walked through customs and away from the baggage claim by following the friendly face. Too get back into the baggage claim area required me to tell the ladies at the information desk that I was an idiot and needed to be escorted back through security so that I may collect my banjo and suitcase. Thankfully, they are used to obliging such requests from idiots like myself. After a letter from the information mom, and a security escort, I was able to get my bags, have them scanned by customs, and, again, walk out to Eric and Jkai. The last laugh was mine, however, because my carry-on bags had not been scanned by customs. Who knows what contraband I snuck in that would have otherwise been confiscated? My counter-culture magazines filled with nudity and drug use? My violent video games? My hard drive with questionably attained software? Who knows...makes me wish I had loaded my computer up with porn.
I struggled to maintain a coherent conversation to Eric and Jkai as we walked out of the airport. I was really, really fighting the urge to just lay down and go to sleep. Those two wonderful gentleman helped me with my luggage, drove me to my hotel, and got me settled in my room. Unfortunately, those two wouldn't let me sleep until they got my cell phone situation sorted. It was for the best, and really, I wouldn't have gotten that communication necessity taken care of so fast and neatly without their help. So we walked down to the 7-Eleven at 2am in the morning, bought a pay as you go sim card (using Eric's ID since I clumsily forgot my passport back at the hotel room), and popped that mutha into my freshly unlocked cell phone from the states. After the activation, and some test calls, all was good and three of us made plans to reconnect in a day or two once I was well rested and more situated in my strange new environment.
I fell down on my hard as a rock hotel mattress and slowly waited for sleep - now it was being a fickle beast. I drank down one (well, two) of my luke warm Heinekens to assist in the sleep process. It finally arrived, but in short, restless spurts. Traveling takes it out of you. Tomorrow I see what my new life will be like - I've arrived in Singapore.
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