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So I just got home after almost 30 hours of travelling. It's sort of surreal to be back, it's almost like Indonesia was a long dream and never really happened. My apartment isn't even dusty since my girlfriend stayed in it off and on while I was away.
The trip was somewhat uneventful, I sat next to a tobacco exec from South Carolina on the first leg who talked in a thick drawl about his business dealings in Indonesia, which it seems mainly involved wining and dining local clients at karaeoke bars. Indonesia's certainly a fertile market for tobacco, it's rare that you see anyone without a cigarette dangling out of their mouths.
In Singapore, I got out of the airport, went into town for a couple of hours, ate an absolutely nauseating apple streudel at a sidewalk cafe, and headed back to the airport, driven by this Chinese couple where the wife of the cabbie worked at Changi airport and wanted to tell me all about the beautiful Christmas tree in Terminal 2. And both of them were very excited to talk, in their thick accents with Ls replaced by Rs, about the new Terminal 3 opening in 2006 and how great it was that Singapore was going to be the first country to fly the new Airbus A-380.
On the second leg, 7 hours from Singapore - Tokyo, nothing much happened at all and I pretty much snoozed the entire way.
In Tokyo, I decided that Narita is the worlds most confusing airport, but fortunately (and inexplicably) there was an airline attendant who met me at the gate and escorted me briskly to the proper terminal. (I don't think she was waiting there specifically for me, I just happened to be the one person making that connection.) I've done this before without such personal attention, and I always get lost. I took a day room no bigger than the bed, enjoyed a blissful hour of sleep and a nice hot shower, before embarking on the final leg, the 14 hour nonstop from Tokyo to Washington.
In-flight movies watched: Monster-in-Law, with J-Lo an Jane Fonda -- absolutely awful; Be Cool, with John Travolta and Uma Thurman, plus a cast of stars, very funny in spots; and Batman Begins, not bad.
The trip was somewhat uneventful, I sat next to a tobacco exec from South Carolina on the first leg who talked in a thick drawl about his business dealings in Indonesia, which it seems mainly involved wining and dining local clients at karaeoke bars. Indonesia's certainly a fertile market for tobacco, it's rare that you see anyone without a cigarette dangling out of their mouths.
In Singapore, I got out of the airport, went into town for a couple of hours, ate an absolutely nauseating apple streudel at a sidewalk cafe, and headed back to the airport, driven by this Chinese couple where the wife of the cabbie worked at Changi airport and wanted to tell me all about the beautiful Christmas tree in Terminal 2. And both of them were very excited to talk, in their thick accents with Ls replaced by Rs, about the new Terminal 3 opening in 2006 and how great it was that Singapore was going to be the first country to fly the new Airbus A-380.
On the second leg, 7 hours from Singapore - Tokyo, nothing much happened at all and I pretty much snoozed the entire way.
In Tokyo, I decided that Narita is the worlds most confusing airport, but fortunately (and inexplicably) there was an airline attendant who met me at the gate and escorted me briskly to the proper terminal. (I don't think she was waiting there specifically for me, I just happened to be the one person making that connection.) I've done this before without such personal attention, and I always get lost. I took a day room no bigger than the bed, enjoyed a blissful hour of sleep and a nice hot shower, before embarking on the final leg, the 14 hour nonstop from Tokyo to Washington.
In-flight movies watched: Monster-in-Law, with J-Lo an Jane Fonda -- absolutely awful; Be Cool, with John Travolta and Uma Thurman, plus a cast of stars, very funny in spots; and Batman Begins, not bad.
