I suspect this entry will be full of pictures, of an almost blow by blow account of my trip into San Francisco. Currently sitting in the Transit Lounge in Taipei, Chiang Kai Shek International Airport, gleefully hoping to be connected to the world wide web, but to much disappointment, it detects a wireless connection but yet, I was directed to this paysite.

So oh well, I have 4 hours to kill, so I thought it would be good to start writing on good old Word. While listening to Corrinne May (thanks Jo!!!).

Plus I love Taiwan, it has this almost familiar feel to... could be because this is my 5th time in this airport. Or maybe because I find it awfully convenient that I can speak Chinese. And oh, Jolene would like to hear this, I got quite a kick by walking into a duty-free shop (with no intention of buying anything of course) just to hear the Taiwanese say “欢迎光临!” haha, cheap thrill! But yeah, miss the distinct Taiwanese friendliness.

Ok, interesting, I was interrupted by this American sitting across from me in the café where I'm sitting, asking me if I have a connection.

Him: “Are you online?”
Me: “No, sadly, there isn't a connection here.”
Him: “Yeah, well, it's been two days. I'm dying, man. Tokyo has an internet café, but Osaka, none to speak of...”

Talk about internet addiction. The way he says it, it could have sounded like drugs!

Shit, this is a bad place to be sitting, since I'm just in front of this 牛肉面 store, smelling the tantalizing smell that seems to come right from the hot steaming noodles. Well, it’s 2.30pm so I do deserve a right to feel hungry... haha, just prolonging the process, by eating later so that I won't have to go 3 hours after the meal doing nothing.

Damn I'm a constant digression. I was supposed to talk about the food trip.

Despite the almost unearthly hours of my flight and the shackles of school, I'm really grateful to see that some friends came to see me off. Jeffrey (snowboarding time!), Julian (with weird logic on waking hours), Dirong (whom I'm going to see on 1 Sept anyway), Kuangmeng (who didn't do the dramatic running that everyone was expecting), Wan Ling (who managed to wake up! Thanks gal J), Desiree (who didn’t sleep in fear of not being able to wake up.. thanks my friend...), Shilin (I’ll try to keep in the correct shape... haha..) and of course Chelsea (thanks dear, for being brave and not shedding tears...). My family was there less Kathleen who had school, and I'm glad it wasn't as teary as Jolene's departure half a year back. I somewhat even think people are glad to see me go (could feel my eyelid twitching there).

"I feel like a little girl boy, trying to conquer the whole wide world”
- Listening: Corrinne May's Little Superhero Girl

For all the flights I've ever taken, I've never had to board a plane from Terminal 1 and having the plane travel over the overhead bridge overlooking the road into Changi Airport and then taking off on the strip in Terminal 2. Power view! Could see all the cars below me! Plus seeing a plane land just in front me, before my plane turns onto the same strip and take off. For the moment, I really appreciated the people who coordinated the flight timings and taking off timings etc.

Flight was pretty uneventful. Besides watching Monster-in-law (though I must say I was more impressed by Jane Fonda than Jennifer Lopez) and nodding off to sleep for a while, it was pretty smooth. The strange thing was that I feel perfectly calm, almost as if I fly everyday. Pays to be a bit heartless. *laughs*

Clouds are amazing things. Especially when you fly above them. They seemed to have this form about them, not unlike the mountains and valleys on earth. And suddenly the world is nothing but the whites of the cloud-mountains and the blue of the sky...

...and erm, the wings of the areoplane.

Arrived in a Taipei with gloomy skies, and walking around with a big backpack. After smsing home and Chelsea, I went to the transit security point. An interesting scene at the security point was this guy who couldn't go through the metal detector because he has a pacemaker in his heart which would probably be affected by the detector, so he was body searched with hands, rather uncomfortably by the female security officer there. Got to where I am as described in the beginning of the entry. A sudden urge of Singaporean patriotism made me take this photo.

And very much the Singaporean me, this is a moment of racial harmony. One Asian minute by Kenneth. Which really wasn't very nice in the end because everyone else was staring.

With that, I'm feeling rather sleepy and hungry. And surprisingly, time goes pretty fast =)












Next entry: San Francisco.

# rambled by Kenneth @ 11:57 AM