Who's Still With Me?

We have a lot on our plate here and so let's just quickly sum it up by saying that the rest of my time in Hong Kong was fantastic. And while I have so many fond memories, I do have to offer my apologies to the surprising number of loyal readers after having left you all hanging shortly after returning from my trip to Indonesia. Much like the first part of the journey, the remainder of the time was chock-full of experiences worthy of sharing…life-altering even. Doing so, however, was virtually impossible given I was without a working computer for the last month or so. Now, I won't go into gross detail as to how that came to be. What I will say is that in Hong Kong I discovered that I have many skills I never really knew I possessed. Unfortunately, holding a beer upright while sleeping apparently isn't one of them. One fateful night I generously dowsed the laptop, and contrary to the explanation I have given people up until now, it wasn't water (there, I've come clean). Regardless, there's no use crying over spilled beer…let's let bygones be bygones. The equipment has since been replaced and I'm proud to report that this time around I've packed a tarp to protect all valuables.

Anyway, I'm making the baby step before the giant leap. Newark to San Fran, 45 minutes in a terminal, San Fran to Sydney. All in it's 25 hours (23 hours of airtime) and a rather daunting timeline if you ask me. I've been preparing for having this much time on my hands since booking the trip a few weeks back and I had come to the conclusion that my sanity is going to be heavily reliant upon a little fancy time management. The plan calls for me to find things to keep me busy early on in the trip so that I can save the meaty activities such as blog-writing for the San Fran to Sydney leg later tonight. I've got a book I'm working through, the ipod is juiced up, but I planned on relying upon the low-hanging fruit so to speak (aka, the in-flight movie) to burn a few hours. United is screening a new movie entitled "HappyThankyouMorePlease" (sp), which I quickly found to be missing two very important things… 1) spaces between words in its title and 2) a plot. It was so abhorrent that I was all but forced to call an audible much earlier than I had anticipated. Now, I'll be honest, I had never heard of this particular movie before reading a promising synopsis of it in the magazine material United Airlines provided in my seat pocket prior to takeoff. It would have been much more accurately described as a movie that makes you scratch your head that it somehow slipped through the screening process at the movie producer’s. You all know the type I’m referring to…dialogue so artsy and contrived that it'd make Leonard Cohen sick to his stomach and a soundtrack no doubt borrowed directly from the set list at The Lilath Fair. Starving artist armed with a pen, camera and a dream kind of stuff. I lasted longer than I probably should've before mercifully surrendering about half an hour in. And so with a little over 4 hours to go, I'm mounting the horse again and returning to the keyboard.

I'm in a comfortable first class seat and I've already stuffed down a lasagna dish that could have passed as decent in any upscale dining establishment. Unfortunately, I'm in danger of losing it all in the lavatory as my stomach is beginning to turn on account of the loudest, loosest and most appalling snoring I've ever heard. The culprit is sawing wood one row to my back on the opposite side and I've joined everyone else in the vicinity passing astonished, grossed out glances at the gentleman. This guy is getting everything he can muster out of that diaphragm of his and to be honest, If it weren’t so repulsive, I’d be impressed. It’s a troubling thought, but at this point anyone within earshot is definitely at risk of getting showered with two week’s worth of head cold reserves if this plane makes any sudden movements. Steady now…

I’ve been told that I too am guilty of snoring; however, albeit on a much more modest scale. Nonetheless, growing up I shared a room with my brother and it was not uncommon to awake buried under a generous pile of balled up socks of which he apparently used to pelt me with in an attempt to get me to pipe down. A tactic no doubt utilized more frequently in comfortable situations, but if I had access to a pair right now I'm sure the entire cabin would break out in cheers if I took a crow-hop and heaved one at his mouth.

Thankfully, Rip Van Winkle had just enough time to towel himself down before we slid into San Fran 20 minutes ahead of schedule. I picked up a newspaper and a bag of trail mix in the terminal, waited to board the 747 and proceeded to my seat when my section was called. I write you now from my seat on the top floor of the plane and I must admit I’m quite pleased with the set-up. I’ll reserve final judgment for afterwards, but Untied does equip you with a seat capable of fully reclining , ample entertainment options and a menu that looks like it just might be able to keep me satisfied for the next 16 hours. The Dewars on the rocks has only added to the promising start. I’m not normally a scotch drinker (although I really wish I could say that I was)…I decided upon it for sedation purposes…not necessarily taste. It’s drink three and that decision seems to already be paying off in spades as my eyelids are starting to put up a fight. If at any point I nod off on you, I’ll do my best not to snore…