The Long Way Back Home

Hi readers, it's me again! I am trying to force myself to stay awake as my plane approaches Western India, because I wanted to curb jetlag while I can. Up to this point, I have undertaken over 32 hours of travelling (starting from my 1pm Saturday Peterpan bus from Amherst). It has been quite a ride, and thus allow me to recount: My long way back home.

I have been having such amazing last few days in Amherst, thus it only struck me how unreal it felt that I am finally coming back home after a whole year of being overseas. I don't know where I ought to begin, but let me start from the amazing brunch I had in High Horse with a particular friend. It was our last meal together until we hopefully meet again in the summer, so we treated ourselves to wonderful coffee, mimosa, pancakes, vegetable omelets, and Eggs Benedict. She was the one who suggested the place, and it was the perfect closure, perhaps, because according to her, our series of dates started from a dinner date there.

"Whatever", I told her, "It means I get to pay for this meal. What I started, I must end." She eventually relented to my request. We were sitting side by side on the bar, exchanging smiles, stories, and our precious pancakes. (I had chocolate, and she had blueberry. As always, she made the better choice. LOL) It was soon time to go, and I asked the cool waitress to take a picture of us two. (Nope, due to minority interests, I can't publish the picture here.) It was a wonderful brunch.

About thirty minutes later, we were New York bound. The first stretch of travels to JFK would take around 6 hours, and I thought to myself that this leg would be the easiest leg of the journey. How it could've been otherwise? She was seated next to me throughout, drifting in and out of sleep, softly cuddling my arms, and occasionally staring at me with her mesmerizing eyes. It was the shortest Peterpan bus ride ever, ironically, as it was an hour longer than the later time slot I intended to take. (The 3pm bus would've taken 4 hours instead of 5) She cautioned me against taking the later bus, as New York's Saturday night traffic would just squash any hopes of making it to JFK in time. Thankfully, I listened to her, and I subsequently managed to reach JFK half an hour before the check-in counter closed. Thanks again, Vi!

Eventually, we reached Port Authority by ten past seven. My mate was only flying home on Sunday, thus she was staying at her good friend's place in Queens. We figured if we took the E subway together, we could extend our time together by half an hour. So we did. I stared long and hard at her, before finally smiling and saying my thanks as she alighted at Queens Plaza. I felt my heart sank deeply as I saw her standing outside the subway, waving at me teary-eyed. I waved back to her until the cruel subway took the beauty out of my sight..

Fast forward to ten to nine, I had just cleared JFK's security checkpoint, and boy I was starving. I knew what I wanted for dinner: I wanted some fake Asian food, something that I've developed a taste for, and something that if I order in one of the three Chinese restaurants in Amherst, I'd be judged for. ("你是中国人，干嘛吃那些为洋鬼子准备的菜呢？", they'd sternly say)

I browsed the directory of JFK terminal 4, and to my delight, found Panda Express, the epitome of America's fake chinese food. So I spent ten bucks on probably the unhealthiest food on earth, with the main ingredients being boatloads of carbs and starch, sugar, salt, a weeny bit of protein, and tons of monosodium glutamate. I scurried around for a quiet corner to devour my treat, and to my astonishment, I chanced upon a familiar figure. It was Aneesh! He's an upperclassman who has been helpful in Investment Banking apps, and it turned out that he was taking Emirates too, although ultimately he was headed to Bangalore, not Jakarta. I would subsequently realize that he was seated in a row behind me in the plane bound to Dubai. It was pretty nice to have someone to chat to when you are travelling solo(:

The trick to survive long-haul flights is to make the most out of what the airline offers. See some crossaints in your tray? Ask for some orange juice. Feeling adventurous? Ask for some clamato instead of tomato juice. Emirates, in particular, offers terrific red wine. If you happen to request for one, the air steward/ess will give you a tiny personal bottle of red wine. Mine was a 2011 Spanish wine that was rather rich but fruity. Not bad at all! I'm not a big advocate of drinking and flying, but at moderate amounts, alcohol dulls your senses and slows your perception of time, which is nice because six hours would feel like five. It gives you some warmth from the cold air conditioning, too, and if you are lucky, you get drowsy and bam, when you wake up there's only a few more hours left of the flight. Hehehe.

It was in the afternoon when we landed in Milano's Malpensa airport. It was my first time in the continental Europe, and I was exhilarated. I connected to the free wifi there and took pictures and sent snapchats. The airport had a very beautiful mountain range set against its backdrop, and an exuding charisma around it, with gelato shops and big brand boutiques being scattered all around. I was this close to having a taste of an authentic Italian gelato if not for the fact that Aneesh actually didn't have any Euros, the store didn't accept the greenback, and there were no money changers in sight.

I did get a funny story, however. A few minutes before the flight was boarding, nature was calling, so I strode to the nearest restroom. There, I discovered that there were two adjacent restrooms, one across the other, and the path was blocked by what seemed like a cleaning cart. As I put my foot inside the door, there was this middle-aged female janitor who started lecturing me in (what I perceived to be as) Italian. "Crap", I thought. "I hope I didn't step into the wrong lavatory". I was contemplating of shouting sorry and dashing away from her, but my eyes scurried through the door and found a gentlemen sign there. Good grief, I wasn't about to be convicted of sexual harrassment. So I figured that she was telling me that the restroom was being cleaned, and she was giving me directions to the nearest restroom. I looked at her, gave my best smile, said "grazie" and walked away after she finished her rant. She must be quite astounded, thinking to herself "boy.. this chinoese kiddo knows some Italiano!"

About five hours and fifteen minutes of airtime later, I found myself stranded in the Dubai airport for 4 hours ish. I'm more familiar of this airport, so I know the rules of the game: 30 minutes of free wifi, and 30 minutes only. Plus, the quality of the wireless was substandard: I couldn't even upload the pictures of the airport I took. So, not unlike looking for water aquifers would be the top priority when one gets stranded in a desert, I spent a good hour and a half prowling the nooks of the airport for wifi access, starting from the west end to the east end, talking to different people and even helping an old lad from 沈阳 to order coffee, but I ultimately came back with no luck. I couldn't find the Indonesian restaurant which provided wifi, which was my saving grace the last time I was stuck in that airport. By that point, I have burned through my 30 minutes worth of free wifi. I had another 2 hours to burn, and I still wanted to text a certain someone.

I grew desperate. I bought dinner thinking the restaurant might provide wifi, but nope. I spent ten dirhams (USD 3.67) to buy a cookie from a cookie cafe, thinking that the store provides wifi access. Turns out that the store keeper only referred his customers to the free wifi that was provided by the airport... By then, I only had enough dirhams to get a cup of black coffee, and I grew even more desperate. I asked Starbucks and subsequently two more cafes, but alas, I was out of luck. (These cafes didn't get my money, obviously) I was desperate enough to climb up into a hotel and to beg the concierge for the hotel's wifi password. I was turned down, of course. To make matters worse, I started developing a headache, probably a function of stress and sleep-deprivation combined.

Growing dismayed, I was seriously contemplating to pay 5.60USD for an hour's worth of potentially shitty internet access. I retreated onto a quiet corner and was about to acquiesce to this temptation, and that's when I had a brilliant idea of connecting with my laptop. Long story short, my laptop is pretty much broken, which made it easy to unfold but difficult to fold back into one piece, and that's why I was reluctant to the idea. But I gave it a go nonetheless, and voila, it worked! :,) I saw messages from her and managed to wish her a safe flight before actually hearing an announcement about my flight's final call. I checked the time, and with the broken laptop in one arm and the Steve Jobs' biography in the other, I hurried towards the gate. Thankfully, the I managed to shut the laptop back into one piece fast enough and boarded the flight just in time, after texting her goodbye for one last time. Unfortunately, it seems the wifi was cut off as I approached the gate, so I don't think the message came through, but hey at least I chatted with her for quite a bit!

So now I am sitting in the plane, salivating on all the good food I get to eat after I endure another 3 hours and 53 minutes of the flight. Jakarta, 我回来啦!