30 Hours of Travel

Hey all, I've been in Indonesia a few days now, but I didn't want to skip anything so I'll start off from the beginning.

Ah, the marvels of travel... Who knew getting from point A to point B could be so interesting? My journey halfway across the globe started at the Cincinnati airport (which is actually in N. Kentucky). After a brief lunch with my family, I walked through security and headed for the plane. It still hadn't really sunken in yet, the reality of what I was embarking on. For some perspective: my flight from Cincinnati to LA was the longest distance I had ever traveled. And I was going to Indonesia.

As the plane took off and everything below vanished into points and lines, the harmonizing voices of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young reverberated through my headphones. That was when everything suddenly became real. "What in the hell am I doing?" I asked myself. Headed to a far corner of the earth with little more than a vague familiarity about my destination and a dissipating reservoir of enthusiasm, apprehension took hold of me.

"Rejoice! Rejoice! We have no choice... but to carry on," the music answered. I closed my eyes, hoping I might wake up back in Cincinnati. Meanwhile the rivers and hills passed by below. When I woke, the landscape was shifting from cropland to desert. Living on the East Coast, it's easy to forget how vast and untouched much of the Western United States is.

I struck up a conversation with the old woman sitting next to me. She was headed to Los Angeles to visit her daughter and newborn grandchild. "I've never met anyone bound for Jakarta," she mused. I told her about my trip and my college studies and she seemed quite impressed. She told me I was "the hope of the future" and that it was "a privilege" to have flown with me. Go figure. We had a great conversation though, discussing everything from natural disasters to the decline of the honeybee to Hollywood ethics. When I declined an airline snack, she called the stewardess back and got two packs of cookies for me. "See, they're good, aren't they?" she asked as I wiped crumbs from the corners of my lips. Later she asked me to send her my address in Indonesia. I think she wants to send me more cookies.

LA

LAX has a very Los Angeles feel to it, which I picked up on even without ever having been there before. It's hard to describe, but definitely tangible. I was able to watch the final game of the Boston/LA NBA finals series there. Interestingly enough, I ended up sitting at a bar with a handful of Filipino Boston fans. It was great. I saw an LA fan who was on the verge of tears.

After the China Airlines ticketing booth finally opened, I stepped into line, destined to stand there for another hour. Without my MP3 player I might have melted into the floor. You never really appreciate just how many Asians there are in the US until you visit LA's international airport. It felt like I could have been in Manila or Ho Chi Minh City. There were people in line with all kinds of enormous boxes full of whatever it was they were importing into their country. I saw one guy with a case of rum. Most of the boxes were marked in Vietnamese or Chinese, so the contents of most of them were a mystery. Bouncy Vietnamese syllables twanged through my ears from both sides. Asia was closing in on me and there was no turning back. A vietnamese woman in front of me stood wearing a white "Baby Phat" jacket. A robed Ch'an (Chinese) monk bent down to tie his laces, exposing a shiny fresh pair of Nike basketball shoes. Trendy Filipino teenagers posed impatiently while the line inched forward.

The security check was uneventful. So yeah on to Taiwan. The flight was probably 15 hours long, and I foolishly agreed to switch my seat so some kid could sit next to his friend. I very much regretted that decision - I ended up crammed in a window seat next to a Chinese man with stinky feet. Regrettably, we were flying so high that I couldn't see anything below the plane. It was bluish, though.

Selling cigarettes on China Airlines. They were duty-free & much cheaper than normal.

Taiwan has an ok airport, not bad but not amazing either. One interesting thing is that they have smoking rooms with sliding glass doors. There was also some pretty neat stuff in the electronics store there - stuff we can't get in the States. Besides that there was nothing new besides a bunch of Asian people.

Taipei, Taiwan

Don't leave your crap in the aisle, please.

I couldn't tell you what is going on in this one...

Ok I'm getting thirsty and as a result my writing is starting to suck so I'll be back later for another update. Coming next time - Jakarta in all its glory!