07.15.2009 flight

7am Toronto

Everyone at AA seemed to be indifferent about their job. I also think there must be a giant reason as to why it is so difficult for me to travel to Taiwan and Japan smoothly.

My luggage is apparently on the heavy side, and one wheel is crooked so I can’t pull it like a normal suitcase; I have to push it like a trolley. I should have checked before I left.

11:50am Chicago

I’m in Chicago, so apparently you need to pay to get access to internet at the airport. I assumed all airports had free wi-fi. Vancouver does.

Chicago airport is supposedly one of the prettier airports in the world. Whether it is due to good design or a great selection of installations and art pieces, I don’t know.

So while exploring my way to terminal 5 I found this really cool interactive screen. It’s huge, and you can pick what kind of news you want to read/watch: sports, weather, etc. by HAND. Once you select it, the news play directly in front of you and the sound is right above your head. I was going to walk by it, but I couldn’t resist and went to play with it too.

Chicago is also bidding for Olympics and is doing a pretty good job at it. Or at least their posters are nice. Here are all their banners for their Olympic bid. They have it on garbage bins and poles too.

The guys that took my lounge seat in Toronto are also heading to Japan. I kept bumping into them and because we are going the same way, we became acquainted. They are Taiwanese and goto UofT and do not speak English too well. One’s named Henry and likes Matisse (get it? Henri Matisse?) because he grew up in NY and went to MoMA and liked Matisse’s work and then his mom just ended up buying a lot of Matisse stuff for him. I think he takes compsci or something. His friend, mr noname, is in Commerce at UofT and is a compulsive liar. He reminds me of my friend Adam back at McMaster, who never tells a truth without adding a lie. Actually, now that I think of it, the two of them remind me of Adam and his best friend...

There are a ton of nice posters along the wall and I tried to take a picture of virtually all of them. (I had a lot of time) It’s too unfortunate about the glare. But the idea is there. I wonder if you are able to appreciate them the way I did seeing them in real life.

And then, there was ANOTHER interactive touch screen! It was for exploring Chicago. Although it was smaller, it was still very cool.

Oh, and there’s a children’s fire safety play area. It’s really well done! It’s very interactive and educational. It’s not like one of those things where children will play and interact with and then forget about the meaning. I felt that was a really good balance between the two…and I had fun!

This is a thing that lets the child realize how easy it is to mistake poison as regular consumables. And in order to find out which is which, you have to use the orange glasses to decode! yay!

Another thing was the dollhouse that depicted people following proper fire safety protocol. They kind of turned it into an eye-spy game and by having children identify the search and visually find it, they get a good left brain right brain work-out. (Can you see how exciting the Chicago stopover was?)

3:30am (Asia) flight to Japan

I ended up getting a window seat. It’s nice to watch lift-off, but I hate having to manoeuvre my way past the aisle seat guy.

I’m sitting next to THAT Japanese man,(aisle seat guy) but the guy in front of me was interesting. He was talking about how he didn’t know how he would change if he won the lottery. Would he just become more greedy/stingy or tired of everyone asking him for money, or be able to directly donate it to the poor so that money doesn’t get eaten by administration. And he talked about family and how it changes people because when you have a kid, your priorities change, and as a result it affects the way you lived your whole life before the event. He also mentioned something about being in love and wasting time while in love. I asked him about it, and his only reasoning was that time never waits for anyone and when you reach the point of having financial stability, or job stability or whatever it is you need in order to be “ready” to get married/officially devote your life to the one you love, there will still be a few more years after that when you have children, and when your children have children? You will be old, maybe even too old! I guess he just regrets being married so late in the game.

I finished watching duplicity. It was actually pretty good. I’m trying to watch as many movies as I can. Currently I’m watching Monsters vs. Aliens but it isn’t really that good. It’s actually kind of lame but there are little things that make me laugh… like this giant bird who inhales to breathe out a wad of snot from his nose to block the vision of the evil alien and save his friend!

7:12am flight to Japan

A while ago I chatted with the guy in front of me again. He’s from Chicago and did research on RFID tag security. I guess he’s heading to Manila to see family. He’s white and married a Pilipino lady.

At one point, I went to wait for the toilet and was chatting with my transitory friend Henry and all of a sudden a lady came up to me, grabbed my arm and then collapsed to the ground. I immediately went to see if she was okay, but I didn’t know what language she spoke/understood well, whether it was Cantonese, English, mandarin, or Japanese. Anyway she was motioning that she wanted to throw up so I asked Henry for a puke bag and rubbed her back. She crawled herself to the little hallway between the toilets and threw up. We drew a crowd and the flight attendants came to help. But apparently the flight attendants speak mainly Japanese. Anyways we made her a makeshift bed with blankets and pillows in the hallway and let her lie down. She mentioned something about taking heart medication… but I have no idea, I left the scene after because it was getting crowded. The attendant asked me if I was a nurse, and I said no, and she asked me if I was acquainted, or family and I said no. It was such a peculiar little incident.

Although I must say, the flight was really turbulent and the landing was really scary lol.

5:30 pm Tokyo in transit

So bored! I have a four hour stopover in Narita and only 17% left of laptop energy left. There’s a yahoo lounge with free internet access for people and in order to activate the computer they have a USB on a key and when it’s your turn they plug in the USB and you have internet. When you finish you unplug and return it to the desk. However, I wasn’t used to the keyboard so the English turned Japanese and I wasted a good few minutes.

I also realized something stupid. I shouldn’t have tried to watch as many movies as I could on my way here, because it’ll mean I will have no movies to watch in my other flights…because I’ve seen them all.

I took a picture of their famously elaborate toilet system. ( I cant get the pics to show up next to each other..)

9:15pm Taipei, Taiwan

I have reached my destination safe and sound. And it is HOT. I was picked up in a black camry with tinted windows. When it pulled up I was thinking that I would catch a glimpse of someone interesting leaving the airport. ..nope!

P.S. I highly doubt I will post as excessively after today. Unless I find nothing else to do and a good internet connection!