I’ve booked the flight tickets already – I’m flying Singapore Airlines at 830am on Wednesday, the 24th of April in the year 2019. The plane will be in the air for 15 hours and 45 minutes before landing halfway across the world at 915am in Los Angeles, California, USA. And then a couple of hours later, I’ll get on another plane for 90 minutes before landing in in San Francisco.
Travelling far
This is the furthest I’d ever have travelled away from Singapore. The longest flight I’ve been on so far has been from Singapore to Trichy, which is a mere 4 hours or so. This is going to be almost 4 times as long as that. I’ve never done anything like it. I’ve only been in a relatively small, contained area on the globe so far, as represented by the following points:
So this is a really big deal. And I feel like I want to capture as much as I can about “life before my first cross-pacific flight”, because a part of me feels like I’m going to be changed permanently by the experience. Changed how? Well… I’m going to be somewhere that isn’t Asia. I’m going to be on another continent altogether. What % of people who have ever lived have made such a journey? It feels like it must be a vanishingly small percentage. I know there are thousands of people who make this epic flight practically every week, to the point where it doesn’t feel like a big deal to them. But I know I’ve felt momentous even making small-ish flights from Singapore to India, or Thailand, or the Philippines, and this is a whole ‘nother journey.
So this is a really big deal. And I feel like I want to capture as much as I can about “life before my first cross-pacific flight”, because a part of me feels like I’m going to be changed permanently by the experience. Changed how? Well… I’m going to be somewhere that isn’t Asia. I’m going to be on another continent altogether. What % of people who have ever lived have made such a journey? It feels like it must be a vanishingly small percentage. I know there are thousands of people who make this epic flight practically every week, to the point where it doesn’t feel like a big deal to them. But I know I’ve felt momentous even making small-ish flights from Singapore to India, or Thailand, or the Philippines, and this is a whole ‘nother journey.
Travelling alone
Another big deal: this is the first time I’m going to be travelling alone. This is going to be the longest I’ve ever been on my own, in fact. I’ve travelled with my parents, with my wife, and with a close friend – but this is the first time that I will be completely in charge of my own schedule, uncoupled from everything and everyone for a full 2 weeks, almost. The prospect of it excites me. A small part of me worries, what if it turns out that, left to my own devices, I’m a really boring person? But I don’t think that’s going to be true. I think I’m going to try to make the most of it. And I know, you shouldn’t try and squeeze too much out of any single trip. The journey is the point, not the number of destinations you manage to pack in. I get that. I think I’ll be a pretty good traveller. I’m ready and eager to document as much as possible, to write as much as possible, to take as many photos as I can. I’m going to learn so much about myself in a new environment.
Meeting friends
The next thing is new friends. I have hosted internet friends when they come to Singapore. Looking back over the years, I have occasionally hung out with people who “aren’t from town”, but in the early days it was usually friends of friends, acquaintances, stuff like that. I almost always enjoyed the experience – once a Canadian guy came to my house and taught me that I was pronouncing Ottawa wrong. Once a French girl (younger than my wife and I) dropped by our place with the intent to rent, but then had her plans changed halfway – and we hung out for a while, and she showed us her home on Google Maps.
But over the past year or so, I’ve had the opportunity to meet people who know me. I mean people who’ve been following me on Twitter for some time, who’ve had the chance to get to read my thoughts on a wide range of things, who “get” me, at least more than anybody can within a few minutes of introductions. This has been an amazing, eye-opening, mind-opening experience.
How exactly? I think it’s revealed to me that I had a sort of subconscious scarcity mindset when it came to people – yes, despite me being one of the most open, online people in the world – I’m not personally surrounded by active, engaging, interesting people in my daily life. I live in a boring part of Singapore that’s mostly full of old retirees. It’s not very exciting. I don’t go out much, there’s not much to do. I’m basically a bookish internet nerd most of the time. Despite being an extrovert. Yeah, something doesn’t quite compute but it’s been a bit of a compromise so far.
I know SF isn’t some sort of paradise – several friends have warned me that it is in fact dystopian, and what I told a friend was that I’m jokingly-kinda looking forward to documenting that in a sort of poverty-tourist way, but I’ll probably drop that the moment I encounter something truly troubling. I don’t know, I’ve seen some pretty terrible things around South & Southeast Asia. Could it be worse? It’ll probably be jarring in a different way. But the “paradise” I’m seeking is not a place – it’s people. It’s dozens of people who are eager and excited to meet me. I don’t quite have anything like that here at home – probably because, well, it’s here, at home.
I don’t know. We’ll see. I don’t feel physically overcome with excitement right now, but I tend to be someone who feels things only very close to the occasion (like… when I have a deadline due real soon, or moments before I go on stage.) But what I’m writing… sounds like excitement. We’ll see. It’ll be interesting to look back on.