it's raining out, and i'm watching "benji the hunted".
WHY am i doing this to myself...on a saturday afternoon?!
this past saturday, we had our annual 'deep fried turkey and kid's secret santa exchange' party at steve and cor's house.
what a good party - i just felt like a huge release being there with good friends. laughing and talking and best of all - the kids are so good at playing on their own now. they spent most of the time in the basement with each other. ah bliss!
an important lesson learned within five minutes of arriving - even though i think people never read my facebook status updates, they SO read them.
within the first hour, the following facebook statuses by yours truely was discussed:
- that i admitted to staring at zac efron's 6-pack in '17 again'
- that i love red, orange and yellow peppers, but am not fond of green peppers
- that i almost went to see 'new moon' on my own
i think the highlight of the night was the guys chin-up contest. boys will be boys, after all.
afterwards, steve l. said, "i'm very disppointed with myself. hoa! i should hire you to train me back into shape."
to which hoa's reply was, "okay. but you HAVE to listen to me. if i tell you to do a push-up, you can't just say, 'bah! why bother?'"
hoa totally had steve l. pinned on that one because that's EXACTLY the type of thing steve l. would say.
and i think it's these little conversations of parties that seems to stick with me the most. the kind where a smaller group is off to the side, chatting and having a good laugh or two.
where the heck is my christmas spirit?
i haven't decorated or put up a my little tree.
this sucks.
While waiting for my luggage last night...
I lay in bed wide awake, glancing at the time every now and then.
Then there's a loud scrape on the floor above me. Like someone was moving the table across the room.
I was so tired, angry and frustrated I could not shed tears anymore. I was trying to sleep and there was this sound coming from above. At past midnight. Who would be happy?
I had called the airport earlier and was told that my luggage had been dispatched at 11pm.
Then why the hell has it not arrived yet at 1am?
Another loud scrape. Is it a table? Or a chair? Or the bed?
It was nearing 2am already.
Jesus, what's he/she doing over there? One more time... and I'm going to call that bloody room.
LOUD SCRAPE.
That's it!
I dialed the room number and a soft male voice answers, I could hear music in the background.
"Hi, sorry to bother you. I'm staying in the room below you. I'm just wondering... are you moving things around your room?"
"...not really." I could sense from his voice that he was puzzled over this call.
"But I can hear the floor scraping."
"People screaming?"
"No... just some loud scraping on the floor. Nevermind, sorry to bother you."
At least after that call, the sound ceased. Maybe he got the message finally.
But my luggage has not arrived yet (it arrived at bloody 3am).
Anyway, fast forward to lunch today.
I was seated across German AH. We met in Beijing last year, which he also coordinated and he was even nice enough to fetch me from the airport then since I was arriving a day earlier than the others.
We started talking about my lost luggage and I was telling him I barely had sleep. All of a sudden, he asked: "(Yupki), which floor are you on?"
I told him my floor and we looked at each other and burst out laughing.
I didn't know whether to be embarrassed or what. "Oh my god, you were the one who got that call last night?"
"I knew it was you... I thought the voice sounded familiar," he said.
"Sorry but I was really annoyed with the luggage and all last night."
"I know... I was moving around on my chair a lot while chatting on MSN and I realised it does really make a loud sound."
"So now you know who stays below you, can you keep quiet?" Nope, I didn't say that. It was just a thought bubble.
I don't know what the moral of this story is aside from not staying in an Indonesian hotel where the walls and floors are apparently thinner (the argument is it has lesser chances of being bombed if we stay in a local hotel than at a Western one).
I badly need sleep.
With all due respect to my Malaysian friends... your flag carrier sucks BIG TIME.
Okay, it's not entirely their fault that instead of going to Jakarta direct from Bangkok, I had to pass through KL.
That is the doing of this very stingy foundation that's sending me here in Jakarta.
But MH owes me a three other passengers big time.
First, the flight was delayed for three hours. At check-in, we were informed it would be delayed for 45 minutes. Minutes have passed since the re-scheduled take-off and there was no one, not a single soul from MH, at the gate to inform the passengers there were new changes.
This time, the flight would be delayed for another two hours +, or a total of three hours.
Sure, they provided lunch vouchers and immediately moved my connecting flight to the next available one.
I had to change time zones twice since leaving Bangkok and by the time I was en route to Jakarta, I was confused. I barely had five minutes to transfer to the gate for Jakarta and by the time the plane was taking off, I was still in the loo (I have to include this detail to show it was really a trip from hell) thanks to two glasses of water I downed. It barely even registered to me if I was on the right flight, worrying I might end up in Bali, instead of Jakarta.
And just as I was being rushed through the gate for my Jakarta flight, I asked the MH staff if my luggage was transferred.
"It's no problem ma'am since the planes are just next to each other."
A businessman from Germany with the same predicament as me said he just hoped we won't have a problem with the luggage by the time we reach Jakarta.
He could not have been further from the truth.
Finally, arriving in Jakarta 10 hours later, I stand at the carousel waiting for my luggage to pop out. And then here comes this ominous sign that says "LAST LUGGAGE". My luggage, as well as those of three other connecting passengers including the German businessman, was nowhere in sight.
We were ushered into the lost and found office and the staff located our luggage.
"It's still in Kuala Lumpur... it will be coming in on the 10pm flight," the staff said.
By this time, I was drained of energy I couldn't even get angry. It was a good thing the Indonesian staff were patient and really helpful (it remains to be seen though if they're effective as I still await my luggage).
They filled the forms and took out addresses so they can deliver it to our hotels once the luggage arrives.
I am still waiting for the arrival of my beloved luggage. The plane from KL was scheduled to arrive half an hour ago--that is, if MH was not bloody delayed again--and is expected to be delivered by midnight.
I am tired and I couldn't even do anything, much more bathe, since my stuff are in the luggage.
And to top it all, the service at this hotel was so slow and they were fully booked I got to have a shower stall room instead of a bath. The last thing I needed when I was really looking forward to soak all my troubles in a warm bath.
But no, not gonna happen.
I wanted to trash the room just to vent out all my frustration and anger at MH.
But then I'm no rock star to do that.
This is how this month looks like for me:
06 Dec Bangkok-Kuala Lumpur-Jakarta
12 Dec Jakarta-Kuala Lumpur-Bangkok
13 Dec Bangkok-Singapore
16 Dec Singapore-Bangkok
17 Dec Bangkok-Manila
29 Dec Manila-Bangkok
And in between, a yearender story on regional politics and studying the Asean economic community on top of the regular load. But I'm loving it!!!
...came home to find mint green doggie puke on my favorite chocolate comforter. (no more Nutri Dent chews for the pooch.)
