Prick next door shut off the internet yesterday because I did not pay, presumably. But I did pay. I paid on the 24th when I moved in. But he seems to expect me to make all subsequent payments on the 10th for some reason. Idiot.
Set off for Singapore at 9.30. Took a train to London Bridge and then the train to brighton. Cost about 11 quid! Rip off.
Was pretty exciting getting to the airport and checking in and all that. The anticipation was exciting, a bit, not massively – like when I was a kid. I was struck while sitting at the airport in one of those vibrating chairs (I didn’t pay to make it vibrate, it was just comfy) that I feel very much at home in airports where no one really knows my nationality or where I am going. I feel like I kind of assume an ambiguous identity and that makes me feel comfortable. Is this something to do with being half-cast perhaps?
Got on the plane. It was nice. It was virtually empty. The take off was very smooth. I was struck this time by having no negative feelings when taking off unlike last year. Last year when I went to Rome and Vienna and Poland I’d get nostalgic about flights to Singapore as a boy with the family and I’d be struck by feelings of loneliness and of leaving my mum behind. I guess this was absent now either because I’d since flown solo so many times or because I was leaving no one behind and meeting my parents out there. Maybe it was a combination of both.
Food wasn’t bad on the plane. I went for the unhealthy options in the end. Despite there being a monitor with games in front of me I hardly used it other than to play a little majong during the last hour or so of the flight into Dubai.
Got off at Dubai. Wow, it was pretty exciting to travel. I was no half-way around the globe in the middle east! Very cool. The airport was very crowded despite it being 1am. Apparently it was rush hour for them at this time. I wandered around the shops for a couple of hours, mostly looking at girls through the corner of one eye hoping to catch someone looking at me. I didn’t. Or at least I don’t think I did.
The airport was really long. It was basically a huge stretched out rectangle. There were lots of gold shops, electrical stores, booze and perfume stores etc. I looked around for a while, squirted on some free aftershave. Tried to practice the Power of Now and took a few snaps. Tried to conquer or “sit out” my self-conscious feelings which rendered me incapable of taking photos from certain positions. Decided to head for my departure lounge about 45 mins before the flight and sat down trying not to look and feel self-conscious.
The plane was full. And I ended up sitting next to this little innocent looking oriental girl. I was on the isle side and she was in the middle of a three-seater side seat. Despite the innocent looks she was really really annoying. Instead of being a model of shyness and respectability, she sat there for the first hour or two of the flight with her elbows hanging off the edges of the arm rest. I decided after an hour or so of this to fight back so I plunged into my bag for something and banged her a few times then pulled out my book and put my elbow on the arm rest and pushed her’s off. It didn’t work in the end. For the rest of the flight she did virtually the same. I thought at the time she was either doing this to assert her ownership of the elbow rest, she was just inconsiderate or she was used to invading personal space in her culture. It must have been the latter.
