Absurd? Bizarre? Surreal? You tell me.

Right, I’m on my most absurd adventure ever…

Bit of background: I decided today I’d go back to Hong Kong. Having had so much foresight as to get a super flexible ticket, I was able to call in the morning and get a flight for 13.05. Nice, I'm really getting used to this kind of flexibility.

However, just as I logged out and started packing my stuff, an email arrived in my inbox. My flight had been changed to 12.55 (for reasons too complex to go into here, something to do with the weather). Unfortunately I had only memorized the time of the flight, not the flight name (CX9091).

So when I arrived at the airport, how was I to know that the reason there was no 13.10 flight to Hong Kong was because it was actually the 12.55 flight I was supposed to get on?

To make a meandering story short, I basically checked into the wrong flight. With the wrong airline. I’m just not intelligent enough to understand how on earth a company will let you check in with another company’s ticket. But they did, and took my original ticket, they did.

So, back to here and now: I’m writing this as I am waiting to board the flight, and by now I’ve realized the mistake. But this is so insane, I’ve decided to actually try to board it. Yes I know, its stupid, of course they are going to take me aside and explain to me that there’s been a mistake. But what if they don’t? I know I’m risking everything here, my health, my career, possibly all my earthly possessions. Worst case scenario- they will take my soul. But it’s worth it I think. What if they let me on? What if they let my fly with them by mistake? Surely that will the most ultimate of all amazing airline-messup stories. EVER! It will be the airline-messup story to end all airline-messup stories.

Chances of success are slim though. It will be very embarrassing if I hold up the whole flight because they have to unload my luggage. I’m getting cold feet.

Ok, update. This is turning into some kind of freaky absurdist novel. The flight has been cancelled. I’m still pretending to be unaware of the mix-up, and I’m now writing out of a coach taking us to a hotel. I hope it’s a nice hotel. It would make a good story, wouldn’t it, if they actually check me into a five star hotel because of all this. I can dream. But even a decent four star one would still do for a good story.

My chances of success are getting slimmer though. They’ve taken my boarding ticket (which by the looks of it they were actually going to let me use if the flight hadn’t been cancelled), and return my original ticket- which of course says Cathay, not Dragonair. They didn’t check my ticket when they put me on the coach, but surely during hotel check-in somebody’s going to ask me whether I’m actually supposed to be here.

The plot thickens.

Update from the hotel: I’ve just been checked into a five star resort, which is the funny happy crazy news. But it’s miles away from the city center, so I’m stuck here. I’m wondering whether I’m still having fun enough to try to see if they’ll give me food as well, or whether I’ll just give up on this and call my real airline and get a new flight.

Bizarre though isn’t it? Not one person has asked me whether I actually belong with the group. I wonder whether I could go to jail for this or if I can plead ignorance?

Update from the middle of the night... Yeah, the fun has really worn off now. I hate hotels. I'm trying to get hold of Cathay and see if I can somehow get out of here, anywhere. Don't necessarily need to go to Hong Kong. Singapore would be nice. Ko samui. Siem Reap. Bangkok. Just not this hotel.

Oh btw, yes they did give us food, a really nice five-star buffet.

Soaked

I made a dash for Bangkok last night. I was suprised to find that this weekend is the Thai new year, and I was even more suprised today when a middle aged woman and her two children each poured a bucket of water on me. I then had my face smeared with some white, rather nice-smelling paste. I found their behaviour odd to say the least but during my taxi ride through the city I realized that pouring water on each other is somehow the way they celebrate this day here. The streets are lined with Thais, armed with buckets, waterhoses and some really heavy duty water pistols. Very few people were dry, and after a while I noticed the dry people tended to be unshapely american tourists who obviously were too uncool to be included in the festivities.

I also learned that saying "No!" or "Please, stop!" does not in any way help you stay dry. I wonder whether it would if spoken in Thai?

As usual, I've messed something up... I forgot the charger to my camera, so I can't take any pictures of the insanity going on out in the streets. Not that readers of my blog expect pictures...

Oh, and since I travelled through Macau, I had enough travelling time yesterday to cross the ultimate goalpost: 800 chinese words. I'm intermediate, baby! By the way, I believe intermediary level in chinese is Zhongji.

Frogs, Zen and opulent fans

I need to start carrying a notepad around so that I can write down where I've been. A taxi driver was kind enough to take me to the most amazing frog restaurant in Singapore, but I have no idea how to get back there. I've always been a fan the Sichuan frog dish, which is served on pebbles and with lots and lots of chili. The one I had on sunday was a local singaporean dish and definately pushed that one out first place, it was absolutely scrumptuous. After the meal I asked how much I'd eaten, and it turned out I'd consumed three whole suckers! I'm not sure why that feels so embarrasing.

Another great place I'd like to revisit was some marina in northern Singapore. Phil, my old friend from uni who I randomly bumped into here in Singapore, introduced me to wakeboarding. Unfortunately, at the time I thought I'd managed to loose my camera, so there's no pictorial proof (I've since then located my camera). That's a shame, because I actually managed to get up on the board and even learned the basics of swirving left and right. It was so ZEN, man! The whole secret of wakeboarding can be summarized in two tenets:
1. Don't try
2. Look cool

I mean, how ZEN isn't that. I'm planning to become a professional wakeboarder and then write a book called ZEN and wakeboarding. I've heard the one about zen and motorcycle maintenance sold pretty well, so I think there's a market out there.
But, so... yeah! ZEN. Whenever I tried anything, i would promptly fall into the water. And every time the instructure would drive the boat back to me and tell me: "Don't try". Just relax and look cool. And it was true. For instance, if I wanted to swirve to the right, through the waves made by the boat to get out on the right side of the boat, the secret lay in NOT looking at the difficult waves. Only by looking up into the distance and pretending there were no waves was I able to do it. Same thing with turning back into the wake of the boat. As soon as I looked down at the water and tried to figure out how to deal with the nasty waves, I'd fall right in. But if I pretended I was posing for a fashion shoot, looking out into the distance, even waving to people on the beach and saying: "ciao!" then there was no problem.

Also went to the night safari sunday night. By this time I had found my camera, but in order not to scare the animals, we couldn't use the flash, and so any attempt to take pictures (remember, this was the NIGHT safari) was pretty doomed.
But absolutely worth it. I'm becoming quite a fan of doing these tourist things. I mean, you've got to spend your day doing something, right? Instead of shopping or lazing about in a bookshop or reading the economist on your sofa at home, why not go to the Chinese Gardens? Take a cookery class? Or cycle through Ubin island? Even though I'm usually very very tired when i do these things, due to a rather demanding nightlife, it's kind of cool to spend that tiredness on weird tourist stuff.

My Autralian friend has finally made his blog public, open for all to see. Go check it out! Post lude adverts in his comments section! He's obviously going to get himself fired from his new job, from the sounds of it. great pics from the chinese new year celebrations in Australia. I was in Hong Kong and Singapore during the chinese new year, but somehow I missed it all.

But I do have pictures from Raffle's hotel. I met the same office geek there as last time (the guy in the cheap white, stripey shirt), but he's ok so that's cool. Pia (my german flatmate who you will know from blockbusters such as the German Girl Shrine on Ubin island) has her boyfriend visiting, so of course we had to introduce him, Andi, to the Singapore Sling. Invented in 1910 or maybe it was 1914, this is the source of this most sickly sweetish drink. I think you can tell from the colour it's not really intended for blokes. I'm hiding my beer as i'm taking this photo. And Andi took a loooooooooong time finishing his.
The second photo is of the fans in the ceiling of Long Bar, the bar where we had our slings. I just wanted to introduce you to the high class establishment version of a fan. yeah! opulance, baby, opulance!