From here to there

Well, I have made it to Singapore. It only took 21 hours in a plane and now I'm 13 hours ahead of MT time. The flight was soooo long. I never thought it would end. I watched a lot of movies and did a whole lot of nothing. I started to feel really lonely once we were over the ocean. It all the sudden hit me that I am leaving America. Everyone thinks it's so awesome and it is, but there was a huge sense of loss that I'm still dealing with. I literally have no one I know within thousands of miles. May not sound like a big deal until you're living it. I'm excited for the adventure but didn't know I would feel this lonely right away. I thought it would sink in within the next few months but right away, I feel it. Everyone thinks that it would be scary but it's not. Just lonely. However, I am so thankful for internet. I have gotten to skype with my family and that has been great. So, here's so of the interesting experiences so far:

I met some super friendly guy on the flight to Hong Kong. He was really nice and gave me his business card. He actually lives in Canada but is from Hong Kong. He has a house in both places so he goes back and forth a bunch with his kids and daughter. He was super silly and was talking about everything under the sun. He hugged me at the Hong Kong airport and told me good luck. When I got to Hong Kong it was very foggy. I couldn't really see much landing until the very end. I did see some cool looking little area that was SOOO China. That was neat. It had the traditional chinese shaped houses. Anyhow, when I was in the airport I was super tired so I layed down at my gate. I realized very quickly that EVERYONE kept staring at me. A group of about 50 walked by me and everyon of them turned around and stared. I'm assuming that they probably thought it was strange that I was on the floor but once they saw that I was American (or at last white) they stopped looking, like "Oh it's one of those Americans." I still just layed there. I was tired. Another thing that was strange there was that people are not afraid to pop your proximity bubble. I mean they get so close that I constantly thought someone was getting into my backpack because I could feel them touching it. It's not like there wasn't enough room but they just push up against you. This is probably because of the high density in Hong Kong. They are used to being super close and people getting upset if you're not feeling in the little extra space between people. But, I saw quite a few Americans getting really mad at them on the plane. They rush right by you to get to their seat instead of waiting for you to put your stuff away and get out of the isle first. I guess they just know where they want to go and don't care who they know down on the way to get there.

I finally got to Singapore late last night. It was super easy to get from A to B. I got through Immigration with no problem and was able to take a taxi to the hotel. In the taxi, the guy was telling me that it's illegal to chew gum in Singapore. I asked him why and he told me that it was because kids put it on the subways. He said that sometimes his family goes to Malaysia to get gum. I said, "Well I have a pack of gum. I guess I better not chew it." and he said, "ohhh. I like gum!" I suppose I could have paid him in gum but who wants to sit in an Asian prison. So i got the hotel and the first thing I noticed was I couldn't figure out how to turn the lights on. And it was dark so I couldn't see. I finally figured out that I had to put my key card in this slot to activate anything and once you pull it out, everything goes off. Then I went to the bathroom and realized that you shower from a spikit that you just turn on. Nothing would be strang about this besides it's inches away from the toiled and they water just runs down a drain that's under the sink. So I took a shower this morning and watched everything get soaked. it's kinda nice though. No shower curtain to worry about and I suppose everything gets nice and clean that way. If you wanted, you could sit on the toilet while showering. the toilet paper is in a special plastic container so it doesn't get wet. Everything is so green and tropical here. The weather and humidity is perfect. My skin is just loving it and my hair is in the tightest little curls I've seen in a long time.

Hopefully tonight I make it to little India where there is a huge mosque that you can visit. And then tomorrow it's on to Indonesia. I will be glad to finally get to my house and start developing a sense of home there.