Daniel, Gary, and the Maldives - Prologue and Anecdotes from BWI to San Fran to Seoul to Singapore to Male...

Prologue

This trip is occurring in the middle of one of the biggest transition periods of my life:

 

1) I have a new job. I resigned from my position at Harris and accepted a position on the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. I voluntarily wear ties to subliminally affect people’s opinions of me.

2) We have left Florida and are now living in Jessup, Maryland which is outside of Boston and D.C. by about 30 minutes each. It is in the middle of Fall there – we have not had a fall in 8 years…I’ve had to buy sweat pants, running clothes, slippers, sweaters, etc. It’s great.

3) Beth is 21 weeks pregnant. I always keep thinking I should list this one first…

 

Needless to say, Beth, Chance, baby Hals, and I are going through some crazy changes. We have officially been in Maryland 4 weeks, but have only been in our town home for just over 1 week. The cramped hotel that we were in before that did not have a kitchen and only had a queen bed – we needed out of there fast! Our town home is three stories, brand new, and has a great layout for hosting. We are really excited but are still overloaded with boxes…

My job has been going really great, but this trip ended up falling at a poor time; having just started a new job, I didn’t have enough vacation for this trip. This was known ahead of time, but the solution involved me working extra hours before I left. Normally that isn’t a problem, but since I am just started, I need to become more familiar with my surroundings before I can become self reliant and efficient. That has not happened yet. Trying to work extra without much to do other than read documents can be a very difficult task…

Oh yeah, the pregnancy – Beth is now 21 weeks pregnant with our baby girl. Everything is going very well and all in all, there haven’t been very many problems. Definitely the biggest problem so far is the fact that I am going on this trip and Beth is not – something about flying for 40 hours, living on a dive boat where she can’t take sea sickness patches and where she cannot dive, being at much higher risk for food borne illnesses, only to fly 40 hours back sounded a little unappealing. That means that it is just me and my Dad on this trip. Beth is not very pleased about it, but is doing well with it.

Along those lines, the intent of these journals is to act as emails for Beth so she can catch up on what we are doing.

October 31 and November 1st - Travel Days

I left for BWI airport at 5 a.m. on Halloween day. We are very close to the airport and Beth was gracious enough to drive me. After we said goodbye, I got on my flight to San Francisco after getting a bagel in the airport. This flight was rather uneventful. I slept for a few hours and then watched 95% of Monsters University (it was the airplane that only showed one movie on the overhead screens, so I had no choice).

Dad was leaving from Columbia and was going to meet me in San Francisco. His flight was supposed to get in 45 minutes after mine, but he ended up being early. I got my checked luggage, headed over to the international terminal and waited for him to arrive. After a few games of phone tag, I see a man dressed in what appears to be a fat suit holding what appears to be enough equipment to man a small army – it was dad…

Dad's fat suit

The first thing he does is offloads some of the things he is carrying into my luggage to balance the weight of his bags (one of his carry-ons is 14 kilos and the limit is 7…). After that, we grab some lunch outside of security. I get a chicken skewer and salad meal which ends up being good and not too greasy – I try to avoid eating greasy foods before long flights because I find it makes me feel grimier.

We are checked in by Batgirl (remember, it is Halloween), and we head through security. We end up only having about 1 hour to spare before our flight boards. I am glad that we are now flying the same airline because last time Beth and I flew two separate airlines to one destination, we had delays on the first half and they did not reimburse our second half. That was the time it took us over 50 hours to get from Florida to Greece…10 hours longer than these flights are supposed to be (to India). I send some update emails, make some calls, and then board the plane.

Our flight durations are as follows: BWI->San Francisco (5.5 hours), San Francisco->Seoul (12 hours), Seoul->Singapore (6.5 hours), and Singapore to Male (4 hours). We also have a 9 hour layover in Singapore, which would really suck if not for the fact that we have an in-Airport hotel.

The flight to Seoul really wasn’t that bad. Dad and I each had an aisle seat, which was nice. We bought neck pillows made of memory foam and those were REALLY nice to have. The food was good as far as airplane food goes, but it was a little greasy for me. There were a huge number of babies and they all seemed to have parents who didn’t care if they cried. Oh, and it was FREEZING – at least 65*. I usually like to sit on my blanket for extra cushioning, but I had to actually use it just to survive…I ended up sleeping most of the flight, which was really nice.

Our layover in Seoul was only about an hour and we really just got off the plane and then got back on the same one. The only weird thing was that they made us go through security again. We are usually flagged because of the massive amounts of camera gear we bring, but Dad was having extra trouble at this place – they really didn’t like him having his Allen wrenches. Now, these are camera Allen wrenches, so they are no longer than 2 inches and thin enough I could snap them with my bare hands. Dad was starting to get nervous because he literally cannot put together his underwater camera without that kit and they were trying to throw them away. Luckily a manager came over and allowed us to check it to Male.

You have been travellnated...

And shot in the genitals...

 

Back on the plane we went….same seats, same crying babies,same freezing temperatures. I slept a few hours of this 6.5 hours flight, but I ended up watching a couple of movies. Between the three flights, I watched 5 movies (Monsters University, Wolverine (something – the 5th or 6th one?), Red 2, The Internship, and 2 Guns). Other than that, this flight was also pretty uneventful.

We landed in Singapore at 1:30 a.m. their time (1:30 p.m. home time). The hotel is easy to find – we check in, shower and catch up on emails/journals. That is where I am now. I’m about to go run out to the lobby where the internet is so I can send a bigger update. After that, I will come back to the room and try to catch a few hours of sleep.

 

 

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