You know the trip is going to be an adventure when you start off with an overnighter in the airport of your own country. Yes, I did it again - I missed my flight. Work crisis, habitual lack of punctuality (this habit really needs to get out of my life pronto) and the horrendous taxi/traffic situation did it. Amazing race style, I planted my ass at the nearest Starbucks, plugged my batteryless iPhone in to charge, and booked the next flight out on my iPad. (I've already checked out the cheapest flight while stuck in the cab.) Thank goodness for technology.
With 12 hours to spend at the airport because I refuse to brave the commute to and fro the ends of tiny little Singapore, I sat at Starbucks people-watching, had my dinner with my huge backpack and pretended to be a traveller on a long hurl adventure. Later on, of all people, it was a colleague whom I met at work and have spoken to for a grand total of 10 times who came to pass time with me. At quarter life, they always tell you that it gets exceedingly difficult to make friends. But where I am, I keep finding myself surprise after surprise.
Anyway, quarter life crisis stuff aside and back to Changi, I was expecting the place to be magical after hours. I had imagined it to be a sacred place of transit, where tired travelers rest in comfort, but it wasn't. People were sprawled over hard benches and dark corners, pretty much like any other airport I've been to and slept in all around the world. The only difference is probably the police coming around to check your passport at 4am when you have a shawl over your face.
But there still is magic - straddling a space that's neither here nor there, everyone 's poised for flight. This is where the sleepless have dreams - of bathing under a waterfall, of reuniting with a loved one, of swimming with sharks in blue oceans, of starting on a new job in a new city, of walking on ancient ruins under the moonlight.
Then morning dawns and everyone moves on. A flurry of activity as people pack up their makeshift sleeping bags and rub the sleep out of their eyes. Bedsheets are transformed into scarves and pillows into backpacks. Shutters of duty-free shops are rolled up with a metallic twang. The morning light streams in through the huge slanted glass panes. The majestic birds of titanium remain in stillness, quietly awaiting orders to take flight.
I took a deep breath to take it all in, and thus ended my adventure in the space of in-betweens, and started on the first step towards a new one.
