Too Long A Day to Write Succinctly About

Bear with me here, I'm trying to stay awake until sunset (1832 local)  that's 4.5 hours.  Not sure I have that much in me.  But, I feel a lot better than the previous two arrivals. 

Monday 12:40 PDT....Wednesday 12:00 Malaysia Standard Time

1) I'm fuzzed, I can't do the math right now.  Later with a little rest and some clarity, I'll do the whole 'convert it all to Zulu and then figure it out'.  It felt like 46 hours last time I tried the math.  That isn't trustworthy.

2) Flat bed seats are worth it.  Full stop.  Screw the food and drink, it's the sleep that saves you.

3) For the few readers I have not blathered to personally:

SFO - NRT: About 12 hours.  

The CX lounge was closed.  Denied Dan Dan deliciousness, DAMNIT!

Asleep as soon as in the air and I could lie flat.  Meals?  Huh?  I  woke up well after lunch and dinner.  I di grab a delicious Tonkatso Ramen.  Super tasty and hot.  Imagine my horror when I read it did not use "animal derived products" when I re-read the menu.  Please explain how Tonkatsu (pork) can be so?  'Tonkatsu X-Y Style' I guees using "style" keeps it a truth.  I wish I could remember what the style name is.    Back to sleep after that.  Awoke with the sun somewhere over the Eastern Pacific.  Estimated sleep - 8 hours.

NRT - 90 min stop.  The CX lounge doesn't have a noodle bar.  Doubly denied Dan Dan deliciousness, DDDDDDDAMNIT!  Wander and do nothing instead.  Did laugh when I saw a couple stuffing carry ones with dozens of cartons of Winston cigarettes.  Don't know where they were headed but I bet customs will hit them with a good bill when they get home.

NRT-CGK: 8 hours.  OK, you likely cannot figure out CGK logically.  I sure cannot.  It's Jakarta, Indonesia.  Soon to be the ex-capital.  (Everyone wants to move to Borneo...."Nusantara" is your searchword.)  Dark when we left, asleep at 10,000 feet.  Awoke in time to have a ok steak.  Estimated sleep - 6 Hours.

CGK 4:30 stop.  And, an absolute shit show.  Boy, am I getting decent at remaining calmish and very sweaty under pressure.  And this was sweaty.  It's 6 degrees south of the Equator and still summer there.  (Foreshadowing....)

The joy of seeing a placard with your name on it when you exit a plan is undeniably and mysteriously cool.  "I feel seen" must apply.  Nah, it's still fun to have a touch of bougie excitement mixed with a moment of "oh, shit, did something happen?"

I was escorted and checked in to the lounge.  It was midnight. Me. And a handful of workers.  They put up 3 levels of scaffolding (high ceiling).  They did some drywall cutting and I have no idea why.  But, in 4 hours they scaffolded, cut, did something, taped, pasted, and de-scaffolded.  Impressive.

I looked at my Fitbit and realized it was not on local time.  What I did not realized is whatever the hell WIB stands for in TimeZoneBahasa.  Fitbits do not fly well.  I cannot get the damn thing to show the right time during my layovers.  Somehow I was now an hour east of JST and 2 hours east of MST (Malaysia Standard Time in this case).  I could not check easily as there was no local time clock in the whole lounge.  Not even of the Departure Display boards.  Huh

Too bad my phone fell between chairs when I moved.  The pockets on the pants are brutal for doing this too me.

And, I could not figure out where it was.  I thought I was 30 minutes from departure.  Panic didn't hit; but I was a sweaty beast.  Could not get my Chromebook to log in correctly.  (Things are different around the world.)  Then I realized I could not find my passport too.  FUCK!

Luckily the front desk got the laptop logged in. Find My Device worked as hoped.  YAY!

Passport would help too.

Took my bag apart a 3rd time and found it.  YAY!  That was entirely on me.  Too clever by half with my "bags within bags" approach.

A  poor nasi goreng was still better than none.  Shower was better still.

CGK - KUL: 2 Hours.  Two seasons in a day!  Still winter in the Northern Hemisphere.  And, I crossed the Equator northbound for the second time in the dark. Maybe they should shine a laser from space so you know when you're rolling through it.  Estimated Sleep: 1 hour.

KUL 90 min stop.   The strange benign shit continues.  My bagged is checked through to Miri, Sarawak, Eastern Malaysia/Borneo.  I cleared immigration in Kuala Lumpur.  My bag did not pass through customs to my knowledge.  I just don't know.

KUL - MYY: 2 Hours I cannot explain how MYY represents Miri any more than CGK in Jakarta.  Daylight.  No sleep til Sundown is the goal.  Looked out the window...No sleep.  My bag cleared customs here...huh.  The Malayasia Agreement of 1963 (MA63 in local parlance) is 'interesting.'


Notice the lack of reading, music, or watching references.  The JAL flight had a little thing on the controller that showed ETA.

I didn't just "rawdog" this trip.  I tried to "sawdog" it.   ZZZZZZZZs helped.   But, humans ain't geared for 16,500 KM in a day.  (Easy to remember, the Equator runs a tad over 40,000 KM.  The French missed the math when they defined the meter.  It was intended to be exactly 1/40,000th of the Equator.  Reality is 40,075.  Not bad in the 1800s. Bravo.) 40% of the globe is enough inside of 48 hours.  Tiredness prevails.

An update or new entry will follow later.  14:30 and I need a nap.



Ok, I had to ask Google Gemini the time elapsed.  It says 32 hours.  After telling me about the 15 time zones issues, 3X it excluded it.  I told it to use Zulu.    Apparently the probabilistic nature of an LLM prevents it from doing arithmetic.  It did thank me for teaching it the idea of using a common timezone.  And, failed to do it right still.

More later.