A Day Lost is a Day Gained

Back on traveling days, my wide (ok wife, little slip of tongue there... but she never reads my blog anyway) claims that I have certain liking for travel. I suspect that might be true. I was thinking about this while entering the Los Angeles International airport, and the smell of airport lounges and stale restaurants hit me really hard. The suspicion was not true after all. I hate the international travel. Crossing five continents in 3 months is bad, flying in aluminum jets is worse. With international travel come the unique problems that Columbus never faced. For example, the international date line. I am starting my homeward journey now from LA on 19th April and by the time I reach Singapore it would be early hours of 21st April. It is as if the 20th April never existed in my life. There are 24 hours in my life which would forever go unaccounted for. Would that make me younger than rest of the world? Rest of the world would be enjoying the Friday of 20th April, having meetings, dinner dates, fighting with their wives, but not me. I would never have this day in my life. When 5yrs down the line I am on my deathbed and accounting for all the good or bad things I did in my life, this one day I can never account for. Somebody would ask me, what were you doing on 20th April 2007, and my answer would be "what is 20th April 2007?", I don't even know if that day is applicable to me.
This opens up several opportunities, e.g. I could have set up all my meetings on 20th April and people would call me for attending, and could never get me. As if I am in hyperspace transitioning from one dimension to other. A complete blackout... few seconds in my life would mean 24 hours for the earthlings. Wow, I am really onto something here. The biggest possible scam of the life. I would doing this feat again in May when I travel to San Diego for another conference. As it is I have lot of less time in my life, this crossing date lines in reverse direction is costing me several more hours.

I wonder some times how much time I might have spent in travel. It could be some thing that I should be able to reuse, you know, like reclaiming the life spent in sitting in the airplanes. It would be fun that way, like, give me back my 20hrs wasted at Tokyo, due to canceled flight. I think I could make at least a year this way.

Traveling is always tiresome activity. No matter how glamorous it may appear. Sitting in one seat for 20hrs is no joke, neither is getting too many unsolicited requests of help from unattended old ladies (one even used my phone to call somebody... I am feeling terrible about it now!). I think it is my face, I look like a person who is gullible enough to be fleeced. Even the beggars become very forceful when they are talking to me. All over the world I get mugged, cheated, fleeced for money. I think like interpol, the anti-social elements world over must be having record of world travelers, and I must be ranking pretty high in the category of 'easy-to-rob'. The cab drivers always ask me for tip, while several others get away without. The check-in lady is always very arrogant with me. The airport helpers always show me the 'tips please' board, and probably are always remarking on my back. Invariably I end up spending more money than I can afford to. Just the bad luck I guess (or gullible face) whichever way you look at it, it is a personal characteristics that affects me a great deal. And I am saying nothing about all those days I am loosing simply because of the rotation of earth.

Disneyland Nightmare

After 24hours of back-to-back flights over Indian Ocean and Pacific, I am back in US of A again. The event I am attending is for some ironical reason is in Anaheim CA i.e. *very* close to Disneyland. The customs officer at Los Angeles airport was encouraging me to visit the theme park. I disappointed him informing that I really have to attend bunch of business meetings.

After flying in world's smallest flight to Orange county (for some stupid reason my corporate travel desk thinks it is easier to take flight from Los Angeles to Orange County and then go to Anaheim than just drive the 26 miles in 35mins from Los Angeles to Anaheim), I landed up in Disney's Grand Californian Hotel. Disney owns several places around Disneyland (duh..) including bunch of hotels. I did not realize what was going to hit me, till I saw that the hotel valets dressed as Cinderella dwarfs... argh! The reception counter staff dress looks like carpenters; I asked Cheyenne (blond.. figures) what the dress meant, she did not know. She wanted a photo-identity and did not know that passport has address in it. But worse was yet to come...
The hotel was full of children and their families; Family is a good thing to have... at home. In hotel you expect an alert staff, good room service, clean towels, not children running through the passage! The room was another nightmare, modeled after Winnie the Pooh's house, there are poster bed (ahhhh) and the TV shows 4 channels of cartoons. The window opens the view of Disney theme park. Several tourist-type people with camera bouncing on their bellies are walking around in shorts and sneakers. I am in the tourist paradise. The bed side mints are in the shape of Donald duck. The breakfast menu contains 7 varieties of kiddie breakfasts, including but not limited to, 'Mickey Mouse shaped Waffles'. The restaurant is called 'Storyteller's Cafe', idea being children would be told stories while parents stuff them in this land of plenty. The hotel has special road to Disney park, every normal adult comes out with Mickey ears on their heads. In my house I watch cartoons all the time due to my son, in here I pay $224 per day to watch SharkTales on TV (3 times in the day!) and cheering children shrieks from theme park (the room is very close to the them park) in the background. I was dreaming pager boys dressed as chipmunks.. maybe too many of Mickey mouse chocolates.
Disneyland, of course is and was famous for its marketing. When it started the TV advertising actually made it so popular. In smack middle of there is Disney Drive, Downtown Disney and Disneyland Street. It is like a set of people living inside a theme park. I wonder what their suicide rate would be... It is just too much of advertising. Thankfully Starbucks came in standard cup and tasted same (another reason why you love the consistency introduced by Americans).
A visit to Disneyland is of course on the cards, but without my son, I will have to be fairly drunk to spend $50 for a theme park visit (and actually do it). Maybe I should get my family here too, it might be a pleasant change to have my son spill some his ice cream on the hotel passage.

Well I have to live through this Disneyland nightmare, my only revenge is to watch tacky action movies on TNT...