Sonder
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I would like to start yesterday, but it seems so easy to lose track of time. It’s really a bad decision to finally get down to do something mildly meaningful while lining up for bathroom in the middle of the night.
As nostalgia works quite well with the nightfall, I feel talkative during the late hours. Unfortunately, no one’s up for me due to the time difference. So I decide to write it down into small passages. Apologize for my English (never good at it). I’m just trying to sound more witty and polite as I have just found that Englishmen have perhaps the most suitable voice for telling you why everything isn’t working, and with due respect, making a moan.
Hope you enjoy it.
It starts on an unprecedently remarkable New Years’ Eve at the airport where masks became the basic equipment for those take the risk of going outdoors and any cough or sneezing would be viewed as a spray of virus (if not biochemical weapons).
We took off at 1:40. During the 12 hr flight, two meals were served at 2:00 Beijing time and 2:00 London time respectively. The perfect timing, together with the disgusting porridge, is a great help to keep your appetite down for a long journey.
(By the way, because we were travelling from east to west, contrary to the Earth’s spin, there must be sometime we went across the zero hour for a second time but I just can’t calculate out when and where. I would be most grateful if someone could do the math for me.)
My friend T took a window seat and I sat next to the corridor, in between us was a black guy in a black coat (no offense), and during the sleep hours, he covered his head with the black blanket as an eyeshade. So after a nap, yawning and stretching, I looked around, in the mysterious darkness and the snoozing peace, thought I was sitting beside a Pharaoh or something!
The movies were interesting. To go with the selection, the seat was incredibly uncomfortable for sleep. I had to rest my head on my palm, with elbow on the arm rest. Undoubtedly, I experience a bit of freefall which dragged me out of the restless dreams half-smothered by the mask.
And then, the guy pulled down his blanket, put on the headphone and immersed himself in a frigging rock music. I was like ‘hey, man, I can hear every single fucking lyric from your headphone. Could you turn that down please?’ I wish I have said that, but I just sat silently.
We went through the custom at around seven, there was still three hours before the coach set out. So we sat in the lobby and waited. I had to say I expected my first day in Britain to be slightly different, rather than eating chicken sandwich outside the toilet, browsing the Internet idly with airport’s free wifi, in the chilly wind of London in January.
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