In the Land of Mickey

July 05, 2007, 04:05 PDT

At LAX Tom Bradley International Airport, Los Angeles.

Finally, after almost 1 year of abscence from the USA. I stepped out of the big EVA Airways bird into the LAX airport. When I saw a fellow passanger, a mother, with her family in tow and I can't help thinking that the girls are probably happy to be back to this land of Mickey Mouse, Mac Donnald's Cheeseburger, and cupholders inside vehicles. It is indeed a different place from the little island where I just left my wife and 4-year-old son behind.

Well, this is just a short 2-week trip. I think the wife and baby will be fine, although I can't help thinking that it would be great to have them along in this trip. Then if that's the case, in essence, there will be one less thing to worry about (i.e. leaving the entire tribe behind).

Flights are working almost like a clockwork except for a small trouble: my lugage is still nowhere to be found. This is the time where I have this realization how evermore dependent I am now to complex systems of our modern world technology. The domino effect resulting from the missing lugage is the fact that I don't have my car rental and hotel reservation information. When filing a claim for the lost bagage, the agent asked for my address in Michigan. I fumbled through my carry-on lugage only to realize that I had placed my reservation papers in the missing lugage. So, I had to fire up my laptop and open the PDF document where I have the information. I was thinking, "Boy, am I lucky to have the laptop still running after the bump and bangs this carry-on lugage had endured in my journey". So, yes, I am back online after the laptop. Now, I realized how dependent I am to my internet phone number to find out when the airlines contact me. I have to be connected to the internet when I am at the hotel. So, that's another dependency to a complex system called the internet etherworld.

So, as a future reference, here are the lessons learned:

• Keep your reservation papers on your carry-on lugage.
• Further, I always remind myself that all financial docs (credit card etc) need to be with the carry-on lugage as well.
• Always remember to tell the shrude airline agents at transfer point that you have a lugage that needs to transfer too.

• Tax Return doc(?)
• Good Ol' US Document Folder (park passes, AAA card, CVS, Kroger, credit cCard, bank card, etc)
• House Papers
• Green Card/Passports/Travel Docs
• Hotel Reservation (and see note above, please)
• Sanyas Sales Toolkit (which I didn't bring this time due to late delivery from the villa)

• Shirts
• T-Shirts
• Pants (short & long)
• Underwear, socks
• Towel
• Toothbrush, paste
• Shaver
• Sandals

So, I think this is it. After a strange passanger re-shuffle at gate 45 earlier tonight, I am now awaiting for my early 0600 flight. I hope I can manage to stay awake considering the 12-hour jet lag. Maybe an early dinner is in order to make sure I can have a good flight this morning.

So, that is it for now. I'll keep you all posted again in a bit later, I am sure.

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