at last, San Francisco

Oh no, I am now enmeshed again inside another torture chamber named AK B777-500LR, this time it's for 16 hours. If you’re planning to travel to US via Dubai from Malaysia, mind you that you’re looking at 32 hours of journey in total including the long transit. You might want to transit in Hong Kong instead. An Indian lady I met in the flight, on her way to the lavatory told me that it’s quicker. We ended up with cups of hot chocolate at the back end, in the cabin kitchen for almost an hour. Her husband is working in Fremont she told me. They were immigrants (probably now already US citizens) for the past 13 years. She was on her way back from India after a vacation. She was happy.

The abiding journey got on my nerves. I watched three Indian movies in a row, several travel and cook shows and occasionally listened to Robbie Williams and Michael Jackson. Still the plane was moving like a retarded snail.

The meal was awesome, needless to say. First it was the mushroom omelette, served with a broccoli cutlet, baked beans and fried potato cubes. Croissant was served along with butter and preserve.

Lunch was breaded fish fillet on a bed of mild garlic cream sauce, mashed potatoes with spring onion, seasoned baby carrots, and broccoli. Dessert was the not so great chocolate choux bun with butterscotch mousse and a rich chocolate sauce. One man asked the stewardess, “Which one is nicer, chicken tikka or breaded fish fillet?” And she replied him with a smile, “They all taste the same, Sir. Probably you don’t want to think so much as your options are limited.”

Particularly I liked this vegetarian pizza topped with tomatoes and cheese, tasted better than any local pizza of thin crust and meagrely toppings and an expensive price tag. If you know how my idiosyncratic tongue structure is like, pizzas are not my cup of tea but this one is exceptional. Like as if it became all of a sudden a non-Italian, stupid me and my non-consistent preferences.

I spent my final flight hours at the cabin kitchen listening to the stewardesses talking about Victoria's Secret, sipping the hot chocolate and ardently people-watching. They liked my camera and I became their instant guru in camera technicality. I stood there in the presence of their conviviality until one of them reminded me, "Sir, please take your seat now, we are touching down in minutes!". And arrived me in San Francisco, my home my whore for the next two weeks.