Traveling Travails

These last few weeks I have definitely lived my moniker of the Travelling Technologist.  Dating back to 12 July, my travels have included:

• Singapore to Jakarta
• Jakarta to Singapore
• Singapore to Tokyo to Los Angeles to Phoenix
• Phoenix to Los Angeles to Tokyo to Singapore to Jakarta

 The last two trips accompanied by a 5 year old, a 22 month old, and a 2 week old.

The trip from Singapore to Phoenix wasn't bad.  Our five year old is easily entertained by the in-flight movies, food, and sleeping.  Her only issue is learning to modulate her voice according to the situation - and recognizing that even though the headphones prevent her from hearing her speak, it has no effect on the rest of us.  Our two week old was equally easy.  He just wants to eat and sleep in two hour shifts.  As long as we're not working our way through security at the start of his eating shift, we're all set.

That leaves our 22 month old to reign holy terror over our travels.  Thankfully, of the 70 hours or so of flying and transferring, he was only fussy for 150 minutes - less than 5%.  An extremely frustrating, patience-trying, procreation-questioning 150 minutes, but manageable.

A few of the more interesting stories from this globe-trek:

1)  Airport security in the U.S. is unlike anywhere else in the world.  Of all the airports we've travelled through, all of which required a pass through security, the U.S is the only one that required removal of shoes and the full-body scans.  Yet for all the focus on safety, the U.S. based airline on which we travelled (Delta) did not require child-restraint belts for our lap-infant.  Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Garuda, and Lufthansa all required lap infants to also be latched to their parents via a seat belt that attaches to the adult seat belt.  My guess is the reason Delta doesn't require it is because, in an attempt to avoid more delays, they are using all of their extra seat belt material to make extenders for the obese travelers.

2)  Our daughter is at the age where she is trying to be helpful.  When some of her help started to include a fully packed bag moved from its location by the front door back to the bedroom where we were packing other bags, I felt it time to mention to her that "help" involves making the situation easier, not harder, and that the best thing for her to do is to ask "how can I help" and wait for an answer before jumping in and doing what she thinks is most helpful.  After our trip through security in LAX on our way to Phoenix, I almost reminded her of that conversation - I ultimately decided seeing the results was lesson enough.  On this particular occasion she felt it would be helpful to remove my silver watch from the bin it shared with my laptop and place it on the silver table next to the scanning line.  She then handed me my laptop to return to my carry-on.  When I get to the gate and realize I don't have my watch, she informs me where she "helpfully" placed it.  A quick rush back to security where I proceed to make a fool of myself by perfectly describing every aspect of my watch except for the brand (I said "Guess" - they thought I was joking; my watch is a Casio).  This required speaking to a supervisor because the agent holding my watch was unable to return it to me solely by my description of "Silver with a white face, the bottom half of the face is digital and there are three digital images of fish". Apparently the brand is more important than a detailed description.  They eventually return my watch to me after I fill out a few forms and run back to the gate to retrieve my passport so they had a record of to whom they delivered the watch (I still don't understand that part - they never officially booked it into the lost and found).

3)  On what was supposed to be the last day of our trip - 11 August - we arrive at the airport, check-in, and then go back to our home in Mesa.  In the last two years, I've travelled nearly 100,000 miles on non-US airlines and have only experienced weather delays.  Due to the lateness of scheduling this trip, US-based airlines were the only viable options (half the cost of Singapore and Cathay Pacific).  The first leg of our trip home was on Alaska Airlines.  They landed, pulled up to the gate, and then promptly experienced a 9 hour maintenance delay due to a hydraulics leak.  We missed our connecting flights and had to fly out on 12 August instead.  On the bright side, my kids experienced their first limo ride!

 

4)  On our return to Jakarta via Tokyo and Singapore, we were unfortunate to have a 7 hour layover in Singapore.  We arrived in Singapore at 1 AM and our flight left at 8 AM the following morning.  Thankfully, Singapore's airport has a "Transit Hotel" in each of their terminals.  After checking in for our 8 AM flight we checked-in to the Transit Hotel.  Small, clean enough, and built like a cave, we struggled with trying to get the kids to sleep, finally sleeping for an hour before leaving for our flight.  Not a bad experience, but not one I'd like to do again.

5)  The last leg of our travels - the morning flight from Singapore to Jakarta - happened to be 60 of the 150 minutes our 2 year old went loco.  Thankfully, the plain was mostly empty.  Had it been full, I'm sure at least one person would have complained about his ear-piercing screams.  To top it off, as we exit the plane and are packing the stroller - which we gate check - we noticed his diaper hanging out the leg of one of his shorts.  He had, ahem, "done some business", and the weight of it caused the diaper to slip off his rump and fall to his ankles.  I'm glad I wasn't the one to clean the mess underneath.  My wife was gone for 10 minutes.  At least he carries his own weight in the airport....if you don't count the fact he's walking AWAY from me (I'm in the red pants and gray shirt behind him, walking the opposite direction).

6)  I'll post a longer entry on this topic tomorrow.  America doesn't know service.  If you really want to understand why companies are shipping their call centers, manufacturing, and everything else they can to Asia, don't just look at the price.  You have to examine the attitude.  Our experience in Economy Class on Singapore Airlines was far superior to our experience in Business Class on Delta.  Airport workers in the U.S. come across like you are interrupting something more important when you just want them to do what their company pays them to do (the gate agents for the severely delayed Alaska Airline flight were a notable exception).  Workers in the hospitality industry in Asia welcome you like an honored guest at a State dinner.  In the U.S., they treat you like the odd kid with smelly clothes who just had the audacity to sit at the table of a clique two levels too high for his High School social status.  I provide several examples of the stark differences in my post tomorrow (Hint:  We wouldn't have been in a limo if the Super Shuttle representative hadn't been such a jerk).

We're now safely at our home in Jakarta and, for the most part, managing the jet-lag quite well.  My daughter starts school at 6:40 AM tomorrow morning.  That will be the true test of how well our sleep schedules adjusted during our two days of return flights.  I'm prepared to continue my jump in to the coffee consumption pool with both feet.  I'll probably need the caffeine.