Well, hello.

I asked both J. and Jamison to guest post in my absence and both seemed to consent to the idea, so imagine my surprise today upon regaining access to the internet only to find that neither of them had posted a thing. Guest posters can be easily replaced, you know.

The trip to and from Singapore was a whirlwind. Wednesday morning my alarm went off at 4 and the taxi arrived at quarter after. We got to the airport and quarter to 5 only to find that it was closed. We waited at the gate with the meter running until the guard took his post at roughly 5 after the hour of 5. I then waited to be allowed to enter the terminal for 30 minutes and then another half hour passed before the person who was to check me in arrived at his post. In short, though I was told to check in by 5:30, I didn't actually check in to 6:30 plus. The plane took off around 7:15 and then I landed at 8. I deplaned, and soon realized that, in fact, I was not on a direct flight (I had been told that I was). In fact, I was still in Sumatra in Perkanbaru. I got back on the plane and waited 20 minutes to fly another hour to Batam. From there I took a taxi to the ferry terminal, waited in line for 20 minutes, bought a ticket, and believed that I paid my fiscal payment to the government (around 50 US dollars). I proceded to customs, waited in line for 15 minutes, was told that I had not paid the fiscal, and returned to a moderate sized queue that was not moving at all in front of the fiscal office. Two things soon became apparent: it was a slow moving queue because each of the people in front of me was not paying one, but dozens of fiscal payments, and that this fact made making my 10:15 ferry unlikely. With three minutes to catch the boat and two people in front of me I put myself in God's hands and said aloud in English to anyone who might understand, "I've only got one fiscal to pay, and three minutes to catch the ferry, can I please move ahead?" The two people in front of me turned and said, "Sure." This was amazing as all prior experience had told me that traveling in Asia was cutthroat business. The queue was disorderly, people nudging ahead, pushing you out of the way unless you learnt to be more aggressive than they, and this I was learning. I ran and ran and ran to boat, encouraged by the customs officer and other seaport employees. I got on the boat, took my seat, breathed a sigh of relief, and then waited another 20 plus minutes for the boat to leave while it waited for latecomers. So, such anxiety for nothing. I've much more to tell, I'll continue later. Consider this the first in a series.