hnl-->naa-->tpe-->hkg

what a day. it started at 6am, after a rough, sweaty nights sleep. hawaiian hostels are a party all the time, even when they say they have quiet hours after 11. then i spent an hour in line, the only line in all of the honolulu airport, waiting to check in. not so bad really, i paid five bucks to a skycap to skip the majority of the line. wait, did i mention that i bought a ukelele? no, well, i did. its my new traveling companion. i have learned two notes so far, c and c-sharp. anyway, sitting waiting for my flight i busted that thing out and two japanese women came over to ask me to play for them. i kindly refused, it was too early to perform.

i boarded the plane to find out that i had an emergency row seat, praise God! plenty of leg room and two jovial travelers beside me. a very pleasant flight. but then we landed in tokyo and i begin to wear down. i lost the 6th of june almost totally, at about 11am i switched to the next day. what a mess! eventually i reboarded the same plane in the same seat, but only after going through security again.

another good flight, lots of stories of travels. there were five americans sitting next to each other and we were increasing becoming the minority as we flew on. too many stories of drugs and the mekong delta, or fights over waves in maui. only a four hour hop and we were in taipei.

let me just tell you, you can tell what a countries like by their best airports, and if taipei, being the capitol looks like that, then it's not a very nice place to look at. another round of security, the same plane, a different and of course more crowded seat, and we were on out way to hing kong.

by this point i've been traveling for nearly 19 hours and i've lost a day. i am literally falling asleep every time i stopped moving. remember, only about 4 hours of sleep the night before. yet a redeeming moment lurked ahead. i think they must fly you past the hong kong skyline on purpose. it was amazing. tom, hong kong is what i expected tokyo to be. magical. i was on the correct side of the plane to stare glassy-eyed out at the thousands of skyscrapers. colored every way imaginable, yellow, blue and red bridges. and mountains lurking behind every monstrosity. but the amazing feature was the soft pillows of clouds that reflected their colors back. it was like i was flying through a dream, colored lollipops and floating marshmallows. ha, well, sort of. but it really was an amazing approach. what a beautiful city from the air.

things change once you land though, but not right away. but you'll have to wait to hear about that, and my prison cell of a hotel room. stay tuned...pictures are to come, but for now a shower and a meal.

by the way, i ate four airplane meals yesterday, that's all i ate.