Melbourne Early Autumn 2018 — Day 0

The outside heat penetrated NAIA and there’s no escaping it. It’s 30 minutes past 17:00. I sent a text to my mom, thanking her for driving me to the airport. I was supposed to take a Grab, but because of traffic, the anxiety of getting hold of a ride was imminent — I literally don’t have the time and the stomach for that.

I carried my luggage onto the weighing machine at the check-in counter. The dim red weight indicator flashed 10kg and I felt cheated (but in a good way?). Pretty sure that thing of a luggage weighed 20kg+, at least it felt like so.. that or I’m just weak AF. Nah, it’s the crippling heat. The check-in lady continued to type away minding her business and my hands were finally free to wipe some sweat on my forehead. I’m banking on the information and the hope I received from a Filipina from Geelong that it’s currently getting chilly in Melbourne.

I breezed through the system like uhm… like a breeze. Guys, pre-fill your Departure Cards, please. I suggest you hoard a couple of slips and have them filled up at home prior to your trip. Pros are as follows: No need to stop at a desk to write whilst heightening your risk of theft or accidentally leaving your items. I can get really paranoid with my stuff at the airport.. I get unnecessarily anxious because people might slip cocaine inside my bag even though I don’t know what cocaine looks or smells like.

So immi’s next: I’ve reached a point in my life where immigration officers would just simply stamp my passport without asking too many “I’m-just-doing-my-job-hence-the-aggressive-tone” questions. He just politely asked for my Australian Visa and I happily obliged and showed him my crumpled visa. I didn’t realize I was using it before as a paper fan because of the heat! Anyway, it was a quick exchange, like passing up a note with your classmate back in high-school.

19:30 – While waiting to board, I’ve managed to purchase my roundtrip fare from SkyBus. Apparently, you can save AU$3.00 when you book online.. that’s one chocolate bar already! You can just go straight to the bus and show your QR code as you board. This is convenient if you don’t have the local currency yet upon arrival (BECAUSE AIRPORT FOREX SUCKS).

Upon boarding, I notice that my NETFLIX shows failed to download. Agh! But to my surprise, PAL totally upgraded their services and amenities. I recall having a busted in-flight entertainment on my MNL-LAX flight a year ago.

AIRBUS A330-300

Everything seems so clean and new, I love it! Thank you, PAL! Though I’m only thanking PAL because I have been with budget airlines ALL my life and the change of carrier felt really nice.  Also, I even got the most considerate and courteous flight seatmate a simpleton like me could ever ask for.

While we’re on the subject.. would just like to share this post from a Scottish actor I’m crushing on. Hint Hint. Dunkirk. He’s not using his real name on his Facebook but I managed to still find his profile *puts FBI cap on*.

So a post from his 2014 rant, un-filtered and direct-copied. Imagine a Scottish accent for a full experience:

FUDABOOTERS.

Humans are at they’re most stupid when in transit. Couple of things before I leave:

1. On a plane, are you in that group of people who ACTUALLY use the option to push your seat back into the puss or face of the person behind you?

2. Do you get to your seat and have a good fud aboot while the other 90 odd passengers wait on you deciding whether you’ll start that book you’ve been carrying around or whether or not you’ll take your coat off?

3. And do you walk onto the moving walkways and stand still, and in doing so you actually then move slower than if you just walked?

I have come to the conclusion that if you do all of the above you also take ages at cash machines & stand on the lower deck of busses even though you are able bodied and don’t have a pram.

Let’s help get rid of this behaviour. I think there should be AA style meetings for ‘chronic fudabooters’, “My name is X and I have a fudabooting problem.” People should run marathons and hold bake sales in order to help a fudabooter.

You may not be one, but you’ll probably know one. Don’t ignore them, help them.

Help a Fudabooter Uk.

Cheers

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So there you go, watch out for ‘Fudabooters’. Do you sneakily invade the arm-rest of the person sitting next to you? You might be a Fudabooter. Get help.

Clocking in 3 hours of flight time. We’re over Indonesia at this moment in time and space. I took my phone out, squinting, temporarily blinded by my phone’s light; I’ve set my phone’s time zone from GMT+8 to GMT+10.  I watched the remaining of Blade Runner 2049 aaaand I still don’t get it. Time to try my luck sleeping again. Dinner was lovely.

 

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