Paradise! not quite there yet.

My body refuses to wake up!
And to make it worse, it also refuses to go to sleep, so I'm kinda stuck in this zombie like state. I'm probably typing at a rate of 3 words per minute given the fact that my fingers refuses to talk to my hands, and my hands is not on talking terms with my brains. Right now I'm just generating a whole bunch of random words which my eye is kind of trying to make sense of. Regardless, I will try my best to recollect all that has happened in the past 24 hours.

It dawned on me yesterday as I rode out to the airport on the train that the sky seemed extremely meloncholic. It was grey and the clouds threatened to break apart and drench the world below it. It occurs to me that somehow, everytime I have an emotional departure the sky turns that way. It stayed that way all the way until i reached KLIA. I had a lot of to kill while I was there (I arrived a bit too early, found out that I can actually check in at the KLCAT), and being a sunshine person, grey skies makes the passage of time torturous.

One might wonder why is this departure an emotional process? Shouldn't I be really excited about it. Well, lets just say that about ten years ago, a certain 16 year old schoolboy saw a photo of a bunch of greenpeace activist riding in an inflatable boat going after a whaling vessel in the ocean. He was awed with what he saw and vowed that one day he'll be part of this madcap group of people out to wreck havoc on corporate arseholes.

muahahah. So this is like a dream come true for me. Add to that, I also get to go to Papua New Guinea, a dream destination that I've never thought I'll ever go to on my own simply because it's such an expensive place (my flight ticket costs almost 1500 USD), yet it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Many have regarded this place as "the last frontier", "the garden of eden", and "paradise". On par with the Amazon, this country is probably one of the least touched places on earth.

Double whammy for me, volunteering for Greenpeace and going to Papua New Guinea. It's exciting, but somehow it was one nerve wrecking 24 hours before I boarded my flight to Singapore.

The sky was still grey when i boarded flight MH 613 to Singapore... but just as the plane begins to taxi off, I begin to see the ground crew scurrying around the tarmac seeking shelter under the wings of nearby parked airplanes. The sky began to break, and the plane takes off into one of the most turbulent take offs I've ever experienced. Despite the turbulence I made my way safely to Singapore International Airport. And the real torture begins here... I have 3 hours in transit with nothing to do. If this was a scene from a film, it would be one of those scenes where it's a static long shot on an airport bench and it starts off with me sitting on the bench, then it dissolves to me sitting on the other side of the bench; dissolve, i'm pacing back and forth in front of the benches; dissolve, i'm lying down on the bench.

Dissolve, I'm seated on row 14 by the window... it's already 9 pm then, looking out the window I see nothing but darkness. As soon as the captain turned off the "fasten your seatbelt" sign, i just dozed off...

The next morning, as I entered the arrival hall, Simon (half awake, it's 6 am in the morning, and apparently there was partying at the office last night) was waiting for me holding up a sign that says 'Greenpeace'. It was raining really hard then and we quickly got into the car and gives me an introduction and quick tour of Port Moresby while he drives me to the office.

It's 12:20 pm now, and I'm parking my ass in front of the computer typing this entry and reading news from Malaysia. Amber (the administrator) told me that I'll only be flying off into the GFRS this saturday (I'll spend 4 weeks there, yahoo!), and from now till then, I'll just have to keep myself entertained. I reckon I'll read a coupla books and just ponder upon my ponderings... On the plus side, the office is on the side of a hill on the peninsula and it has an amazing view of the harbour and the ocean.