Saturday afternoon, Tokyo time
is about Saturday very very early morning DC time - I feel somewhere in between. Not quite sure how that whole diurnal cycle thing is going to work out. I remembered to take my Malaria meds on time, though. Though on time is difficult to do when you’re switching time zones willy-nilly (and the date line, did I mention the date line? Let’s not forget the date line). First time I crossed that one. First time across the equator was for the FATF plenary in Rio de Janeiro, last year. I’m ticking boxes at an alarming (and increasing) pace. I assume I’ll be quite jaded about the whole thing very soon.
I park in the JAL Annex lounge for a few hours. It is deserted except for me and, for a while, one other gaijin. They have WiFi, which is good - my new cell phone stubbornly refuses to connect with the local carrier so I can’t text home that I arrived safely. I write an email instead. I then try the remote access to my World Bank server workstation, but cannot seem to log on. I wonder whether I’ve forgotten one of the very many new password/number combinations of the last few weeks again. But I manage to call the World Bank’s help desk (with a headset and the laptop, via SkypeOut) and the young gentleman on the other end actually manages to reroute my connection so that he can log on to my screen and move stuff around at dizzying speed - only to tell me later that the problem is at their end and I should try again later.
But the World Bank, being the World Bank and all, not only has all kind of helpdesks peopled around the clock (what with hundreds of World Bank staff operating around the World, and thus around the clock, on any given day), it also has fall-back options in place for this kind of snafu and thus I can use the webmail access. I was invited to meet someone higher up the chain of command this morning, wait, make that last morning, as I was on my way to the airport. I hope that sending the regretful decline in the middle of the night from halfway around the world makes up for its tardiness.
As I am about to pack up and head for the gate, the young lady from the reception desk comes up and regrets to inform me that my flight has been delayed - she doesn’t yet know for how long but will let me know the moment she finds out. She looked at (possibly even scanned into her work system) my boarding pass when I came in, so knows my flight - a sort of attention to detail I appreciate. I guess one could get used to that sort of thing. Must not become jaded. Must not become jaded.
In the event it’s only about half an hour later. As I walk over through the empty hallways toward it, I walk down the stairs into a very crowded area right in front of the gate with people sprawled all over the many chairs there. Literally as I come down the stairs they open the doors for boarding. Or rather, the business one first, so that I can walk in as their very first boarder (?!) without even braking stride. Neat.
Air Nugini’s Business class is a far cry from United’s First Class. The seats tilt back in their entirety rather than fold, which doesn’t really allow for sleep, and there’s just one screen every couple of rows, so you watch what they’ve decided to show you or you don’t.
Must not become jaded.
In any event, I’m really tired now, it’s local evening which isn’t far from evening where I’m going to, so I decided to try and get some sleep anyway. I manage a two or three hours nap, then sort of doze for another one. When I decide I have had enough, I do a couple of push-ups and stretches (we’re flying through the night, the lights in the cabin are out and I appear to be the only one conscious, so it’s not like I’m making a spectacle out of myself) and decide to work some more. And it’s only about ten minutes later that the cabin crew announces that now it’s morning and turns on the lights and so I am first in line to order my coffee and breakfast. I also take a few pictures of dawn over the Pacific, just before we enter a cloudbank that reduces visibility to very little until just before we land. Unfortunately, my new phone (with which I took the pictures) also refused to talk to my laptop, so I have no way of posting one now. I am quite annoyed.
PNG looks adventurous. Low rolling hills covered in jungle-like vegetation that mostly seems to come up only to about hip level or so, with clumps of trees every here and there. Must be awesome trekking around here. Of course, given the amount of violent crime the helpful automated travel notices of the World Bank (system generated once my approved travel request had been logged in the system) told me about, I’ll just stay in whatever lounge they’ve got at Port Moresby airport.
Which happens to look very much like the one I only briefly passed through at Narita airport before boarding, and serves all four gates of Port Moresby International airport. It also has a grandiosely announced “International Paradise Lounge - Members Only”, but I fail to find out whether flying Business class makes me a member, as the door is locked from the inside and no one answers when I press the “call” button next to what appears to be an intercom mounted into the wall next to the door.
No WiFi here that I can access, so I write these notes hoping to upload them later, from Honiara - though likely that will have to wait until we’ve figured out the logistics on site.
I park in the JAL Annex lounge for a few hours. It is deserted except for me and, for a while, one other gaijin. They have WiFi, which is good - my new cell phone stubbornly refuses to connect with the local carrier so I can’t text home that I arrived safely. I write an email instead. I then try the remote access to my World Bank server workstation, but cannot seem to log on. I wonder whether I’ve forgotten one of the very many new password/number combinations of the last few weeks again. But I manage to call the World Bank’s help desk (with a headset and the laptop, via SkypeOut) and the young gentleman on the other end actually manages to reroute my connection so that he can log on to my screen and move stuff around at dizzying speed - only to tell me later that the problem is at their end and I should try again later.
But the World Bank, being the World Bank and all, not only has all kind of helpdesks peopled around the clock (what with hundreds of World Bank staff operating around the World, and thus around the clock, on any given day), it also has fall-back options in place for this kind of snafu and thus I can use the webmail access. I was invited to meet someone higher up the chain of command this morning, wait, make that last morning, as I was on my way to the airport. I hope that sending the regretful decline in the middle of the night from halfway around the world makes up for its tardiness.
As I am about to pack up and head for the gate, the young lady from the reception desk comes up and regrets to inform me that my flight has been delayed - she doesn’t yet know for how long but will let me know the moment she finds out. She looked at (possibly even scanned into her work system) my boarding pass when I came in, so knows my flight - a sort of attention to detail I appreciate. I guess one could get used to that sort of thing. Must not become jaded. Must not become jaded.
In the event it’s only about half an hour later. As I walk over through the empty hallways toward it, I walk down the stairs into a very crowded area right in front of the gate with people sprawled all over the many chairs there. Literally as I come down the stairs they open the doors for boarding. Or rather, the business one first, so that I can walk in as their very first boarder (?!) without even braking stride. Neat.
Air Nugini’s Business class is a far cry from United’s First Class. The seats tilt back in their entirety rather than fold, which doesn’t really allow for sleep, and there’s just one screen every couple of rows, so you watch what they’ve decided to show you or you don’t.
Must not become jaded.
In any event, I’m really tired now, it’s local evening which isn’t far from evening where I’m going to, so I decided to try and get some sleep anyway. I manage a two or three hours nap, then sort of doze for another one. When I decide I have had enough, I do a couple of push-ups and stretches (we’re flying through the night, the lights in the cabin are out and I appear to be the only one conscious, so it’s not like I’m making a spectacle out of myself) and decide to work some more. And it’s only about ten minutes later that the cabin crew announces that now it’s morning and turns on the lights and so I am first in line to order my coffee and breakfast. I also take a few pictures of dawn over the Pacific, just before we enter a cloudbank that reduces visibility to very little until just before we land. Unfortunately, my new phone (with which I took the pictures) also refused to talk to my laptop, so I have no way of posting one now. I am quite annoyed.
PNG looks adventurous. Low rolling hills covered in jungle-like vegetation that mostly seems to come up only to about hip level or so, with clumps of trees every here and there. Must be awesome trekking around here. Of course, given the amount of violent crime the helpful automated travel notices of the World Bank (system generated once my approved travel request had been logged in the system) told me about, I’ll just stay in whatever lounge they’ve got at Port Moresby airport.
Which happens to look very much like the one I only briefly passed through at Narita airport before boarding, and serves all four gates of Port Moresby International airport. It also has a grandiosely announced “International Paradise Lounge - Members Only”, but I fail to find out whether flying Business class makes me a member, as the door is locked from the inside and no one answers when I press the “call” button next to what appears to be an intercom mounted into the wall next to the door.
No WiFi here that I can access, so I write these notes hoping to upload them later, from Honiara - though likely that will have to wait until we’ve figured out the logistics on site.