Saturday, December 13, 2008

On the trail of Grissom, Day 1.

We've arrived in Las Vegas. Finally. After 2 stopovers. If the USA wants to be superpower, it should really be closer to the rest of the world and not be 24 hours by plane away. We left the house at 5.30 am Friday morning and we checked into the hotel about 5 pm Friday afternoon local time.

This was after a harrowing Singapore to Narita connection where we were packed in like sardines with no leg room to spare and no food to munch on. Because there was no leg room, regardless of how exhausted I was, I couldn't fall asleep. So, instead, I got hungry but there wasn't anything to eat. When Packrat kindly went in search of food for me, he was told rather gruffly that cup noodles were only for business class and got sent back with his tail between his legs and a packet of crackers.

The 45 minute transit we had in Narita made us feel vaguely human again and able to face the upcoming flight. Our spirits don't take much to lift and in this case, a bowl of ramen and some yummy onigiri, Japanese rice balls, did the trick. Thankfully, the longest leg had the most empty seats which meant I could stretch out and really sleep. My bug bear with that leg was the fact that the main course was seafood curry and being one to not eat seafood, I asked for something else and I was given the option of that or grilled salmon. So, apparently, I've been categorising them wrong all my life. Grilled salmon, meat.

The worst part of the trip was the last bit. Perhaps becuase we knew it was coming to an end, we wanted it over faster. Or perhaps because of the paranoia that has become America; holding passengers up and being down right rude to them is the order of the day. Whatever it was, we thought a more than 2 hour lay over would be sufficed to actually get our bags, check it in again, get through security with a good half hour to laze around.

The reality was we streaked to the gate, boots in hand (one should travel to the US in slippers regardless of weather because of this particular law), trying to slip through before the door shut and the plane took off. And in my sis-in-law's words, LAX looked like it got trashed by Somalian pirates.

Thankfully no more flying for the next ten days. Packrat and I are just back from dinner. We haven't seen much of the strip yet because both of us are dead on our feet. Him more than I am. More tomorrow, when we actually see the real Las Vegas.

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Ondine tossed this thought in at 11:40

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