Oh yeah, this place.

I have to say it was odd being back after such a long time away. Trying to remember the little Thai that I know, I was surprised to find that I’d forgotten a lot of it already. At the same time there was a feeling of being back home and found that parts of the language came back only when I didn’t think about it. Our first day back in the neighborhood, two men came to our house offering their services as cleaning and pest control. Without thinking, I spit out some Thai that I thought I’d forgotten. The problem is that once you start, they sometimes assume that you speak the language and then start jabbering at you. Such was the case with the exterminators. I did however manage to get rid of them in my own broken Thai-English way.
The neighbors quickly noticed my holiday paunch. Apparently I put on a few pounds over the holidays and the Thais aren’t shy about pointing it out. I guess that’s what happens when you pretty much eat nonstop and don’t do a whole lot of moving for a month. Or it may be because I’m now another year older and the old system just ain’t metabolizing the way it use to. At any rate, my new layer of blubber was the first thing our Thai friends talked about. “Oh!” they say, pointing to my bulging areas and motioning with their hands around their faces as if to indicate a Charlie Brown sized head. Yeah, it’s good to see them too.
The mosquitoes which quickly became a vague memory while I was back in the winter climate of Colorado came back to remind me of their god given duty in full force last night. I was bit at least four times on each foot. (My feet are prime targets for mosquitoes. They are the limited areas of exposed skin that don’t grow hair- I’m like a reverse Hobbit in that way.)
As I sat in a beanbag chair in the living room last night, enjoying what was a relatively cool evening and scratching my new mosquito bites, a cockroach approached me. We had had some guys spray for bugs a while back, but the appearance of this sucker indicated the effect has worn off. As I was searching for the nearest thing to smash the living hell out of it with, it seemingly had a heart attack…or some kind of a fatal cockroach stroke. It flipped over on it’s back, legs flailing in the air for a good twenty minutes and then it stopped. Dead? No. In my experience, roaches that are on their back and look in every respect, “dead,” indeed are not. They need to lie there motionless for at least a few more days to a week until they can be pronounced dead.
It’s the year of the Dog, according to the Chinese calendar. A large Chinese population coupled with the Thais willingness to celebrate just about anything makes it quite the recognized holiday over here. Our local mall is decked out in red dragons, miniature decorative storeyed pavilions and archways. Ubiquitous red garments, emblazoned with gold Chinese characters are displayed on mannequins that oddly enough tend to look as thought they were modeled after blowup dolls. (This isn’t unique to the holiday; the mannequins over here are weird looking.)
In other news, our neighborhood pool is finally constructed, possibly timed to coincide with the Chinese New Year, its been under construction for at least eight months. Finally we have a refuge from the depraved heat of the Thai day…and night. We’ll see how long it takes for the children of the neighborhood to turn it into a giant toilet. Yellow and blue makes green right?

home for the holidays

The flight I was attempting out of Bangkok was overbooked by at least 100 people. For those who tend to fly with confirmed tickets this is rarely a concern, and can possibly yield a monetary compensation and free ticket if a seat is forfeited. But if you’re me and attempting to fly standby on this international flight with an overbooking such as it is made me have to poop. Also, knowing that the flights would get progressively worse as the holidays drew nearer, didn’t make things better. (again wanting to poop.)
Yet there I was, at 4:15am at the United check-in counter in the Bangkok International airport. “Yes, these are my bags. Yes, I packed them myself. No, I’m not carrying anything that a stranger gave me. No, I have nothing that could be used as a weapon, unless you count my searing wit.” They don't count that by the way...wit, but they do count tweezers.
I’m told to come back to the counter at 5:45am where I’ll hopefully be handed a faux boarding pass that will at least allow me through customs to the gate. So, for the next hour-and-a-half, I sat amongst a large group of Thai Muslims, who appeared to have been here for…ever. They had set up camp with blankets and newspapers scattered on the floor. Jackets and unpacked pairs of pants being used as pillows. It looked a lot like what I picture a refugee camp to look like. Families crowded around the seating area, bodies strew across the floor with mouths agape, emitting loud snores from heaving chests. I watched as one woman stepped into a robe, draping herself from forehead to toe. She kneeled on n open coat spread out on the floor and began to pray, bowing several times touching her head to the floor.
The group must have been part of some kind of group exodus or something. Maybe these were the one hundred overbooked people on my flight. Maybe I should join the women in her prayers. Then, in a flash they packed up and were gone. Carts ladled with baggage, women in their shirpas, all of them were off, and I was left alone watching world cup news on BBC.
5:45am. I’m was issued a second faux boarding pass. I was going through customs! Maybe it should be noted that today I was at an eleven day overstay on my Thai visa. They tell you not to do this, and they charge you for everyday over your visa you stay. Not knowing how much this would amount to, I had a wallet thick with Baht, ready to pay what it took to get on this plane. Yet my passport was stamped and handed back, nothing mentioned of my over-stay. I proceeded to the terminal; my wallet still thick with paper bills which would cause pain in my hip joints whenever I sat.
At the gate, they were already boarding the plane. This was good, less I had to wait to be rejected. “Mr. Kring.” During my time in Thailand I’ve learned to respond to Kring, Klein, or Kleen, anything that sounds remotely close. My boarding pass was handed over. I couldn’t believe it. What happened to the 100 + people that were vying for seats on this thing? Can’t say I wasted too much time caring, I was on the plane with my seatbelt tight across my lap – I didn’t even wait until the flight attendant showed me how to use it.
The six-hour flight flew by, literally and figuratively. Coming into Tokyo the countryside looked like that of an elaborate model train set. I’ve come through Narita now about half a dozen times, but never had I noticed it looking this odd. There were outcroppings of trees that looked strategically placed by giant hands, the highways, frontage roads, golf courses and country side seemed to be perfectly manicured like green flocking sprinkled on a Styrofoam landscape. Like one you’d see at a hobby shop. The way the afternoon light hit it all made it look so…fake. Beautifully fake.
A short wait at the new terminal, across from the sushi stand, and they were now loading the flight to LAX. It too was supposedly overbooked by a stupid amount. Yet low and behold, “Mr. Kring,” was called again. My new boarding pass was issued. A yellow one! The golden ticket! This meant Mr. Kring was sitting Business Class. This meant Mr. Kring was going to get a plastic cup of champagne. Good times.

I was sipping my cup of champagne as we taxied from the gangway. I was fishing for my complimentary eye-mask when something went BOOM!
The plane shook, jostling the remains of my beverage. At first I thought we were struck by one of those baggage carts. I mean we’ve all seen these guys manhandle our baggage, what makes you think they can handle an automobile any better? A Kamikaze baggage handler had driven his car into our landing gear!
I was wrong. A stewardess got on the PA. And informed us that there was in fact a BOOM. (I crap you not, she used those exact words.)
She followed this profound statement with telling us that it was being investigated.
Meanwhile a stewardess had positioned herself a row front of me. A passenger has asked her what was up. Her response:
“Well, we’re not quite sure, but there’s smoke coming from one of the engines, and there are pieces of it on the ground.” I swallowed what was left in my plastic cup and thought, Wow, Uniteds finest.
The co-pilot then go on the horn, and he tells us that the explosion came from the number 3 engine but that they don’t know what’s up because there is no indication in the cockpit that something is wrong, but they’re going to have a mechanic come out and assess the situation. My faith in the uniformed crewmembers is dwindling.
We sit. We wait. I read a little.
We sit, we wait. A guy in a red hard hat boards the plane. Pilots walk around. They go outside. They come back in with flashlights. It’s getting dark now.
The captain then gets on the PA. He says he has good news.
Hmmm, there are pieces of the engine on the runway and he has good news?
He proceeds to tell us that there was a problem with the engine’s starter. The pieces of the engine that are on the tarmac were meant to come off in the event of such a problem, to allow decompression of the engine.
Ah, the engine is meant to come apart! Oh good, my faith is restored.
As I’m hearing this I’m looking up at the co-pilot who is chatting away with some stewardess. He sports a green necktie with a festive Santa and reindeer print. In recent years I’ve really come to despise holiday themed neckwear. For some reason I tend to harshly judge those who wear it, and I bet this guy’s been waiting since last Christmas to wear this stupid thing. Well his time has come. The holiday season is upon us, and so too are the far too many men who insist on wearing stupid themed ties. And more often then not they’re men within who’s hands your life often lies, like anesthesiologists, District Court Judges…airline pilots.
Truth be told, I had a Beatles, “yellow submarine” tie once. I didn’t know any better then, I was in Jr. High! Come to think of it I also had a tie that featured Popeye, a gift from a girlfriend at the time. What ever happened to that thing…now that one ruled!
Anyway, the Captain continues with his “good news,” telling us that they can replace the starter and put the engine panels back on. However it will take at least 2 hours to fix.
At this point my anxieties as a standby passenger rear their ugly head. If this plane doesn’t take off, I’m buggered in the biggest way. This would mean all the jokers on this flight would be filtered onto every subsequent flight, leaving no room for poor Mr. Kring. I began to get used to the idea becoming a permanent resident of Japan.
We’re also told that we won’t de-board the plane and that they’d prefer us to stay seated unless we had to use the lavatory. That makes for a good eleven hours I have to sit in this seat. The one I was so excited to have in the first place. And where does the word “lavatory” come from? And why do we only call bathrooms on airplanes lavatories? And does anyone actually call it this except for flight attendants?
These thoughts were interrupted by the stewardess who, quick to dawn her customer service hat, jumped on the PA and was all…”I’ll play the movies while we wait!”
As it turned out we were all in for a real treat cause the featured movie was “Must love dogs.” Which I haven’t seen but I hear sucks retards. Luckily, as a golden ticket holder, I’ve got my own little tellie with witch I can change the channel to much better movies like, “The Perfect man” and “Hitch.” I truly am in hell.
Not fifteen minutes into this fine cinematic experience, we’re interrupted yet again. It’s the damn stewardess of course, and she’s all…“As it turns out folks, it’s going to take longer than initially thought to repair the engine. We are going to de board the plane.”
The plane is rigged to one of those big-wheeled cars, and we’re toed to an area that seems to be a big parking lot for DC-10s. The entire plane is then unloaded onto busses. The evening air is cold and crisp, a stark contrast to the hot languid air of Bangkok. I suck in deep, filling my lungs with it. It feels good to be cold. For the first time I’m able to wear a sweater I purchased from a Chinese street vendor months back. It’s very much worth the twelve dollars I paid for it.
After being ushered into a new terminal, we’re told that we’ll re-board at 8:00pm. Where’d they get this two hour B.S. they told us earlier!? However, I do catch wind that our ticket stubs are worth about 1200 yen at a snack shop upstairs. I buy a salad and a cheese plate. (Not very Tokyo of me, I know.) As I stuff the a Brea topped cracker into my mouth, it dawns on me that my little yellow stub will get me into the Red Carpet Club! Ah, the golden ticket continues to pay dividends!
CUT TO:
Mr. Kring sits in the exclusive comforts of the Red Carpet lounge. Which doesn’t really even have red carpet, but does come furnished with a self-serve beer tap with frosted glasses.
CUT TO:
Mr. Kring sits in a cushy lounge chair eating a nut mix, slurping on a frothy beer, typing this blog entry on his laptop as Japanese commuters flip through their zines from back to front, reading up and down on the printed pages. Japanese are so weird.