An update from row 45 of Singapore Airlines on my flight to Hong Kong

I lucked out with my own row of seats!

Dear friends and family!

After a wonderful send off in California I have started my long journey to Macau. I had a 4^th of July party and dinner on the 5^th and feel so supported and loved by everyone as I begin my next 11 month journey abroad. I flew out of San Diego at 7:35 with a lovely free upgrade to first class seating on United Airlines, and enjoyed a beautiful, golden sunset over the coast of California as I touched down in San Francisco Airport. My Hong-Konger shopping instincts might have already kicked in again as I picked up some dark chocolate raspberry Ghiradelli chocolate for my friends and co-workers that are helping me upon my arrival. I also picked up a tiny charger that gives an extra 17-20 hours of battery life on your I-phone and talked to some helpful clerks about the pre-paid airport chips found in the vending machines in Hong Kong Airport.

A beautiful sunset over San Francisco.

 As I waited to board my flight on Singapore Airlines leaving at 1 a.m., I Skyped and Facetimed two of my best friends for 2 hours and then my mother for another hour. They gave me a lot of pep talks and we gabbed about how exciting and lucky my life as a teacher can be. This is my third time going abroad to teach and I am so lucky to have been accepted for a position at the University of Macau.

Right now it is 11:48 a.m. in San Diego and 2:49 a.m. in Macau and there is about 3 hours left on my flight. I don’t know why I end up being so lucky on flights with my legs stretched out over an entire row of chairs and three pillows behind my back, neck, and feet! This has actually happened to me on 3 flights in the past year, one home from Chicago back in November, one from Thailand to Vietnam, and another from China back to Japan where I was teaching last summer of 2012. So with an upgrade to first class on my commuter flight and an entire row to myself on Singapore Airlines for the 13 hour flight, I’d say my trip has started off nicely

Flying into Hong Kong Airport.

Melanie and Laurent, two of my best friends from Korea in 2010-2011 have relocated his company and her teaching skills to Hong Kong and will be graciously picking me up at 6:30 am at the Hong Kong Airport after I go through customs. I am beyond excited as I get to see their sparkling faces on my first day back in Asia! They will help me with my bags and we will then hop in a cab over to the Hong Kong Ferry Terminal so I can get on an earlier Turbojet boat over to the island of Macau. The ferries leave every 15 minutes from the terminal but less regularly out of the airport terminal so this is why I have decided to just go through Hong Kong customs and leave the airport. Then we will part ways and Carol, one of the administrators at the University will be picking me up at the Macau ferry terminal after I go through Macau customs and we will head straight over to my apartment which is only about a 15 minute journey from there.

Watching Gangster Squad as Lauren requested!

I have quite a sneezing fit going on right now on the airplane ever since I sat down. But after sleeping the past 7 hours sprawled across three seats with my funny green eyed eye mask and giant earplugs, I am now feeling much better and sipping on a nice hot cup of tea. I also gargled down some dissolved Advil in a cup of warm water, a trick of the trade that my old British co-worker Kate taught me in Japan to cure a sore throat instantly. I am thinking about how wonderful my day was yesterday and as I looked back to my waving friends and family into their teary eyes I knew that I would feel down for about an hour or two and then I would be back in the international section of the airport which is a place I have come to feel very familiar and comfortable in. My sadness about leaving the people I love most is already almost completely gone. If I had to put it on a meter I’d say I feel about 10% sad about leaving and 90% excited and ready for another teaching contract abroad.

In a couple of hours I’ll be putting on my Rainbows and heading off to meet my friends in Hong Kong! I am always surprised by how small the world seems to be and my studies about globalization at USD have really come full circle since I completed my Masters. I will be constantly re-designing some of the pages on my website to make the sections more clear and will add all new posts about Macau to the Macau, China page as I continue to update regularly. I invite you to follow along throughout the year and hope I can stay in touch with many and inspire others!

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    Gone Seoul Searching by Marie Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at goneseoulsearching@gmail.com.