Day zero was day zero because I did nothing but fly, about eight and a half hours to Hong Kong and about three and a half hours to Singapore. Visiting the international terminal of an airport is one of the most concentrated ways to be reminded why capitalists cannot be trusted with liminal spaces. You can always smell - perhaps even taste? - the thousands of erections popped whenever they think about you and your wallet trapped there with no enrichment in the enclosure except spending money.
On first contemplation, I was thinking capitalists can’t be trusted with liminal spaces because the only thing they’ll ever think of to put in them is shops and ads. Then I realised even if they think of anything else, they would never allow it into the terminal because it would give you something to do other than shop or look at ads. Then I thought it over again and concluded that hypothetical is so vanishingly improbable it doesn’t merit discussion, because they definitely never made it past shops and ads. (Before anyone says I’m being unfair to that big water thing at Singapore Airport, I want you to check out its website and observe that it is both a shop and an ad.)
I did see this cool Vespa:
And this title, which isn’t strictly related to air travel but sure as fuck isn’t on planet Earth either:
(ID: book cover reading “Plans for Your Good | A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness | Scott Morrison | 30th Prime Minister of Australia | Foreword by Mike Pence” and picturing Scott presumably going for a sombre look by staring at his shoes, or possibly balls)
I imagine when you open this book, a screaming face bursts out like in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, but it’s Scott Morrison’s ghostwriter desperately begging to retire into a Sky News column before they make him do Peter Dutton.
What I love about this cover is the distinct stages you experience as you read down the lines. “Plans for Your Good” does not make it obvious where the subject matter is going, so you start off wondering why the cover image Scott’s publicist picked is him falling asleep while taking a shit. Then you get to the subtitle and realise it’s actually him falling asleep in church, but also that this book is going to be unhinged in a fashion as yet unimagined. For a second you think, “wait, God’s Faithfulness? Aren’t we meant to be the faithful ones?” but then you read the next two lines and it stops being funny when you remember our Prime Minister (and half the cabinet) was a bloke that got religion the wrong way around. It’s only then, when the night is darkest, that dawn comes with a cathartic reminder of how irrelevant Mike Pence is now. It’s not quite as concise as “for sale: baby shoes, never worn” but it’s still a lot of prose packed into twenty-two words.
I fired off a decidedly pointed email to my landlord at the very last second before taking off, then to chill out I spent my flight to Hong Kong watching all four Toy Story movies. Two notes on these movies: one, I’d never noticed before that Ben Shapiro was a child star:
(ID: top, a picture of Ben Shapiro holding a Barbie captioned by the Daily Beast headline “Ben Shapiro, 39, Films Himself Setting Fire to Barbie Dolls Because He Is Manly and MAD”; bottom, Sid Phillips from Toy Story)
Feel old yet?
Two, I rank these movies either 3,4,2,1 or 3,2,4,1, which either way means the first two sequels got continually better. I’m just pausing to pay respects to an original children’s film franchise with sequels that are actually good.
I landed in Hong Kong and had taken approximately 0.2 steps off the plane (not into the terminal - just into the bridge thingy) before my hands started sweating. Not too many steps later I accidentally busted the second zip off of the bag Pranj lent me, so I scoured Hong Kong airport for the cheapest bag I could find. Take a moment to guess how much you think that was.
Congratulations to those who guessed 40 AUD for a canvas tote, and condolences for whatever your HK airport experience was. The cheapest backpack I could find was roughly 220 AUD, which left me wondering the same thing I was wondering at Sydney airport. Last time I flew internationally - which, to be fair, was not recent - I had been led to believe the appeal of duty free airport shopping was that it was cheaper due to tax arbitrage. Which of the things they were selling was discounted? Was I seeing ridiculous deals on designer bags and clothes that I just couldn’t recognise because I have too much taste to shop for that stuff? Or has an extra decade of late capitalism grown the size of the price insensitive bourgeois nepobaby cohort so much that they no longer need to pass on discounts? I may never know, but I’ll think about it every time I look at my “I love Hong Kong” tote.
On my HK to Singapore flight I read Chokepoint Capitalism by Cory Doctorow, which did not make me less cynical about airport shopping. I also sat next to a mum and what I at first thought was an adorable kid, before he started telling his mum his power rankings of international airlines and I realised he is already inexorably walking the path to being insufferable. Not much is going to depress you like a ten year old explaining that he prefers Singapore Airlines to Emirates because of the extra legspace while you’re gently crunching your toes to try and calm your back pain.
I landed in Singapore at about 8:30 local time. I didn’t actually get to see the water thing at Singapore airport, although I was also a little bit too edgy to really enjoy it anyway. Obviously I did not bring any drugs to Singapore, or have any in the 48 hours before I arrived, but it was hard to shake the anxiety that I’ve spent so much time spanking the dank in the past year that literally everything I own must have a detectable amount on it. Suffice it to say I did not run up to pet the sniffer dog.
Once I got my ducks in a row I called a Grab (Southeast Asian Uber) and stepped out to wait for it, before realising it was 31 degrees and 70% humidity and immediately stepping back in. We made it to the hotel, where the driver pointed out to me that I hadn’t added a card to the app, and I realised I didn’t have any SGD cash. I tried to add my card to the app, and thought I couldn’t because I needed my Australian phone number, without realising I could have also sent the verification code to my email. This was not a high moment for me as a tech nerd, especially since it resulted in me sprinting around Clarke Quay, drenched in sweat, looking for the one ATM within five hundred metres so I could pay 8 SGD to withdraw cash (twice, because the first time I didn’t withdraw the right change).
Frankly, given the scope of potential fuckups in my first overseas trip in ten years, I would say I made it to the hotel pretty uneventfully. I didn’t get the firing squad for drug trafficking, so no complaints from me. I mean, aside from all the ones above.
And that was it - I made it to the hotel, crashed and slept for eleven hours. Day zero complete.