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Killing time at airports
Life is not fair.
Most of the time, I try to find the time to do everything I want to do. Time-challenged is what I am.
Occasionally I manage to squeeze out quality time to spend with friends and family. Those times are precious. Quality time is when you get to pay undivided attention to the other person and filter out all distractions.
Then there are times that I wish I could allocate elsewhere, such having to wait at doctors and dentists or to wait for delayed trains and flights. If I don't have a good book or magazine with me, then I feel like I'm wasting the time I could spend doing something else.
Yes, life is not fair. We can't always allocate waiting time to doing time, or even out the way time is available.
At airports, there are plenty of distractions and temptations. Once upon a time, duty-free shopping kept me occupied until boarding time. Having conquered shopaholicism and learned that duty-free doesn't mean "less expensive" or "value for money", I no longer enjoy visiting such stores. The only exception is bookstores at airports. They are worth browsing through but not to buy, only to survey the kinds of titles that present audiences enjoy.
Some airports, like the one in Hong Kong, offer free internet connection. I have sent many emails from the free computers there. Others offer free local phone calls, like Singapore's Changi Airport.
For days I've been wondering how I was going to kill transit time in Bangkok. I'd arrive more than an hour before midnight and leave a few hours after that. I brought my laptop, which has a battery life of 3 hours, to update this journal. Then the flight got delayed so I had another hour to kill.
By chance, I stumbled upon the Thai Massage area. I decided, for the first time, to treat myself to something different. For a mere 20 Euros (800 Baht), I received massage of the shoulders, arms, hands, legs, feet, and head. Those 45 minutes released toxins from my body. Subsequently I had the best 10 hour-flight ever.
Thai massage cured my jetlag. Instead of avoiding Bangkok as a transit stop in the future, I welcome it. Thai massage is surely the best way to kill time at airports. Unfortunately, Thai massage is not available at every airport.
But then, no one said that life was fair.
27 April 2004 Tuesday
Related links:
Transatlantic jetlag
Reverse jetlag
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