Thank God the flight from LA to Taipei wasn’t too bad or too long (only 13 hours as compared to 15 or 16). I was able to get about 5 hours of sleep, and they even had A\C power outlets so that I could charge my gear. Too bad on-board internet wasn’t available on this flight, hopefully by next year. I even got to read today’s entry in the One-Year Bible. I also got to watch 3 movies:

• V for Vendetta [more political statement than action movie, Natalie Portman finally putting in a more mature role and effort]
• Ice Age 2: The Meltdown [not as funny as the first one, but still good]
• 16 Blocks [surprisingly good, I am really growing to like Mos Def].

The VIP lounge in the Taipei airport is pretty nice with some decent food, comfortable chairs, A/C outlets and WIFI! Time to work on my speech which I have to give in a meeting on Sunday morning, yikes.

I was able to put together the outline for my talk and was planning on finishing it on the 4 hour flight from Taipei to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but I started fading fast and could barely focus on anything let alone my speech. So I ended up vegging out with a couple more movies:

• The Pink Panther [Steve Martin was perfectly cast for the role of Inspector Clouseau, and Jean Reno did a great job as the Inspector's assistant]
• Firewall [could have done without seeing this one, not one of Harrison Ford's better films, but it was good to see more of Paul Bettany from A Beautiful Mind]

(Sidenote: I sure am seeing a lot of movies, side effect of not being able to read to avoid airsickness and not having kids around to require my attention)

I’m keeping a photolog of my trip. Here’s a picture of my hotel room in Kuala Lumpur where I’ll be staying for a few days:

And here’s a shot of the view from my hotel room:

My original plan for the rest of the day was to finish up my speech, get an early dinner, workout and go to sleep early. So much for well-intentioned plans. I was able to finish my speech (as good as it’s gonna get in my mentally and physically fatigued condition), but then my A/C wasn’t working so housekeeping was going to send a repairman up but took him like an hour to show up and plus I was zoned out on the bed, so didn’t get to dinner (hotel food was like hotel food in the US, nothing to write home about) until late and now it’s time for bed.

Little things that I see during my trip keep reminding me that Rebecca and the girls aren’t with me this time. Here are some of them:

• Seeing the changing table in the airplane restroom where I would take Juliette and Elise to sit and play on as a minor diversion / distraction.
• Having to fill out immigration and customs forms by myself (Rebecca isn’t around to take care of that for me :p).
• In the VIP lounge, they have the big Yakult’s that the girls love to drink from the Taiwan 7-11.
• During dinner, there was a family the next table over with a little girl who was being defiant to her mom, and naturally, I thought of Elise .

Elijah came up with the idea of doing a running flight time since I’m going to be putting in a lot of airline miles this trip.

Total Accumulated Flight Time: 17 hours

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