Traveling with children meant revisiting familiar places around the world. When taking a 15-month-old, or a six-month-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old internationally, the adventure seemed to be the kids far more than the destination – or at least that's what we needed it to be. So I've spent ten years visiting favorite, familiar places – with the exception of Borneo that I did last year with my cousin Jacob.
Lately, I've been thinking about how whenever I have travel opportunities without the kids during my 50 percent of the year when I don't have them, I should start to spread my wings again and. work down my list of countries I've been wanting to encounter. This winter break, Emily will have the kids – so I'm imagining where I might go and toying first and foremost with French Guiana (which is belongs to France, in case you didn't know). Or maybe Brazil and Argentina. Somewhere warm when the Northern Hemisphere is cold.
But today, I'm heading to familiar territories – but maybe in new ways.
For example, my Mileage Plus Gold status with United got me upgraded to Premium Plus seating – which is kind of like what Business Class used to be with really nice seats, real dishes and linen napkins – but not lay-flat seat/beds. In fact, when I lived in Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore – there weren't many planes with lay-flat, which meant First Class was just bigger, more comfortable chairs than Business Class. So there I was, in was in the Premium Plus Is The New Business Class, flying in relative comfort. No complaints.
Before departing I spent a couple of hours at the United Club lounge. When I arrived in Hong Kong, I sought out the Star Alliance Gold lounge which turned me away because my Hong Kong to Bangkok leg is on Hong Kong Airlines – a United partner airline that isn't part of Star Alliance. Luckily, I had my Priority Pass card that's one of my AMEX Platinum benefits and I was able to use the Chase Sapphire Lounge instead.
I was 23 when I landed in Thailand for the first time and ended up staying a year. I'm now 46 and on my way back. At 23 I had a backpack and was excited enough to be on Thai Airways economy class. Today I flew United Premium Plus and I still thought it wasn't quite as good as Singapore Airlines – which my family and I have used for years now. When I couldn't get into one premium lounge, I scrounged another.
From 23 to to 29 I lived and traveled throughout Asia. I usually took either the best fare – or the most direct flight I could afford. The few upgrades I received were mostly from White Privilege – most Asian carriers placed a premium on their foreign passengers. My friend Jesiah and I were thrilled to be in First Class on the upper deck of a 747 from Taipei to Hong Kong – even if it was just a two hour flight on China Airlines. One time Cathay Pacific inexplicably put me in Business Class between Singapore and Hong Kong – and that still stands out.
Life has changed.
Walking around the Hong Kong Airport during my layover, I felt at ease. Not much has changed. In fact, the current airport was relatively new the first time I arrived from Taipei on December 31st, 2003 – JUST in time to celebrate New Year's in Hong Kong. The only surprise was that in spite of the familiarity and all the memories, I realized it's been almost 8 years since I've been in this airport and almost 13 years since I actually walked the city. How is that possible when I still know the passages, scents and cultural idiosyncrasies like the back of my hand?
Heading down to the train between terminals, I remembered carrying Sennen down the escalator at 2.5 years old and schlepping the stroller as Emily and I made our way to and from Bali with two kids in diapers. As I walked down a concourse, I remember Jesiah and I buying our first cellphones with Bluetooth – and me not knowing quite what Bluetooth was or why it was so important that we get phones with it (that was Jesiah's idea – and I don't think either of us ever tethered to anything with those phones). Along another concourse, I saw the gate where in 2004 I waited for my first flight into Mainland China and remembered the trepidation I felt, especially coming from Taiwan where I was living and working at the time. Later Is aw the junction in the main terminal where I parted ways with my friends Conlan and Chris Miko after we all met up in in Hong Kong in 2005, me wearing a jacket that become too big for me during a skinny period and with hair and beard that were their full original brown and red.
One of the great parts of familiar places is the yard stick they offer for yourself and your life. Pieces of me and the people I love are written in corridors, escalators, gates, streets, neighborhoods, rice fields, temples, roads and beaches.
Today, my Hong Kong experience didn't add much to the books other than an opportunity to reflect, lounge and charge my phone between flights. But it does have me excited to return in a week for a day in the city – to make new memories in Hong Kong.
The past doesn't necessarily offer any roadmaps for the future. But sometimes connecting to who we were and how we got to our present can be helpful. I ponder my future a lot, still unsettled with my present. Especially given I spent a portion of the flight reviewing the recently drafted documents for final dissolution of my marriage – making notes on all the little things that need review or correction.
Sometimes I worry about how Emily and I will each continue to afford a lifestyle we really had because we combined incomes. Other times - mostly on the weeks I don't have the kids – I wake up wondering what I'm doing in Westlake Village at all. Then I remind myself I have the tendency to assume that what exists today is all there ever will be - which is most certainly wrong because life is far from a series of constants. Opportunities and challenges yet unforeseen will come into the mix and change whatever I imagine. Yet I also need to chart a course, because life is a balance between agency and acceptance. Just what that means for me right now, I don't know.
Of course, my younger self passing through Hong Kong all those many visits didn't always have a clear direction either. Sometimes he did. In 2011 finishing a year of travel with his new wife he did. Walking around Hong Kong with his buddies, he more or less did. One time, he walked Hong Kong alone during a lonely moment when his life and work in Singapore felt unclear and uncertain. And a couple of times, he was just shepherding babies through the airport, stopping so his son could eat the foods he learned about reading Yum Yum Dim Sum.
Sipping orange and lemon infused water from the Sapphire lounge, does any of it really matter? Maybe not tonight.
Perhaps it's time to set the past and future aside for the night and look ahead to Bangkok in just a few hours. Bangkok is no shorter on memories – but in Bangkok, it's hard to be too sentimental. Life awaits and I have a week to refresh and reboot in Thailand. Which is why this year I will forgo my usual One Night In Bangkok references. Damn – I just did it again.
