Paranoid Agent

5/16/09 10hrs to Tokyo wasn't so bad. Airbus 330 really delivers with personal touch screen monitors on every seatback and a vast selection of movies available for your entertainment/distraction. They fed us twice. Normally I'm not too enthusiastic about airline food, but I gobbled that shit down. Must've been hungry. Also had about 900 new songs on my iPod from Christine to sort through, decide what to keep, what to toss. This helped kill some time. Thanx Christine.

Goddam swine flu. I missed my connecting flight to Seoul form Tokyo due to paranoia. A team of quarentine specialists boarded once we landed. Decked out in medical HazMat suits they routinely checked every passenger onboard, delaying us by an hour. Must have been an expensive process. They photographed everybody with a special camera that alledgedly took an infrared image of every person onboard. Those that displayed a risky heat signature were isolated for further tests. I was released, too late to catch my flight to Korea, missing my further connection to Ulaanbaatar (ULN). They gave me a later flight to Seoul with a connect to ULN by noon the next day. I ended up spending a fitful night and following morning at Incheon Intl' Airport S.Korea. Lame. Goddam swine flu. Goddam paranoid agents. Just another example of how I can trace all of my problems to intensive agriculture through six degrees of separation or less.

So I finally made it to ULN by 3pm local time May 15th. My sore throat had gotten worse and I was racked by jet lag/sleep deprivation. On top of that I was still wearing the clothes I put on three days ago. Gross. I was escorted to my apartment by two Mongolian gentlemen, after which I promptly passed out, on the couch no less. The bed is only equipped with a box spring. No pillows. No sheets. No mattress. I guess "fully furnished" is open to interpretation.

Snow this morning. WTF? I guess I can kiss summer goodbye. Time to explore my new world.

ULN 5/16/09