NRT-TPE

The plane rocked and shook so horribly. In the dense cloud cover I could see the occasional flashes of the white light on the tip of the wing. I felt my stomach turn, and my brains fill with images of the aircraft hurtling out of control and plunging into the ocean below. In my mind, I could picture one or both of the engines breaking off. The turbulence was that violent... It didn't help that the B777-200 plane was over ten years old (I wouldn't be surprised if it were much older...)

When you are sitting in the middle of the cabin, surrounded by people and have no way of looking out the window, you start imagining things, and often it's imagining the worst...

But three hours in a half asleep state of mind, interrupted by really bad rice with chicken terriyaki (there was no other choice) I landed on the island I was born on.

It felt so surreal to be back again, merely four months or so after I was last here. My third visit of the year. Surreal also in the way that just a few days ago I was planning and anticipating (with mixed feelings) flying back here, and here I am...

  Every timeI half expect someone to come greet me as soon in the arrivals hall. And as I quickly walked through the crowd of waiting families and friends, my eyes somehow welled with tears. Of course there is no one there, and I'd personal hate to trouble people to come all the way to fetch me. But it's heart warming and beautiful to imagine arriving home and being welcomed in the warm, warm embrace of a loved one, and being showered with kisses and smiles. It makes arriving home feel less empty.

But all that is waiting for me at home.