Then, as the Airbus 330 cleared the ground in pursuit to kiss the skies (and HKG airport eventually), my worries and apprehension took shape of physical discomfort not least helped by the ultra-low temperatures maintained in flight. Food wasn’t great, but stuffing your mouth seemed a good idea to leave things behind. As the flight came to it’s end we witnessed some amazing sights of islands and cityscape of Hong Kong. We touched down at HKG at 1050 local, the brief transit between airplane and the air-conditioned  airport showed the the actual weather of the place- humid and hot – dues to huge jet washes, super hot tarmac, and the adjacent sea. The corridors even with the mechanized sidewalks were long enough to make you feel the small, ill equipped BAIL a better place to be than this. Most of friends were feeling sleepy and amidst all the clamor dozed off on the waiting seats. We went and made some phone calls ( 7USD, 350 Rs and about 4 min 36 sec call time ), and took strolls through the airport. It was lunch time and we headed to check in into duty-free area (the eateries were in there). I was flagged down by the customs people for many reasons i think. Firstly i was incessantly asking the ladies in front of me to hurry forward, a bunch of stupid American teens and tweens), next when i passed through the metal detector it bleeped like it’s pant and its insides were on fire and third my cabin baggage was flagged by the machine. First one had no cure, next they asked me to ste-on into an area and a lady (??!!) asked me to pull my shirt out. and frisked me with the metal detector again, which also bleeped like its pants.. You get the idea. it was loose change from the conversion, my metal belt hook, and the chains around my neck. after two tensed minutes when a couple of side-armed guards were pointing there things at me, i was declared good to go. i was then asked to open my cabin bag whcih had failed to ’satisfy’ the X-Ray machine. it was the deodrant can which was had not caused any anguish in BIAL. i discarded it and went to eat. i was hungry square due to lack of food and tension in the last ten min. We browsed around and found the Ramen place and paid HKD 60 to buy something that looked delicious and importantly vegetarian on the menu card. it turned it was strictly niether, it tasted horrible – some bland tasteless water-soup and a hundred type of noodles. it contained mushroom which from its texture and color i refuse to call veg. i wasted most of it. and headed to gate 26 where LAX bound Cathay Pacific CX882 was to arrive. and arrive it did, to gate 3.. The PA announcement made this clear in broken English that was as tasteless as the thing that had cost 60$. we had about 5 min to cross the galaxy called HKG from tip to tip to get to correct gate. And at 4610 local, we finally boarded the Boeing 747-400. the size of the airport was apparent to us when we taxied almost half an hour to come on correct runway. The 4 Pratt and Whitney turbofan jets engaged and the acceleration was amazing to experience.

We were flying against the clock time, so we went through an evening, a dusk, a night, a midnight, a dawn and an afternoon all packed into some 10 hours, the on-board entertainment was good, watched terminator salvation and part of hangover (all the guys who said it was amazing, i beg to differ). I was mostly spending my time looking at the flight info – Altitude, outside temperature, speed, ground speed and so on (max 10053m,  min -41C, max 995Km/h respectively)..

Then, America Ahoy! The blazing sun showed us the topography of Californian deserts, lagoons, deltas and cityscapes in a haze of searing up drafts. Some sights later we lost altitude, so quickly enough to feel it in the pit of your stomach. and then the touch down.. so much taxing more and then we were disembarking. American paranoia was palpable in the form of hundreds of plaques displaying info about rules of land (more like threat messages “pay fine for undeclared items”, “imprisonment for suspicious activity” , blah blah) the customs was a breeze, only question he asked was “can I have your I20?”. Baggage took some 40 min to arrive, we pulled them into trolleys (one thing about the trolleys: they’re best in bangalore, HKG had too small, and at bairport, both airports did not have trolleys with auto break like in Bangalore.. whatever you do we rock, uncle sam). stood outside the airport and felt the air too warm and humid for my liking. took a shuttle to Irvine, Parkwest leasing office for 105$, dest was which was 40 min away from LAX. the driver was really courteous and helpful, so we planned to give him a tip of 10$ at the end. when he gave the invoice he had already included 20$ tip – we had actually bought the courtesy and help- our first doze of Americanism.

We signed the lease for our apartment that we had booked from back home, and took the golf cart towards our home-to-be. The apartment was OK, not furnished at all, carpetted and air-conditioned. the looks of it told that it was not the best neighborhood in Icalifornia is one of the costliest states, and Orange county is costly among californian counties and Irvine is a privately owned city, owned by the Irvine Company. It was 6:30 and sun was blazing now.. my roomy, Karthik’s temporary accommodation host- vipul dropped in. he was exceptionally good, told us many things about apartment community, the city, the university, his job, his car etc and took us to walmart 12miles away (ride took about 10 min or less) we bought the essentials (minor grocery, washing powder etc) he gave us his phone and asked us to call, which we did, local and international alike. came home and he took us to a mexican place in Culver and Alton and bought us a welcome meal. we departed for the night (it was 9:00 and sun had set only then.. ) we could hardly sleep – jet lag, excitement over new home and place, (and in my case) a sad feeling of a boy who’s half a globe away from home for the first time in 21 years. I woke up much too soon at around 1 AM.

that was the story of my arrival.. it has been a rush since that night.. next day (8th sept), we cooked some breakfast and gulped it down. and went out on many an errand..we went to enquire about phone at AT&T in Culver and Alton to realize that if we have SSN we can get many things done in much better way..
One thing that is worth mentioning is that the people here are really courteous, everyone wishes you when you pass, people always wait for your queue, they smile while passing by and so on. But just like that cab driver it’s all so very phony, i mean in a way, i know you’re not meaning it but you always thank you for the slightest favor (like me just moving a step away from their path). I know it’s simply a reflex that has been inculcated in people here, and this reflex has just reduced many a words to a zero-value package, at the same time making life more difficult for those who don’t say sorry when everyone knows it’s not their mistake. the point in consideration is, when i was in front of a notice board reading it, a girl came behind me and stood trying to read the board, now i move out and i say “sorry”, firstly why should i say it, i dont mean it, do i? i have done nothing to deliberately block her view, nor has she said it. but somehow i am a culprit here for un-knowingly blockiong her view (and remember it was not my fault i blocked her view knowingly/unknowingly- i am bigger than the board and she is small and behind me). This extremely often usage of courtesy-words has robbed them of the real meaning. yes, i say thank you to the bus driver when alighting  the bus, for what? for dropping me to my stop, which is his duty and is being paid for? now consider if he saved my life from an accident, what do i say to him? You guessed it- I say thank you, the same one i say to him every morning and evening. this over-usage has reduced the value of these words by making them extremely common place and false value is pumped into them by unnecessarily making them a necessity – a striking similarity to the US dollar today. I have had this opinion about courtesy words all along i am only getting the full effect of them now..

one more thing worth mentioning is that work is done very quickly here, I made my college ID card, put value for printing in it, made it into a library card, got my bus pass, all in about 20 min. my bank account was opened and debit card issued in 20 min flat.
The cars here are amazing here: corvttes, massrattis, mazda, down to honda civics.. The city scape is beautiful with perfect lawn and night time sprinklers and so on..

I am writing this elaborate mail from library here, the college is huge, i mean all US univs are huge, but it’s nice to actuqally witness here – especially when i was late for my check in and i was lost that’s when i was impressed with how long each in-campus road can be. that apart – there’s system to use college owned cycles to commute by swiping your ID and paying and you know what, this system has a website – come on, what’s the point?

To end with, i am loving this place, from the amazingly smart people around, the conveniences, the cars, the Wi-Fi in campus and so on.. The girls are hot wherever you look, most are chinkis but appealing in some way, even the bank manager at Bank of America asked us if ‘girls’ was one of the criteria of choosing this university. I had half a mind to tell him that if it were we’d have gone to Las Vegas next door than come here..
Thus my first line: Uncle Sam can both make you like him and piss you off at the same time..