There is a prologue because there are things worth putting in a prologue. This was the longest and furthest and costliest trip in my life and my first time in US territory. A grand total of 18 days (16 on ground due to time difference) from 1-18 Oct 2023!
The catch is that the trip was actually supposed to start on 30 Sep hahaha. Despite all the travel experience, all the past drilling, it never occurred to me that I needed a tourist visa until about 3h before the 6.15am flight. So that was when I applied and of course didn't get the approval in time (it came about 1.5h after the plane took off). Sometimes, I feel like an observer of myself. While I was definitely sian about making such a rookie bungle and from getting up at 3am for nothing, I noticed that I felt nothing about paying the extra $450 to rebook the same flight for 1 Oct. But, there was this spark of glee since I'd be able to join the family mooncake party that night, that I was previously sian of having to miss. So I've no idea what happened, but since $450 was all it cost to learn the lesson (there were many ways where things could've be much worse), I considered myself lucky. Afterall, if money can solve a problem, it's not a problem~ Just gotta maintain the resources for any future unforeseen circumstances/mistakes which there no doubt will be.
This brings me to the trip dates. I certainly didn't forecast the mooncakes and everything else that would happen while I was away, because a trip of this signature had to be planned as far in advance as it could go, somewhere back in 2Q. Now I shall try to describe the magnitude of wrangling needed to get all the necessary stars to align... This was because a large part of this year's narrative (for me) was dominated by the job change. Know those games where each player, apart from having a main role and objective, has a secret side mission that reaps extra points if fulfilled? Enabling this trip kinda felt like that. This is not the post to go into detail so in brief, my aim had always been to change jobs at end-2023 but I inadvertently started the process a bit too early, in 1Q. That's not a bad thing in itself considering that a new posting is never guaranteed. But I certainly didn't wanna make a bad impression by disappearing for 2.5 weeks early into a new job. And of course there were also other more valid reasons why I couldn't simply up and leave the current job so easily and early. At some point on my tightrope walk between maintaining opportunities and enabling an ideal scenario, my boss remarked to me that things seemed to be going the way I wanted. That was definitely true for more reasons than one and so I'm nothing short of thankful for all the people and elements involved.
This saga really was quite exciting to me and myself in my own little world hahaha. And these were just the stars on my side, there was also the friend and her own set of stars. One thing to disclose is that I had absolutely zero interest in travelling to the US... Like yes there are amazingly pretty places there, but so are there in regions closer to home. So she was the whole reason I even bothered. I'd refer to this friend as J, as she was featured in the past, but there's another J waiting to enter to story. So J1 it is, my first REP friend and the roomie who was stuck with me literally from start to end of exchange! And despite all that, amazingly, this was the first time only 2 of us travelled together on a trip.
Looking back, there must've been a whole galaxy's worth of lucky stars shining on us for this trip to have happened when it did. A window opened to an exotic location amidst the turbulent work arrangements on both our ends. But the amount of effort it took to hold the window open, to bring into reality a hulk of a trip that could've so easily become an impossibility... There are v v few people I'd have done this for hahaha.
I'm truly glad it happened. As per girl math logic, I gained many happy memories and err covered many kilometers, so this trip was free right? No lol, I still paid a lot of money for it but the memories bit is true and they will last a lifetime.
So here I attach a picture of the Milky Way which was probably home to some of our lucky stars, and a wefie from the first day after I successfully landed and the trip began for real xD
Next Part we get to the actual travels haha, starting in Oahu.
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