Happy CNY :)

The traditional mad rush to Senai airport had never quite been uneventful before, and this time round proved no exception, as I discovered when I once again set off down the happy trail towards Johore Bahru, heading home for Chinese New Year.

At 4pm I walked out into blistering sunshine with a sleeveless shirt and a murmured wish that I don't get a headache from the heat. By the time I arrived at an overcrowded Jurong East MRT station, though, the skies had darkened, and the first traces of what soon escalated into an all out storm began trickling from the gray heavens.

And as usual, I was raincoatless and umbrellaless. Just my luck.

Fortunately due to my setting off early, the causeway wasn't quite a bottleneck of jammed metallic tranportational devices yet, so all I needed to get across was to fight alongside a monstrous swarm of people for the buses, which each left their stops more stuffed than sardine cans. At the other end, the pouring weather and the already considerable queue at the run-down Malaysian customs checkpoint gave me the sweet opportunity to make a little wade-dash in the rain, with my back arched over my laptop bag and my feet and my dear sandals splashing in inch-deep water. Talk about adventure.

So finally against the odds and the beating raindrops I arrived at the airport's city lounge at Kota Raya, where I to my extreme horror met Foo, also heading for Senai airport (to catch a flight an hour earlier than mine). After forking out a painful RM 8 for the previously free shuttle service to Senai, I was also blessed with the chance to pace, fiddle and generally sit in idle wait for the damned shuttle bus, which happily arrived about 30 minutes past schedule.

10 minutes later, when we were all snugly settled in our seats, the bus lumbered off in the direction of the airport - to be promptly caught in a terrific jam that basically lasted the entire way to the airport, tripling the time of the journey. And here I was worrying about arriving at the airport too early (I set out a full 5 hours before my flight)! As it turned out the attendant on the shuttle bus hooked up with the guys in the airport to delay poor Foo's flight, and so he fortunately made it onto the plane and flew off to Catland.

As for me, being ravenously hungry and rather short on time, I bought and wolfed down a quick meal at the new Marrybrowns outlet in the airport, nearly choking and killing myself, and thereafter hurried to the boarding gate to be greeted by the news that my flight just got delayed by half and hour.

Sigh.

Well, shit happens when it wants to. I guess what's important is that everything turned out well in the end. Sure, it may not have been the most smooth-sailing of trips, but many more things could have gone wrong. As it turned out God decided to answer all of my prayers despite the angry weather and ill circumstances, and I am grateful for that.

(Besides, it definitely wasn't the worse of trips, remembering things like the Chieh Ping's bag incident.)

And so I began this festive season rather wretched and abused, but with an acute inner sense of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving that I hope will remain in my soul as I stride firm steps into the new lunar year.

May it be that, though things may not turn out exactly as we want, there will always be room for reflection, that we may count our blessings and find joy.

Happy CNY :)