Sleep Walking Into Kuala Lumpur

It was a rough couple of weeks leading up to our Southeast Asia trip.  We hadn’t been sleeping much in the month of June or July, as we were constantly ticking off the various items on our mental (and physical) to-do lists.  In the midst of packing up our Boston life, setting up our new Brooklyn life, and finishing our actual work (oddly enough, the partners at my firm don’t let me bill for “mattress browsing”), we forgot to get excited for (and plan) our travels. 

We had the genius idea of staying up the night before our flight, so that we could finish planning our vacation (thanks, Vin), finish buying our new bedroom furniture (thanks, Vin), and finish drafting various motions in hopes of not logging in remotely from across the world (epic fail, Rucha).  It made sense, we thought, because our night time was Asia’s day time, and we would of course get an uninterrupted, satisfying sleep on our flight.  (Yes, we’ve traveled before.)

By the time the sun rose, we realized we were too tired to take the subway and NJTransit to Newark Airport.  We wanted to take a cab, but didn’t want to be subject to any surge prices as it became later into the day, so we just called a rideshare at 5 AM, six hours before our flight.   It made sense, we thought, because we could enjoy some complimentary food and other amenities in the Priority Pass lounge.

We got to the airport so early that the Priority Pass lounge was closed.  We sat on worn leather seats outside of the lounge, because god forbid we are not the first people in the lounge after the aggressive furniture shopping and answer-drafting that took place the night before (well, a few hours before).  When the lounge finally opened, we were too early for much of the food, and so we instead continued working on our earlier tasks, debating whether it was appropriate to have a beer at the crack of dawn because it was nighttime in Asia.

I was excited for my long sleep on the flight.  We were in a row of four, sandwiched between two passengers who at first seemed unassuming, quiet, and contained.  Unfortunately, the man sitting to my right decided it made sense to take up the entire armrest and lean into me for the duration of the 14 hour flight.  Unable to fall asleep with this man’s shiny head in my neck, breathing heavily into my clavicle, I stayed awake and tried to do more work and watch movies that made me cry, to lubricate my dry eyes.  Despite my exhaustion by the time we reached our layover in Tokyo, I willed myself to indulge in lots of free rice and seaweed snacks (and a bowl of hot ramen – that’s a little snack, right?) at the Priority Pass lounge, like a hero.  It’s hard to eat, sometimes, but I did it.

En route Kuala Lumpur, I passed out about 20 minutes into a Liam Neeson movie where one of his children is again captured and he proves he’s great at killing.

I woke up most likely in the middle of a REM cycle, because I could barely walk and didn’t know where we were.  Vin confirmed we had finally reached Kuala Lumpur, and I followed him to a taxi with one of my eyes still closed.

We finally got to our hotel about two hours after we landed.  We both collapsed onto the comfortable bed, eager to finally get a full night’s rest – only to discover we were wide-awake.  Vin and I just continued shopping for new furniture till we fell asleep.