A Surprising Discovery

Deep and Radical has gone abroad! Forthcoming entries will report on excellent new locations and provide fresh cultural insights. Before examining wonderful things on our planet, I’d like to mention an integral yet widely despised aspect of international travel.

Airplanes take passengers towards new adventures and exciting opportunities. Airports should be positive places filled with hope and energy and yet they manage to suck the spirit and funk from even the giddiest travelers. (Obviously this is not universally true. Some airports, like San Luis’, are little more than bus stations for air travel and can be pleasant, absolutely forgettable places. From here on, the word airport will refer only to major international hubs, where one might have to wait in excess of 8 hours for a connection.) At airports, all the world’s people gather together to sit in miserable discomfort, waiting to be stuffed in metal tubes. These cold, sterile, and overpriced places are only slightly preferable to old fashioned, months long sea and overland voyages.

Landing in Singapore and looking down the barrel of a six-hour layover following over twenty hours of restless travel, despair filled Deep and Radical’s heart. Fortunately, when I needed it the most, I discovered what might be the planet’s least terrible international airport.

Singapore’s Changi Airport actually provides a mellow and soothing atmosphere, especially in the wee hours before the masses pour in to catch their flights. Everything is so relaxed even the attendants at the 24 hour services slept openly and unashamed at their posts, only to wake instantly to perform their duties with a sweet smile when a customer came calling. I dozed in comfy lounge chairs in the quiet sleeping section, recharging my brain and soul just a little. As I spaced out on koi drifting lazily around their zen ponds my initial homesickness waned.

Changi would be so much sicker if I could swim with the koi, touch the koi, and fish for then eat the koi. Get it together Singapore.

Changi even has a butterfly enclosure. Watching the carefree creatures fluttering in the humid Singapore air felt like a vacation within a seriously awful travel period. The massage centers, ultra-classy shower rooms (with free snacks), and a 24 hour movie theater distracted me from my spiritually trying situation, but only temporarily. No matter which attraction I attended, my traveling induced sleep deprivation always brought me crashing back down into a spiritual and physical funk.

Then I found that certain convenience stores at Changi Airport carry Colt 45 in cans. No massage can match the magic provided by that good stuff and I felt pretty good after helping myself to a few. I fell asleep real fast too.

Equally baffling but less delightful was Lone Star Light, a beer I've never seen before