And here I am again, not seven months after coming back the last time... homecoming just seemed a little bit different this time... I was sitting at the Melbourne airport, and mulling - " You know, I don't think I'm ready to go home thie time.' It just felt like I didn't earn it, you know... it's the middle of the year, and I've had relatively easy rotations for the first half of the year.

And yes, I have definitely used up my "sitting next to pretty impressionable young girl on the trip home" quota for my lifetime, and so I will have to secretly resign myself to sitting next to old men and crying babies for the rest of my traveling life...

It's great for the movie watching experience, though! I got to watch SpiderMan 3 finally, which I (secretly) enjoyed... I just love movies which make you think it's over and then just keeps hitting you with wave after wave of action! And I still think the MJ-Spidey romance remains my favuorite superhero romance (I just don't think Cyclops and Jean Grey work for me, I mean, what if he asked her to look him deeply in the eyes?)

Oh, by the way... if you have not watched "Knocked Up" yet, stop reading this blog and go and watch it! One of the most sincere films I have seen in a long time, and yes, I am clucky! It's an amazingly sweet and brutally honest film, and will put your relationships into perspective. Be warned, guys, if your girlfriends drag you to this movie, be ready to have her telling you that she wants the baby. Now.

Twenty Eight Minutes

There are many stages to the ritual of my going home. There is the drop off and the hugs. There is the waiting in the snaking queue for your check-in. There is the lingering around the perfumed aisles of the Duty Free gift shop trying to do some last minute shopping. There is the sitting in the waiting area, journal in hand, and just scribbling from a homeward heart. And then there is the eight long hours home.

Nothing comes close, however, to make me feel like I'm finally home like the ERL train ride from the airport to KL Sentral.

I am a person whose life does not include the luxuries of friends or families waiting excitedly at the airport gate eager for my return. There is the lonely walk to the elevators which lead to the ERL, and then taking up four seats by myself as I await the 28 minute journey to KL Sentral.

Strangely enough, however, it is a routine with which I am now fiercely keeping and have grown to love and associate with the home coming.

Nothing reminds me more that I am back in Malaysia, than when I sit in the garish fluorescent lights and the infomercial TV screen flashes alternating news and YTL advertisements. I love that infomercial screen, one look at the advertised restaurants or upcoming cultural events, and my heart immediately whispers 'Home'.  

The ride itself is beautiful, and I know of a registrar of mine who takes these solitary train rides by himself (he's done it in China, India and he's going to the Australian Indian Pacific one as we speak, I think) because it gives him time to think. 

In those 28 minutes of motion, I sit and watch as dawn's fingers slowly creeps across the land, rubbing sleep from the eyes of the forests, and the roads. The beauty of Malaysia is evident, a mixed picture of development and natural beauty.

The world goes past you in fast forward, as the view in your window changes at constant speed like a movie screen.

You whip by the secondary forests with the scattered tall trees among them, and interspersed in the background you can just make out the metallic roofs of the squatter homes. You see the small roads snaking into the little townships brimming with their little town stories. You pass the meticulously arranged palm oil plantations, the tranquil rivers and lakes beneath quietly reflecting the trees and undergrowth above them.  

Greenery gives way to the well lit highways, and soon you approach the city limits, as the natural jungle shapeshifts into the cement jungle that I've come to know so well, this disorderly chaotic mess that somehow successfully survives day after day, this place I lovingly call home.