Flight mate

On my first solo trip overseas, I flew to Melbourne to escape the Chinese New Year. A brilliant idea which took seed on my birthday when I spent a miserable day being reminded how alone I was despite friends trying to celebrate with me and cheering me up.

Anyway, at the start of my 7.5 hour flight, I was happy that I was assigned to a window seat, my favourite. However, upon getting to my seat, a little Chinese girl sitting in the middle seat politely asked if I minded changing seats with her so that she could look out the window. :( How could I say no?

I ended up sitting on the aisle with her father in between us. They could not speak much English but the father knew more English words than I knew Mandarin so in many broken sentences punctuated by hand gestures, we started communicating. He was sending his daughter to a school in Hobart, Tasmania for a month. Sort of like an overseas exposure programme. Which is a great idea. Except I didn't understand when I asked how she would survive if she didn't know a word of English and he said she didn't need to. Perhaps this is a Chinese school.

He shared how excited he was that China is now finally allowing a second child policy and he hopes to work hard to earn money to afford a second child. It would be their present to their daughter, a sibling. Again, I am reminded how I take having my siblings for granted and I'm grateful for having 3 siblings who have been there throughout the hardest part of 2015.

Since this was their first trip to Australia, I sort of became a tour guide, helped them understand the flight attendant when they came by with their food trays, helping him fill out the immigration form, telling his how strict Australia is on food that is brought in. The little girl then commented to her father how helpful I was. That was heartwarming.

I now have a friend from Yu Nan Kunming :)

An Indian guy overheard my advice asked me if I was from Melbourne as we waited for our luggage. He wanted to know where he could get wifi and I simply told him, right here where you're standing :) Thank you Melbourne Airport for the free working wifi (unlike Singapore Airport where you'll have to go to the counter and ask for a password to log in).

Maybe my knack of meeting random people asking for directions in KL is what the universe wants me to do, be a tour guide sort of thing. But one thing for sure, I do enjoy meeting people on a one on one basis, getting to know them and their story. This is surprising because I think I'm an introvert. Maybe my friend Audrey is right, I'm an ambivert.

Time and more experience will tell and perhaps reveal who I really am inside.