I Love Airports!

I love airports. My parents would kill me if they knew this back when I was studying in MARA College Seremban, but I used to take a trip to KLIA in the evening and spend a whole night there just sitting at a cafe with a good book to read. It was such an amazing experience. Airports never sleeps. The cafes are always open, and I can just sit there till morning overlooking the huge windows and watch planes land and take off. Sometimes I just watch and observe people coming out from the arrivals gate and play a guessing game of where they come from. Back then, I was so determined to travel around the world. So watching planes gave me that strong motivation.

The kind of airport café I love

Today, my dreams of traveling around the world is partly fulfilled. Everywhere I travel, I always take time to sit at cafes in airports and reminisce the days when I spend the whole night at airports. I still spend nights at the airports these days. I had one of the best airport stay in Singapore's Changi airport where me and my friends stayed the night waiting for our flight to Boston the next morning. We were given VIP lounge tickets. The lounge was absolutely amazing! There's unlimited supply of food (not mentioning the unlimited supply of coffee). There's a gym, shower and sauna. Coolest night in airport ever!

I also like Narita's airport in Japan because it's cute. I don't know how to describe it, but the hallways had low ceilings as if accommodated for cute asians only. Haha. I spend the whole time at Narita listening to 'Lovers in Japan' by Coldplay.

Then there's Detroit's long long airport I spent an evening waiting for my friends being 'interrogated' by US homeland security. The airport's cool because it had a train that transverses its whole length. I took the train back and forth just for fun, or because I got too bored waiting for my friends.

I also like Jakarta airport where me and my friends talk all night at Bengawan Solo coffeehouse till morning come, and we took our flights back home.

There's nothing much interesting about the airport in Madrid, but sleeping near the counter ticket for one night was quite memorable.

Then there's Stanstedt airport in London where my friend spill a full cup of coffee on the cafe table. Hong Kong's airport was so memorable because I bought a book about the rise of China's economy there to read at a cafe while waiting for my flight. Little I know that the book will take me back to Hong Kong 2 years later (June this year) because an interviewer for a Hong Kong conference was impressed that I, as a medical student read such book, and hence I was chosen to go.

It's weird how the places outside the airport are much more interesting, like the Eiffel tower, the Alhambra, the New York Times Square, but it is the airports experience that are most memorable to me. Weird, but airports changed my life