Esoteric Liberica

Finally, an opportunity to write. This trip here has always been the same. Totally invidious. I never really liked coming here but I guess when one doesn’t have a choice one should never complain. Back to the task at hand then.

When we arrived on Wednesday morning, we were greeted with the usual gloomy, grey skies, smog and the multitudes of people thronging about. Just  about every other guy in this country smokes so you can imagine the amount of cigarette smoke in the air. A nightmare for asthmatics I am sure. The guy who was supposed to pick us up at the airport did not show till an hour later during which I was treated to a buffet of second hand cigarette smoke. 

Well, the guy finally showed up and when we got to the hotel it was a sight to behold. The good, it is smack in the middle of the shopping district. So food is not a problem or so I thought. And that was pretty much the only good thing about the place. Everything else was a total eye-opener and a complete sigh-a-night letdown.

My room was fairly spacious and that’s all there is to it. A wardrobe was not existent. In its place a metal rod with holes in it with wire hangers dangling. Not much can be said about the bed either. It felt more like a hospital bed, you know the ones they put you on after you get hauled up from an accident? This one was no different. The mattress was covered with a hard plastic with a thin sheet over it. The pillows, flatter than Saturday’s newspaper with air-conditioning that is meant for a meat freezer. Here’s the best bit. I have no idea where the ventilation ducts are connected to but my vents blow nicotine and second hand smoke into my room. And it is no different compared to all the other rooms. The only safe airspace is the space between the toilet bowl water level and the seat cover.

The shower was pretty amazing as well. To take a shower, one needs to be a professional contortionist. One hand holding down the button so that water will spray from the shower head, whilst the other controls the tap since the plumbing had a habit of dispensing scalding hot water anytime it chooses. Leaving the only appendages free which are my toes and feet. This proved to be a daunting task when one tries to soap himself. Therefore the only way to shower was to hold the button, turn on the tap to wet myself, run away from the spray area, walk to the counter to get my soap because there was no soap tray in the shower stall, run back to the stall again to wet the soap, run out of the stall to soak myself lest I end up cooking myself with the irregular bursts of hot water and then run in again with my finger on the button, pray like hell that I will not experience the sudden gush of boiling hot water and rinse myself off.

The expo that I attended was pure hell. My estimate is about two million visitors a day and I am just being conservative. It took us two hours just to clear registration which in itself was a complete nightmare. The usual rubbish about registering online, pre-registration, did we attend the previous show, where were our passes etc. Am I glad we only had to do this only once. The event was as always, shoulder to shoulder traffic. Couple with bad air, cigarette smoke, sweaty bodies, stale perfume and chemicals in the air, it was something I will not miss.

Getting back from the show is a laugh a minute riot. The subway was so packed, that the station officers had to “help” shoehorn the passengers in (ie. shoved us in like sardines). Breasts, ass, elbows and other body parts all crushed against one another. Makes me wonder how many women were groped every time. And if one is claustrophobic, my advice is to stay away for at least two hours until the crowd subsides. We had to wait for more than an hour to get into the station. On a regular day, it takes only 10 minutes from the convention center to the entrance of the subway. Luckily for us, we weren’t staying too far away from the convention center so the journey was bearable to say the least.

We have a free day on Sunday so I am going to take the opportunity NOT to sight see but to hole myself up in the hotel room and avoid the crowd altogether and enjoy some peace and quiet. It was spent with a casual breakfast at McDonald’s. The epitome of breakfast fine dining. I can never get used to the food here as it completely disagrees with my digestive system. Strangely, after a round at McDonald’s my stomach has settled somewhat. Imagine that. It actually took junk food to “cure” my digestion problem. However, we decided on the last minute to swing over to the trade fair one last time to pick up whatever samples we could carry back. That proved to be a major mistake. Being the last day of the event, security was relaxed and the entire convention center turned into a giant ashtray. There was so much smoke in the air that it made me sick. Coming out after the expo hall did not alleviate the problem. So what if we are out in the open? There was so much smog and people smoking outside that the only difference compared to being inside was the occasional waft of cigarette infused breeze that blew my way.

Well, it is now Sunday night. I have been putting down my thoughts whenever I can find the time and tomorrow, I am heading out of this country. Well, I won’t miss it but I do admit that there were some great bargains to be had here if I had more time to shop. I have no intention of leaving the safety and the clean air confines of my hotel room to mingle with the crowd downstairs. The guys are out gallivanting as always. I am going to give myself an early night, curl up with a good book and sleep. We are flying off at the break of dawn tomorrow morning.

Something stoked me to wake up early this morning and I returned back to church. It was good to rekindle my relationship with God. My life is getting back on track. Slowly but surely. I have her now by my side. My relationship with God is fortified. And I know when my relationship with God strengthens, so will my relation strengthen with her. I am gaining back control of my life.

I lost track of everything three years ago and now I am regaining everything. Little by little and it is all because of her.

She is truly the light in my darkened path.