Melbourne airport
So at the time of writing, war has not broken out in Taiwan. Surprising perhaps.
Time for the disclaimer: everything I type here is ill informed, insensitive, immature, inappropriate and imbecilic.
As soon as you think otherwise, please refer to this disclaimer.
The risk of me raising the ire of others is particularly high on this trip, given the situation over Taiwan, so I will lean right into that, and say stupid things I will be told to regret at some point in the future.
Now for some other news, camera time. My last few trips all used my beloved Ricoh GR III, the best camera ever made, but also the most prone to failure. I have DESTROYED 2 of them, with water and dust and out of warranty repair attempts that failed spectacularly. I think about how badly I failed daily. They are expensive cameras! I have resisted the temptation for now to buy a third one, hopefully one day they release a new version that is at least dust sealed, and preferably splash resistant too.
In the meantime I have purchased a Sony ZV-1. This is not a great camera. The pictures here will not be as good as my last few trips. The sensor is a lot smaller, it is therefore noisier, which means the photos need a lot more messing around with especially in low light, but it does have a zoom lense! I rarely have a camera with zoom. It is effectively the same camera I had for a few years starting in 2012, an updated version of the RX100. So that is all quite boring, but important, because I will be constantly moaning about how disappointing the photos look.
Now for the going to the airport and pre flight rant.
Because I am a massive tight ass, I walk to the bus station and take the bus. The train to the airport is further delayed by another 3 decades due to rare ducks being in the way. Good news today though, the bus was almost empty, so no COVID from the bus.
This is all really boring as it is airport related nonsense, my bag had to be scanned 3 times and the guy asked me if I had any kind of protective film inside it to block the x-ray. No I do not, and it has never been an issue before on the more than 100 times it has gone through. He was fascinated as to why it would not scan and told me he wanted to try something once more... which he did, then brought me my bag and told me he figured out the setting on the machine that was wrong. Hopefully no one got a bomb through while the setting was wrong.
And now, as usual, I am in the quite disappointing Singapore airlines lounge, in the far far corner away from someone who clearly does have COVID. Yes I still talk about COVID. I know no one else does, the new strain is called Arcturus, the previous one was called Kraken, each new strain is claimed to be over 10x more contagious than the last. We have had about 20 different strains, so COVID is now twenty to the power of ten times more contagious than the original strain that killed everyone. Basically, basic science is beyond the realms of science when it comes to understanding virus's.
The traditional pre departure photo taken at some point during the day before I leave. Rather than a view out of my window, here is the street corner I live on, with trams, scooters and people, all conspiring to get in my way.
Oh look, a different view of a very quiet Melbourne airport.
The pandas are still here. The flight to Chengdu that caused the installation of the pandas has not been a thing for many years.
Final pre flight shot, the food in the Singapore airlines lounge gets more and more basic. They would call it enhanced. Some Australian fried rice and dim sum from the Woolworths mixed frozen dim sum box. I have to flee here now due to the woman in the far corner who I think needs to be put in an ambulance! Next update, more boring pictures of airport carpet in Singapore, where I will be looking at carpet for 6 hours.