Back in Helsinki

I left Kuala Lumpur airport seven hours before this happened.

12 hours flight in economy class (cramped, bumpy, but the inflight thingy was my friend until the very end) from Kuala Lumpur to Frankfurt, arrived 35 mins late, missed my connecting flight to Helsinki. Had to spend four hours in the grey speck of boredom that is Frankfurt International Airport. I've seen morgues with more joie de vivre.

Big kudos to the Finnair people for great inventiveness when mr. German security man told me I couldn't bring my sealed whiskey with me. It arrived in one piece.

Anyway, the Asia trip was a nice experiment in working while travelling. This is the output:

Unnamed deity approx 8 m tall, originally uploaded by Karstein Volle.

Must be seen to be believed. If not in the flesh, then try the Flickr substitute.

Electricity, originally uploaded by Karstein Volle.

Just uploaded a bunch o pics from the last coupla days.

More impressions while figuring out how five to ten in the eve can be five to five in the morning

1900
I promise myself to read at least 100 pages of the Iggy Pop bio before checking where we are again. I'm still amazed that we are flying over Afghanistan. 10 000 m below me my fellow expats are fighting for peace, prosperity, happiness and cute kittens. I love cute kittens.

2000
I learn some Malay phrases, using the entertainment thingy. The number 4 in malay is "empat", which sounds scifi. Salt is Garam, like the finnish tv-cook. Sami Salt?

2100
I give up trying to sleep, only to doze off watching No Country for Old Men. I get strange dreams mixed in with the movie. Did they all fly in that part really?
Local time in Kuala Lumpur is 0400. They wake everybody to give us orange juice.

2200 (KL 0500)
The stewards all have green blazers and bowties, which makes them look a bit like they play in a dance band. When one of them smilingly asks me about my stay in Malaysia, i realise I know nothing about Malaysia whatsoever. He reels off a huge list of places to which I smile benignily and try to change the subject.

2350 (KL0650)
The doors open and I enter Kuala Lumpur airport. The australian chick behind me remarks that this place feels like entering the tropical birdcage at the zoo.

Impressions

0830 sunday morning:
I say bye to Tanja, the cats and the rabbits before getting in the cab. The cabbie is a north african with a maxi taxi and no winter tyres. We skid our way to the airport to the sound of swedish jazz on the car radio.

0930
We lift off to Stockholm and I realise I got no anxiety of flying, which is great. We get microwaved paper with cheese.

1020
At Arlanda I take the shuttle bus to terminal 5. I get the bus all to myself. I feel pampered by this. Strange.

1040
After watching my neighbour queues speed past me I check in for the Malaysia flight.
Best part is watching a guy in a golf sweater admonish his family repeatedly that they can't take their soda past the security gates, then ceremoniously drinking the remainder of three soda bottles.

1050
Stealing electricity from Arlanda airport to check email. Nobody send mails on easter morning.

1230
Ushered into a GIGANTIC plane. Malay stewardesses in green sarongs smiles permanently, which must get their cheeks all locked up.
Green sarong woman gives me a hot wet towel.
Green sarong woman gives me orange juice.
Green sarong woman gives me beer.
Green sarong woman takes back the soggy towel.
We lift off.

1240
Seatbelt lights goes off.
Green sarong woman gives me Chicken teriyaki with fried taters.
Somehow the plane has not exploded, crashed or been hijacked yet. I feel silly.

1250
The captain tells us all how pleased he is that we are travelling with him. I wonder how it is that flight captains all have thick accents and if dodgy english correlates with great flying skillz.

1400
I finally figure out the onboard entertainment thingy and realise we already have passed Moscow. The interactive map becomes a bit of an obsession for the next ten hours. It answers all my questions: Where are we now? How fast are we going? What direction is Mekka?

1700
We pass through some hardcore turbulence and I get reaquainted with my fear of death for a while, then just becoming bored and annoyed by the bumpy ride.
Two swedish middle aged guys sit down on the next aisle and get boozed up.

I open the window during an especially rough turn to see if we are pelted with rocks or something. The swedish guy goes all matey and makes some kinda joke (you won't see anything there, sonny). I pretend i don't understand swedish.

Kuala Lumpur



By this time tomorrow, I'll be somewhere on the altitude of 10,000 m headed towards Kuala Lumpur. It's gonna be great.

2007

Man, time flies, a little recap:
-Finished recording Out. Still in mixing limbo
-Released the third Fakta book
-Released Free for All DVD on our own label, Geoglyph
-Illustrated a schoolbook
-Chose a film for Cinemateket, Oslo
-77 "In the future"-strips for Aftenposten, HBL, Larson and Ilta Sanomat
-Bought an apartment
-Spoke at the Helsinki Book fair and Raptus Comics Festival
-Four episodes of Metro
-Two episodes of Gokk
-Did a three date Norway tour with Nazca
-Designed four books
-52 Facts from the world for Dagbladet, M, Libero, Myrkky and Balder
-Had a 5 year Facts-retrospective at Serieteket, Oslo

Quantity or quality? We will never know.

What's ahead?

Exciting things.

All the best for 2008 to you all.