Returning A Stranger's Call..

Upon reading Zewt's post, it reminded me of my last trip to Charlotte,US. It wasn't exactly a pleasant trip, I must say.

To begin with, my colleague and I had to transit at Singapore Changi Airport. The transit period was 6 hours in the wee hours of 12am through 6am, mind you! We decided to go to the city and my colleague wanted to catch up with a friend. After placing our hand carry luggages at the lockers, we happily went off to Robinson's Walk.

We returned to the airport 3 hours before the next flight took off. Instead of collecting our luggages from the locker, we had to go through a security screen first. We were asked a couple of questions and when we told them we had left our hand carry luggages upstairs in the locker, the officer showed a sudden concern and started contacting his colleagues. My colleague and I could not figure out what did we do wrong. We were told that we were not supposed to leave our luggages behind (in the locker). But why did they provide lockers then? Strange.

Right from Changi Airport through Narita Airport (Japan) and when returning from Charlotte, airport officers performed thorough luggage and body check on us. We were being watched closely in these 2 airports. I suddenly felt like a dangerous person or some sort of criminal. We were somewhat suspected of being involved in some conspiracy that could bring harm to the great US (at least that's what I felt) =_=" The truth is, we only kept our luggages at the airport lockers (which were guarded by an officer) so that we could go out to the city with ease.

Ooo..yeah, I have strayed from the intended story. Sorry, back to the main focus:

I only found out that my US colleague did not book any rooms for us upon arrival at Marriot Southpark hotel at about 7pm US time! Shocked and tired from the jet lag, we tried to contact our colleague. I was searching for a network point and a man was using the Internet via the PC provided by the hotel at the lobby. I was told that I could share the network connection.

The man made way for me to place my laptop next to him and he also offered me a seat by pulling a chair and placed it next to me. While I was seated and hastily looking through my mails to check if I had any details of the room reservation, the man initiated a conversation.

After knowing I was a Chinese from Malaysia, he started to speak Cantonese. My, his pronunciation was accurate and he spoke very fluently. I was impressed. He then revealed that he worked in Hong Kong although he's from Charlotte. Apparently, he looked after offices in Asia for his company. So, he travelled extensively. He had great sense of humour. Phew, it made me felt a lot better. I needed humour right then!

Before he made a move to leave, we exchanged goodbyes. I continued to look through my mails. Shortly after that, he returned with a note in his hand and he extended the note to me. It contained his full name and contact number. His name was Trey. Trey said I could give him a call if I needed any help since it's my first trip to Charlotte and I didn't know much people there. How kind of him.

It did strike me to call him on my last day of the trip, just to wish him "Happy Thanks Giving" (yeah, it happened to be Thanks Giving there) and to thank him for his kindness. Well, I didn't call him in the end. I am not used to the idea of calling up a "stranger"...