Unhappy travels

What is it they say about it being better to travel in hope than arrive in Seattle?

Stuck in customs

We took a taxi to the airport and checked in (Soekarno is another airport where they xray your bags before you go to the check-in desk, and also one that bizarrely collects cash off you before you're allowed to fly). After another lap of the terminal to ensure we'd looked at all the doughnut shops and determined it's not just J.CO that arranges doughnuts randomly, we went through to immigration.

Visa Waiver

Today I paid $14 to the US Government. This annoyed me, because it was the cost of entering the visa waiver programme to get into the US this summer, in order to fly to Canada. Now, I know that the US has a lot of debt troubles and needs all the cash it can get, but it's a bit odd that I don't have to pay anything to get into Thailand, or Taiwan, or Hong Kong, or Canada, and yet I do to go to the US.

Kansai International Airport

I was expecting to be really amazed by Kansai International Airport, famously designed by Renzo Piano on top of a big pile of compacted refuse in the Bay of Osaka. Maybe my expectations were a bit high: it's just another big airport; nice and efficient, like Narita or Hong Kong, but not exactly mind blowing.