A school or a clinic or a resort - they've a liveliness about them, but nothing can beat that of an airport. Transfers between various terminals, each serving various continents - going to Rio or LA or Toronto, to London, Glasgow or Edinburgh. All take the proper execution of tiny teaches or people carrying conveyor belts - central airport moves have not been therefore slick.
Coffee fuelled, twitchy businessmen clutching containers of perfume for their forgotten spouses, greatly crammed Canadian backpackers ingesting the last night's locations, nouveau riche pensioners treating themselves to the Spanish south - the complete patchwork of the individual going cover is stitched in to the continually shifting fabric of the airport. Transfers run along wide corridors of Singapore final 1, on their method to Bangkok to the north, or Jakarta to the south. Late arrivals in Amsterdam hurtle towards the soon-to-close trip to New York. The enjoyment of individuals going to areas continues 24 time a day. Bangkok airport transfer
Never relaxing, the airport is difficult to pin down. Its temporary residents ultimately settling in to their aluminium pipes, given their shiny in-flight publications before failing continually to heed the security exhibition for the Nth time. Sated by shopping and costly airport food, they stay looking forward to remove, racing up into the orange or the grey or the dark - looking forward to the experience at one other end.
The burgandy or merlot wine from trip 209 and black espresso from journey 803, the compact lasagne from Milan 222, the little spring rolls from the Shanghai 406. The wealthy experience of air travel can take many hours to leave the traveller's program - and additional to modify to the full time difference. Jet insulate may be the drop from this heady earth of plastic tiny cutlery and little yoghurt containers - countless red wine refills and tiny bottles of whisky.
And what at one other end? More airport transfers to different destinations - or maybe merely airport moves to common houses and familiar beds. But first the process of exiting - organized by passport checks and baggage which fails to appear on the conveyor belt. But, bag or bag saved, its time to exchange final Euros or Dollars or Kilos, time for you to stay on course through the throng to the exit, out into the cold chill of the fixed cab rank. At last the earth continues to be - before the next time.