Day 10,000

So today is actually my 10,000th day. And how fitting that it starts in the Bay Area and ends with me landing in Taiwan — basically my entire birth arc all over again. I was born in the Bay, grew up in Taiwan, and here I am doing that exact route in 24 hours.

Funny thing is — I've been looking forward to day 10,000 for so long, but when I actually got here, it feels kind of anticlimactic. I'm stuck on a plane. And day 10,000 is basically going to be cut short just because of how time zones work — I'll be in Taiwan in less than 10 hours, and by then it'll already be the next day. So that's that.

But yeah, as I was saying — the auntie sitting next to me has got some funny stories.

She owns a bakery in Dayton, Ohio. Recently she experienced a robbery — because she was too kind, she let some guy use the bathroom, and he took her purse with all her Taiwanese credit cards inside. About $15,000 USD worth of cards, which she now has to personally go back to Taiwan to fix. That's why she's on this flight.

Then there's this 30-something Jordanian man who works next door at the smoke shop. He comes by her bakery constantly, just to flirt with her and play around — taking bakery stuff without paying, treating her like a sugar mommy in multiple ways. The funny part is he apparently already has an 80-year-old sugar mommy, so there's that.

The auntie says she's got her principles and a husband back home, so obviously she wouldn't do anything, and she's told him to back off and everything. Which I believe. But also — she has way too many videos and pictures of him in her photo album on her phone lol. It's almost as if she's actually interested. And honestly, who'd blame her — living abroad mostly on her own, son nearby, husband and family back in Taiwan. That kind of life can get lonely.

I'm glad I met her. Though later in the flight I did get tired of talking — partly because I thought I might have left the garage door open back home, and I was quietly panicking about it.

Finished watching Chief of War on Apple TV — the series on the Hawaiian islands' history arcs. Actually pretty good. Very dramatized, but the sets and everything let me really picture what it must've been like back then. I think it'll even help with my game development, since Ice Age Life is about tribal life too. It's wild how, by the end of the 18th century, Hawaii already had so many people across the islands — basically a proto-state at that point. The scale of it is what got me.

Also started watching Pluribus. Good show so far.

And then — I landed in Taiwan. Which means day 10,000 is over. Just like that lol.

At least I did take a nap on the flight, so I'm rested for the day to come.