Sarawak Malaysia to New Orleans: Our trip back to New Orleans from Malaysia

I went back to Malaysia on April 16 to help Boon Hong bring the kids back to New Orleans. They have been staying in Johor Bahru for the past few months since we went back for Chinese New Year. It was a rather eventful trip but that is the subject of another post. Anyway, we flew back from Singapore on May 1 at the height of the swine flu scare. We bought a lot of face masks, we make Meredith wear a face mask too. Isaac kept prying off his face mask and the mask was way too big for a one year old, so we gave up on making Isaac wear a mask. People in Asia are generally more nervous about swine flu due to the bad experience with SARS. Lots of people inclucing ourselves were wearing face masks in Singapore airport and Tokyo airport during our travel. When we reached Dallas airport in US, no one is wearing a face masks even though that airport has tons of direct flights from Mexico.

Meredith wearing a face mask in Singapore airport. We bought a N95 face mask for her but it is too big for her face, so we let wear an ordinary surgical mask. I think it is not effective at all in stopping the virus and it makes it so much harder to breath properly. But it did gives us a false sense of security that we are doing something to protect ourselves. Boon Hong kept buying face masks every where we went even though we already have a few in our carryon luggage. She tried to buy face masks in the Guardian pharmacy in Singapore airport and then she bought some more masks in Tokyo airport. Now those masks just sits in closet collecting dust. Maybe one of our kids will make it to medical school in 20 years time and someone can put those masks to good use.

Meredith enjoying a cup of Vietnamese coffee at the Tung Nguyen coffee stand in Changi airport. I am surprised to see a vietnamese drip style coffee stand in Singapore airport, so I decided to try it and see how it compares to the Vietnamese coffee in the US. The price is S$4 which is almost the same with Starbucks but I can tell you that it is much better than Starbucks. I downed that cup of coffee and it kept me awake for the rest of the 30hours trip to New Orleans and I did stay awake for another 5-6hours after reaching New Orleans.

Isaac crying at the Vietnames coffee stand after fighting with Meredith to gain control of the spoon to stir coffee.

Tokyo Narita airport is great for kids, there is a nice play area for kids. It was early in the morning when we reached Tokyo, there is no one at the play area yet. So we feel we can let our guard down and let Isaac and Meredith play since all the other kids with infectious flu virus haven't show up yet. Anyway, that's probably what the other parents are thinking too when they tell their kids to start wearing masks when they see Isaac and Meredith in the play area.