Trans-Pacific Flight to Hong Kong

In the time that it took me to go from Provo to state line, the plane has covered approximately 2,880 miles. Still, I feel like I'll be on this plane forever. I've covered nearly 6 hours of a 14.5-hour flight now. What have I accomplished? Not a whole lot. I read the magazines that had lots of expensive jewelry and colognes. Music and Lyrics was a good movie. I don't know why, but I love Hugh Grant. I find his movies quite entertaining. However, I have not slept much. I tried sleeping, but that hasn't really worked. I got about 2-3 hours of sleep in, but now I'm wide awake. Was it the Red Bull? Maybe…

Right now, I'm jealous of the lady who has two empty seats next to her; she's sprawled out. And then there's the man that's sleeping on the ground. I'm not sure I have the guts to do that. It was a smart decision, though. His wife is lying across a pair of seats while he's on the ground. They both get to sleep lying down. I tried lying down using the seat next to me, but I'm a little too big. I seriously tried to go into a mini-fetal position. The first attempt led me to becoming super hot b/c the A/C wasn't reaching me. I tried again, but this time, I just wasn't that comfortable. I gave up after a few minutes. There are the seats at the back of the plane that are for the flight attendants. However, each seat specifically says "For Crew Use Only" and there's another sign that says something to the effect, "At no time shall a passenger occupy these seats." Another tempting thing is the ladder at the back of the plane. It leads up to the 2^nd story where all the business- and first-class passengers are. I so badly want to walk upstairs and find an empty business seat for two reasons: 1) I want to see what international business class is like and 2) I'm hoping that I could sleep up there.

Well, now that I'm reading this post, it sounds like I hate my flight. I'm sorry if that's the impression you're getting because it's wrong. As I mentioned in a previous posting, I'm elated that I have an aisle seat with an empty seat next to me. After all, I could be stuck b/t two Indonesian men bantering in a language I don't understand. Now, that would have been terrible, mostly, because I would not have the freedom to get out of my seat, which I have down a few times. About every hour or two, I get up and do some stretches. I don't do laps around the plane, but I try and keep the blood circulating in my body.

OK, so I'm going to try and get some sleep. It's now 9:18pm Hong Kong time and I want to try and minimize the jet lag. Hopefully, this'll work. Otherwise, I'll go back to watching The Holiday.

Wednesday Morning

It's now 3:25am HK time. I've been traveling for a solid 12 hours and I still haven't received breakfast. I'm hoping that the flight crew plans to serve me in the next hour. I do know one thing; I plan on buying food and bringing it on next time! I will need some snacks to help me pass the time. Maybe some Tylenol PM would help too. I think I had a good stint between 9:00pm and 2:00am. I would venture to guess that I slept for at least three hours; hopefully, more like four hours. According to the in-flight navigation system, we flew by Pusan, Korea a couple of hours ago and we're now over the East China Sea. What's kinda sad is that I totally flew by Japan and I'm going to hop on another plane to head back. At least I'll have Yale to talk to; I wonder how tired he'll be since he planned on sleeping at the airport overnight.

Cathay Pacific

I just want to thank CP for the great deal that they provided me. Otherwise, there's no way that I could afford a 3-week trip to Japan and Southeast Asia. For being the 3^rd best airline in the world, I am not terribly impressed; however, I believe they earn this reputation in their first class and business class. Economy class is like a herd of cows all crammed together. The seats are no very big, but we were all given a pillow, blanket (quite nice, actually), headphones, and our own LCD monitors. Mine doesn't work very well, so I'm using the one next to me. Supper (as they call it on CP) wasn't that bad; it was fairly large. I'm hoping that breakfast is equally tasty and filling. Having not flown internationally in a few years, I can see why businesses fork over the dough to have their employees travel in business class. If I was traveling on business and I had to sit in coach for 14.5 hours, I would not be happy. Nor would I be productive when I landed.

On a random note, the music that I'm listening to is If You Could Hie to Kolob. At least, it's something that sounds very similar to it. Yeah! The lights turned on! That means it's meal service time! You don't realize how happy this makes me.