It was raining in Seattle.

I sat next to two ladies from LA. One a supermodel, the other worked for CBS. The model was 6-ft something tall and barely fit into the row, I felt bad. She had just completed a shoot at Nordstrom HQ in Seattle and was heading home to LA. She looked absolutely famished but didn’t eat on the plane, obviously… I really wish I had a some fried chicken, cheese or fritos to offer… note to self for next trip, pack those items.

Sunset was nice so I started snapping away, I’m glad I bought that extra hard drive for this trip. It’s going to be insane…

I was able to strike up a conversation with the supermodel on frequent flier mileage programs; which was pretty hot. She has AAdvantage and has been all around the world, doing shoots in Turkey, Prague, Australia, Hawaii, the Caribbean… and is only 20-yrs old! She’s worked with some pretty amazing clients (D&G, Prada, blah blah) but wants to stop modeling at age 25 to become a nutritionist for modeling agencies. Ya know, to advise models on eating healthy and how to avoid eating problems. Props to her!

Then the girl from CBS butt in and the conversation changed to beautiful men, gym trainers and the LA club scene. LAME!!! Actually I enjoyed listening to all their drama. They complained that all male models, gym trainers, and remaining LA-folk were douche bags and had security issues. I agreed, offered my own thoughts on gender roles and expectations, and told them to date engineers.

I hope they do.

Turbulence kicked in during landing and the model kind of freaked out. I assured her that Boeing planes were designed by the most badass of engineers, and that it’d be fine. I was right (on both accounts) and we landed ten minutes later. We flew over an In-and-Out Burgers on approach and the model reminisced about the days when she was able to eat hamburgers there. Oh how I wanted hug her and tell her that she was free to fight the power and eat to her heart’s desire! If only Alaskan Airlines still had cheeseburgers, they only had cheese flavored snack mixes on this flight… We eventually got to our gate, said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.

Their names were Amy and Jessica.

LAX is probably the worst airport I’ve ever been to. It’s dim, ugly, doesn’t have many shops and is small. The only reason I chose to fly through LAX was to get onto a Boeing 777-300ER… I guess one cool thing is that you pass by windows with views of your plane on the moving sidewalks.
^this is my CAT777-300ER

I have a couple hours to burn so I’m just sitting at the gate. Oh dear, the guy who just sat down next to me is rocking some seriously fierce old man cologne. I’m guessing Drakkar Noir… time to find a new seat…

Next stop, CHINA!!!

Day 0 + 10 hours – International Airspace

It’s minus 63°-F outside! Brrrrrr.

Dang, this is one long flight. There’s always a faint glow over the horizon, and you can see the slight curvature of the Earth.

You’re probably noticing that this blog entry has become more narrative and less just massive amount of photos. I thought I’d mix this up a bit. I’ll tell the story of my next vacation through pictures of cats with funny captions a la The LOL Cat Bible. Hopefully the trip will be to England this summer or New Zealand during our Christmas holiday. We’re flying north towards the Arctic, and then back down over China, to Hong Kong.

Cathay Pacific 777’s are BALLER. Singapore had more/better food and amenities, but Cathay has great seats and good in-flight entertainment. Their service is equal. Shell seats in economy?! Shewwwwt, they are huge! Like, I can curl up to sleep, huge. It helps that I’m Asian (slim) and that the middle seat is empty, but still! The guy next to me is on some business trip to Jakarta, has his own noise cancelling Bose headphones and is crunching away at some spreadsheet. He asked me where I was headed, I said, “Shanghai,” and he just nodded.

Last year, on my flight to Singapore, I sat next to some Hong Kong-onians (is that what they’re called?), and they started talking to me in Cantonese. I informed them that I only spoke Mandarin. They replied, “Oh, that’s too bad.”

Burn!

One of my favorite parts of flying is the airplane food, true statement. AA used to have the worst pizza (that I couldn’t stop myself from eating), and the best quesadillas (which they normally ran out of, leaving me with pizza). We’ve had one meal so far; I chose chicken and rice. It was pretty frickin’ tasty; it came with smoked salmon salad (mmm) and cheesecake for dessert. I suspect they used a steam oven on the food, it turned out quite nice.

I just got a cup of ramen. Woot! The chopsticks are nice too!

One of the drawbacks of flying to Asia is length of flight. I got bored and started to look around; they use Monogram 3210 Trash Compactors and have bland lavs. The flight attendants are giggly and camera shy. I got lucky and found some in the aft galley to finish up a photo project I was working on. I had to scale the project down and my area’s attendant seemed fed up with my multiple requests for stationary… it’s not my fault that it’s hard to write when there’s turbulence…

On the flip side, a perk of long haul flights is the selection of movies. This flight hasn’t disappointed yet, I’ve gotten my fix of Hong Kong cop thrillers and Korean rom coms. Other positive discoveries?

1. The ramen actually has chunks of chicken in it! nom nom nom.
2. No crying babies!!! Yeahhhh!!!
3. Five hours until HK.

Day 0 + 14 hours – Chinese Airspace

Oh my gravy, WHEN WILL THIS FLIGHT END?! I think I’m getting dehydrated and my jaw hurts when I open my mouth. I might have hurt it during a yawn. This better not reduce my ability to chew the mass quantities of food that we’re planning to consume this trip (it’s Shanghai Restaurant Week). Luckily they’re serving breakfast so I can perform some trial runs.

The guy next to me has been watching The Simpsons all flight long (when not working). I’m watching this Korean rom-com called Fortune Salon. I hoped it’d be a good alternative to My Sassy Girl but so far it has been a bust.

Korean rom-coms are normally wayyyyyy over the top silly, dramatic and somewhat violent (in a comedic way, It’s nothing like their thrillers). Oh, and it’s always the guy that get hurt (rest assured, there’s minimal-to-no violence against women). However, in this film, the protagonist has only gotten hit by one car, had both wrists broken, and gotten the back of his head cut open by flying glass… and they’re already together, boooooring.

OK breakfast is here. We have an egg and ham croissant, fruit, and yogurt.

^The jaw is looking good so far and the sandwich is tasty. Double-WIN.

For those BCA readers, FLAM! FLAM! FLAM!

Day 0 + too many hours – Chinese Airspace

I was able to sneak one last facebook login at HKG before boarding my flight to Shanghai; I had forgotten to tell my housemates that I was leaving for the week. I asked they alert me if something bad happened to the house or my car (meteor strike, Tea Party riots, fire, Rainier pulling an Eyjafjallajokull, you know, typical doomsday scenarios…). Kayla responded and will let me know if there are any Tea Party riots.

phew!

I also contemplated a trip to Popeyes or Burger King for my last fix of ‘Merican Cuisine (you can get value meals with beer?!). However, in my hunger driven insanity, I decided against it; leaving me starving. Luckily, I’m sitting in an airplane and the FA’s are serving breakfast!

^HK from my window.

I believe the options are Chicken and Noodles or Egg w/ Sausage Omelet, and the word ‘juice’ on juice cartons is spelled ‘Joos.’

Engrish, I can’t wait!

The lady probably thinks I’m weird for taking so many photos of other airplanes on the runway, the engine, the food, the seat, etc…

My good friend Shane loaned me his Canon S90 point and shoot camera for this trip, so far it’s been pretty spectacular. I hate lugging around my SLR with my carry-ons, so this has helped reduce the amount of weight I’m carrying. Too bad I have a second bag full of chocolate, toys, and medicine for the folks I’m seeing. OK, I’m going to try to strike up a convo with this Aussie lady.

OK, she works just outside of HK and is meeting her friend for the weekend in Shanghai. She lives in Sydney but is originally from England. That’s about all she wanted to talk about. I hope she’s not reading this while I type… Oh, we’re about to land!!!

Oh, and remember in my last post (from the Singapore Trip), that I mentioned that “this is going to be the Cathay 777-300ER that I’d be on in 1.5 months? It turned out, IT REALLY IS!