What a flight to Sydney

*Due to lack of sleep, this blog may be a bit "challenging to read".

Finally made it! But what a journey!!!! Got to the China Eastern check-in counter at Pudong, we were told there were no seats for us. The staff offered us flying to Hong Kong then hooked up to Cathay Pacific to Sydney. For that, they offered RMB$2,400 (CAD$337) refund per ticket. And we got to fly the same class as were on China Eastern - J class. We were to arrive Sydney 2 hours later - 12:00pm. What the heck. We needed to be in Sydney with no time to spare. So China Eastern switched our tickets over. We flew to Hong Kong first; because we got time to spare (for once), we got to use the China Eastern lounge; nothing special and food sucked (some take out in tin foil containers and packaged snacks). Drinks were plentiful though. When it was time to board, the agents called us and guided us to a special bus! No need heading to the gate!!! The special bus took us right up to the plane! Cool! So we went - 2 hours and 30 minutes later, arrived in HK, with too many RMB$ in our pockets.

Check in at Cathay Pacific's Transfer Desk was a breeze; that late at night, no one. We were informed we could not seat together as the cabin configuration has changed. Umm.... When we boarded the flight, wow... Spaceship like seats. Side way. Take at look at this link: http://www.cathaypacific.com/cpa/en_INTL/whatonboard/newbusinessclass. And this was how we sat; will post a real life model later.

The seat was nice; but narrow! With my "wide" butt, I had about 1/2 inch space in width on the seat. The seat size was the same as the AC Business Class seat going to Toronto on the Regional Jet. The TV screen was huge, thought it was a 19" LCD panel. Too hightech as the system crashed on me couple times. When rebooting, I notice it was not using a Windows XP or Vista; that was good! But some proprietary system from Panasonic. I managed crashing the system just by selecting some in-flight options other than movies. QA testing needed! The seat could lie flat, but my feet kinda stuck out at the end. A bit short in length. Service in-flight was good. Food was good. Movies were good; no complain. But I didn't sleep much during the 8 hours and 50 minutes flight; I slept for maybe 2 hours - in 36 hours or so. Thank god for those years of SlackTel training days.

Arrived at Sydney right on time! The Customs was quite serious about bringing food into the country. Got a bit of problem for me at immigration with a Canadian passport living in China without a chinese visa. Not sure what the problem was ;-)

Now I am sitting in the hotel room typing this up...