How to Fly

The flight from Hong Kong to Shanghai and Shanghai to Sydney was the best flight travel experience I've had to date! I was nervous to fly with Air China because our flights were so cheap ($2000 CAD to fly Vancouver - Shanghai - Hong Kong - Shanghai - Sydney). This was later compounded when a close lady friend told me her flight with Air China was crap. While I certainly wouldn't describe it as luxurious or even Very Good, I think international flights are kind of like yearly visits to the doctor - completely unpleasant as a rule but completely necessary if you want to keep on keeping on.

I've done 10+ hour flights quite a few times now and consider myself a bit of an expert, so much so that I'm going to lay out my top 5 tips right meow:

1) Pair Up
Whether you're traveling with your Dad or your man friend, I find the devil you know is always preferable. Traveling solo? Find a friend while waiting to board and/ or at the airport bar. This shouldn't be difficult for young folks, and yes, I always recommend talking to strangers when you're traveling.

2) Drink
I heard somewhere that you're more likely to survive a car accident if you're impaired as the body is relaxed and more limber. haha ok that may be complete BS but I really do think having a few is a good way to chill out and just embrace the fact that you're "sitting in a tin can high above the world" for the next 12 hours. If you're Ryan, you'll have 4 Kirin beers at the Shanghai airport and then 4 more on the flight by sweet talking the stewardesses. Warning: this may lead to being so wasted that you're throwing hot hand towels at sleeping people. Seriously. :-/

3) Eat
In a perfect world airplane food would be prepared by Bobby Flay right before your eyes using fresh organic local ingredients. This may exist in first class (who knows what goes on up there really) but most of what I've got is not something I'd call appetizing. Too bad, so sad - eat it. You need the energy and you will be in a very very bitchy mood if you don't eat for 12 hours. Bring your own snacks for sure, but if you've already paid for the crappy airline food the least you can do is use some of it as fuel. Close your eyes and pretend it's something else and your plate will be clean before you can say "here comes the airplane."
PS - On the way to Hong Kong I was pretty turned off by the food. Then on the way to Sydney, after paying to eat street food for a week, I found it totally yummy! Weird.

4)  Sleep
Sleeping pills and earplugs. If I'm drinking I only take one pill just on the off chance I get all Uma-Thurman-Pulp-Fiction. Here's a fun trick! Wear a super fluffy hoodie on the day you travel. If you're in Hawaii or Hong Kong or some other warm humid place people will look at you like you're an idiot... until they're wrestling with a shit airline pillow and a flimsy blanket and you have a nice fluffy thing for a flexi pillow. And you know where that thing has been. Aaaand you can fold it all up leaving a sleeve out then flip the sleeve over your eyes for a sleep mask!! oooh glamorous!

5) Bring Your Own Entertainment
If you're flying Air China or any other el cheapo airline you better believe there will be no screen on the back of the seat in front of you. For our flights, Ryan and I were treated to sparsely placed TVs throughout the cabin, some of which had shit colour where half the screen was yellow tones and the other was purple. These screens displayed the flight progress on a map, a nature show on Ostriches (in Chinese with English audio), America's funniest home videos ("") and a crappy movie I'd never heard of (""). This rotated every four hours.... really really glad I brought a book and Ryan bought an FHM.