Moments in My Life

Visiting Australia was our biggest travel this year.  It was our first time at Down under.  We visited 4 cities in our three weeks vacation -  Brisbane & Gold Coast (Queensland), Adelaide (South Australia) and Sydney (New South Wales).  At each city, we stopped for 5 days except at Adelaide where we stayed 7 days.

My direct flight to Brisbane from LAX was good.  We flew out at night and arrived at 6am Brisbane local time.  The airline didn’t give me the seats I pre-booked online and instead they put us towards the back of the aircraft in the middle row.  Fortunately, there was an empty seat between us and the other passenger which gave us a little more space to play with.  My son skipped his supper meal in the flight as he was already sleeping.  He slept for 8-9 hours in our almost 14 hours flight.  He was awake in the first 2 hours of the flight and then the last 3-4 hours before arrival. 

Unfortunately our return flight from Brisbane to LAX was very uncomfortable.  I booked us to be flying off from Sdyney on the (not-so) new Airbus 380.  Thus we took a flight down from Brisbane to Sydney and stopover for 1hr before our adventure on A380.  Our flight to Sydney wasn’t delayed or anything but when we arrived at the Sydney airport, it was a rush.  We had to pass through immigration and then immediately board the plane.  Most of the other passengers were already in the plane waiting for the last group of transfers (us) to get on.

Upon finding our seats, a quick look at him, a very nice college student age boy was sitting on the window seat.  We had the aisle seat as we know that I need to take the little one to bathroom very often.  It never came to me that the post-college boy, Nathan, had to use the facility more than my son.  He went once before the flight took off.  Then for a total of six more times in the next 5 hours.  I took my son to bathroom only 2 times within the 5 hours.  And on top of that, Nathan was drinking a lot of Barcadi coke and I could see his face was turning purple and sense that he might be throwing up.  It wasn’t just me, the passengers behind our row as well as across from us saw the situation.  I was told to inform the flight attendant which I did and they eventually moved me to the back of the plane and seated next to a very delightful 80 year old lady travelling by herself.  Btw, she only asked to come out once from her window seat for bathroom during the 8 hours I was sitting next to her.

Later I found out that Nathan didn’t throw up at all but instead he was sleeping and occupying all the three seats on his row.  What a bummer!  We shouldn’t had moved!  But another I found out about westerners are … they are as greedy as the Asians.  This boy, in his mid 20s, took all the extra Barcadi liquor, utensils as well as the magazines, and he even kept away the bag of toys which I left in the pockets of our seats that were given to us upon boarding the flight.  He even took our overnight bags containing toothbrush, toothpaste, eyemask, socks, which were given to each long haul passenger.  This is the first time ever I saw a ‘male’ passenger taking something from the flight that wasn’t his to begin with.  It is very digusting to me seeing a westerner male doing this. 

When I told this story to my hubby immediately when I saw him at the arrival terminal, he was laughing and couldn’t believe it.  You will definitely get to see all kinds of people when you are traveling more and more.  And now, I may have to prepare myself for another long haul flight again … probably in a week or two.  *wink*