It is time once again to travel east (actually north over the pole) to Hong Kong. I have upgraded my standard coach seating with Asia Miles and will be flying Business Class. The seat will be larger although my shoulders will touch the walls of the coffin like designed cubicle. The seat fully reclines into a horizontal configuration allowing me to extend my feet into the aisle tripping the flight attendants in the dark - oh yes, it gets very dark on those flights. The monitor will be bigger, the food will be noticeably better than coach, and the attendants are very pleasant and willing to get you what ever is needed. It is very important to bring your own noise reduction headphones. This is even more important than flying business class. Once you have tried flying with them you will wonder why you didn't do it before. The greatest invention since flight itself. I use Bose headphones but there are others.
The only real fear (other than the obvious) is that the movies offered for viewing will be films I have already seen on other recent flights. Cathay does try and show some films only on east bound flights and other films only on west bound flights. I do intend to sleep as much as possible, something I don't do easily on planes except if they are sitting on the tarmac or taxing prior to take-off. I do like to sleep through the take-off. Jolted from a sound sleep I realized I was just paged by the front desk at the lounge and that I had been fast asleep. Actually I had been sleeping for a full hour with the computer in my lap. Last night was a late one with only an hours sleep. This was done on purpose to help get into the Chengdu time change as quickly as possible. It is likely that I will sleep right through breakfast on the plane unless I tell them to wake me - which I will.
