01: Night flight in Business Class!

We leave home at four o’clock on what is one of the warmest days of the year so far, and after a leisurely taxi drive of 90 minutes or so we arrive relaxed, and hungry, at Heathrow Terminal 4. At the check-in we were serviced by the very friendly Carrie, think she was a bit of a star for the airline, the friendliest assistant ever; she continued chatting with us long after she’d processed our luggage. A lovely start to our long haul travel experience to Shanghai Pudong, China.

We’ve now got a couple of hours to enjoy in the luxury of the

Skyteam Lounge, and all the goodies within! The lounge is spacious and relaxing, there is a small buffet area with quite a good selection of dishes, a soft drinks counter and even a self-serve alcohol counter... not that either of us were interested in that one! We could charge our phones at some tables and at nearly all of the easy chairs. This is certainly more civilised than the hubbub of the departure lounge we’d just fought our way through, could get used to this lifestyle.

After a couple of cooling (non alcoholic) drinks, a bit of relaxing, then a bite or two to eat from the rather tasty buffet, and a little bit more relaxing, we head out of the lounge and into the maelstrom of the airport shopping area; just to see if we can find something to spend a bit more of our hard earned cash on that we probably don’t even need!

Our flight was called just before the suggested time of 20:20, and when we get to Gate 9, who is in charge there... none other than the lovely Carrie, so we bowl up to the desk and chat with her right up to the flight being called. She let us slip through before actually calling the flight and sat us down by the corridor before allowing us to go through to the plane ahead of the horde. If only

there was a Carrie for all of our future global flights...!!!

Boarding the plane first was a very pleasant first for us and it was quite exciting getting settled down in our side-by-side Business Class pods, very nice indeed. We were pushed off the apron at exactly 21:20, and after about ten minutes taxiing to the runway we were racing down the tarmac and gliding up into the cloudless night sky to start our ten and a half hour night flight to Shanghai Pudong International Airport.

Can’t beat this Business Class, non stop drinks, snacks and then dinner in the first forty five minutes of the journey, the cabin crew are so efficient and polite - we like this service. Dinner is five courses, not huge but very tasty; my main course being sweet & sour stewed beef with noodles and stewed

vegetables, and very nice it was too. Soon after dinner the lights were dimmed for us to get some shuteye! So, nighty night all, see you the other side of some serious snoring...!!!

It was nice to be able to lay out flat in the pod, but the cabin was very warm and I found it hard to sleep, though did manage to snooze a bit at least. As soon as I sat up (before most of the other passengers) there was a trolley dolly by my side offering a selection of different snacks, from which I chose a combo of savoury canapés and fresh fruit slices... hmm hmmm! Elaine on the other hand chose the Chinese selection which apparently was not such a good choice - it included a warm bowl of what looked and tasted like very gloopy mashed up rice - not good...!!! (We now know this to be rice porridge) So, being the gentleman that I am, I shared

some of my fruit with my baby to make up for her rice dish. At this time we still had over four and a half hours flying time to go before touching down on Chinese soil (well tar-mac).

With about two hours of the flight to go we have a menu choice for breakfast, and I opt for the seared salmon. That’s a bit odd, seared salmon for breakfast, well it’s actually a three course lunch menu rather than a breakfast one, and this is to help get us in tune with the time difference in Shanghai, it being just after one o’clock in the afternoon there now; not seven in the morning that our body clock believes it to be!

We’ve now flown into another dimension... well... just the next time zone actually... so our adventures continue on tomorrow’s entry, because it’s now tomorrow in China...!!!