When Ears Explode

So I went to England and France over Christmas.

It was a lot of fun despite the ridiculous flights.

A quick word about the flight from Japan:

We went to Europe with Tianjin Airlines (I think).  They flew us from Haneda to somewhere in China, where we disembarked having all our stuff x-rayed (along with us) before we reached the baggage area.  We proceeded to pick up all our bags, walk around to departures, then go through the rigmarole.

We were then x-rayed again, along with all our stuff.  We're up to three scannings at this point.

We got on the second plane and flew to somewhere else in China for what was advertised as a 'technical stop.'  My understanding of a technical stop was similar to the scene in Airplane! where a crew kick the tyres, clean the windscreen and 'fill 'er up.'

This is not the case.  We were ordered off the plane, through more x-rays (4) and immediately shuffled back onto the plane.  As far as I can tell we neither gained nor lost passengers.  An interesting side-note.  As we were walking to be scanned there was an empty, unattended scanning machine with its conveyor running.  Everyone was putting all their shit on this scanner, some were taking off their shoes and whatnot in preparation.

The catch was that there were no officials to be seen at this particular point, so I just walked past and onto the escalator.  Downstairs held the actual border guard and all their scanning equipment, so some people were potentially up to 5 scannings (I don't think the machine was even turned on).

We were shuffled back onto the same plane we were kicked off, then proceeded to fly to Europe.

I think this technical stop was for refuelling, but I don't know why they kicked us off.  The plane was not cleaned as far as I can tell.  I assume it's just the psychology of making everyone get up and piss about for an hour to ensure no one gets cabin fever, or starts complaining or something stupid.  I would much rather be left alone, asleep, in my seat though.

The food was hilariously bad.  I enjoyed it for the novelty factor, which is something I don't usually do.  Ironically liking stuff is the trend among people who would like to hide the fact that they enjoy objectively terrible things.  Like bad movies, rubbish music or Harry Potter.

The reason I enjoyed it?  Until this point I had often wondered what prison food was like.  Now I know. 

The flight from Japan to China had the attendants just throw down a small pack of crackers in a red packet.  Of course red.  There was no drink.  I think they forgot, or maybe they ran out.  Who knows.

It's not really dark to make an artistic statement about my view of the food - they just left the lights off for feeding time.  Presumably so we couldn't see what we were consuming.

The subsequent flights were hot food, on a tray even.  High fallutin' stuff.

It was very hot.

The foil was in the shape of the food holding pot thing, but was not actually secured.  It led me to wonder whether they were saving money by reusing the foil.  It was only gently placed on top of the container, the mere suggestion of cleanliness.  Nothing so gauche as crimping.  Presumably they do this at the factory and not on board, although the crew were strangely absent for most of the flight...

The orange things were food.  They were kind of crunchy.  Maybe carrots?  Maybe melon?  They were sort of dry, crunchy, entirely devoid of flavour.

The tissue packets were printed with 'welcome to this flight,' which was nice, but I could not help feeling that 'motherfucker,' was implied at either the beginning or end of that sentence, what with the abject lack of full stops or capital letters.


A quick note on chinese immigration.  They are, as you would expect, arseholes.  At every stop of the way they push, shove and shout at you for no apparent reason.  I don't know whether it was because our flight was coming from Japan, but at every given opportunity I was fingered by their security guards, shouted at for having a mostly empty bag and pushed into the wrong queues.  I suspect any non chinese visitor will get this treatment, but they are all horrible people.  I looked into the eyes of one of the 'organisers,' and saw the fires of hell.  I looked into the eyes of one of the men sitting at the scanning machine and saw a pit of despair I had only previously seen in fellow teachers.

A second note - when we left the plane in London, it looked like someone had left a window open.  The place was absolute chaos.  Chinese travellers are world-renowned for being disgusting, but the absolute filth the cleaning crew were been greeted with is utterly mind boggling.  I should have taken a picture but I was too tired to think of it at the time.

You could not walk a single metre without kicking wrappers and bottles.  Every chair had headphones thrown about them, discarded at the whim of their users.  Blankets were all over the place.  It turns out that the Chinese earn their reputation and reinforce their stereotypes at every given opportunity. 

There did not appear to be any fecal matter in the aisles, which is something to be thankful for.

After all this, I feel it appropriate to write a summary review for your consideration.

The food was comical.  The staff were acceptably bland.  The plane was a relic.  The trip time was actually decent.  The airports varied from dingy communist terror hole, to cutting edge touch screen zero personality cut and paste ultra modern boringness.

Would I fly with them again?  Absolutely.  Not only were they the cheapest by a stretch, they offer an experience like no other.  They are the airline embodiment of the Shakespearean comitragedy (sic).  From the 1960's plane interiors, to the gruelling immigration experience, nothing about the flight was dull.  Everything was something I have never experienced before.  In a world of unrelenting homogeneity there are few places to see the abutting of so many conflicting systems, from analogue/digital to communist/capitalist.

Rating:  0/10 and 10/10


(I ended up writing way more about this than I though, I'll have to save photos and stuff for another time.)

The Flight

Never fly Sri Lanka airways/airlines.  They are godawful.  They are just the worst airline.  Jesus, they really are awful.

I can't be doing with specifics due to the doctor specified pressure limit of 1000 PSI, which my brain might exceed should I recall the specifics too vividly.  Needless to say there were obnoxious children, delays, awful food, really horrible children, screaming, unbelievably loud babies, mis-sold meal tickets, interminable infants, broken TV's and horrendous spawn.

God, they are bad.  Their planes are from the late 60's, held together with mostly hope and a dash of tape.

Their staff are bad, every single time they walked down the aisle they would bang into me.  Then they would bang my shoulders with the trolleys.  Then they would shove their wobbly back fat in my face whenever they tried to get anything out of the lockers.  On that note, someone needs to redesign their uniform - it's entirely unflattering to mere mortals.

On another side note, Sri Lankan kids are the worst.  Of course it's the parents fault for letting them run around screaming at each other for ten hours, but still.

Anyway, multiply that hate by 60 hours (30 there, 30 back) and you'll begin to appreciate the suffering.

And I paid for it.

I hate the whole world for being so stupid as to allow this behaviour to continue, and I hate myself for having funded it further.

Never fly Sri Lankan airlines, never go to Sri Lanka.


On a more positive note, the flight from England to Sri Lanka was tempered by the presence of a wonderful lady with whom I shared an hours conversation, ranging from the awful food to silly memories of a common thread.  I can't for the life of me remember the exact topics, (the few inches Sri Lankan afford the kneecaps directly affect human brain function) but it was fun and interesting.  One of those silly little life affirming things that happen every now and again.  We didn't even find out each others names, so I finally met someone who didn't immediately sign me up to facebook.  Not that I'm one to talk, I have about a million facebook 'friends,' about three of whom are actually friends.

Let's fall asleep!

So I've no idea what time it is. I'm literally clueless on that front, and on the front of where exactly I am. I might be in Dubai, or I might be in the centre of Holland, I don't really know. I am looking around for Korean looking people, and Korean sounding people, but I can't seem to find any. Normally this would trigger alarm bells in my mind, but in this instance, as I'm flying on Emirates airlines from Dubai, I won't run around screaming; yet. As portals into the (un)known go, this airport is rather vulgar. I know they're only building on desert that has none of the usual environmental costs associated with, say, Runway 5 greenbelt – but the whole endeavour is something of an exercise is vulgarity. The shopping area is the size of Heathrow terminal 3 in its' entirety, the check in areas have more x-ray conveyor belts than the whole of Heathrow terminals 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5; and the people are completely humourless.

This is the american dream! Oh wait, wrong continent. Well the idea lives on, and is as strong and vibrant as ever.

On a lighter note (sic) the A380 is a marvel of modern engineering. The wing width is fifteen rows of seats, the dangle of which means you can't see the anti-air-disruption fins at the end of the wing. You know, the raised plates bolted onto the ends of the wing to reduce drag and increase efficiency. Well you can't see them when you're on the ground because the wings droop too much.

When you're in-flight, and the wings have resumed a position of relative normality, the wing has ripples in it, akin to a calm ocean, where certain areas are reinforced and others sag. Needless to say the whole experience is rather disconcerting, as are the myriad noises the plane emits while flying. I'm unsure whether the noises are due to my proximity to the various gears (due to being completely and entitrely encompassed in cattle class) or whether everyone can hear the noises. The various bumps and grinds do lend the craft an intangible mechanical feel however, and I'm rather fond of the mechanical in general.

It holds six hundred people, (both decks are identical in size, but the top deck houses rich people, with extremely long legs and even longer budgets) and roughly fifty screaming children. I think the children come as part of the plane, an optional extra along with the alloy wheels and booming sound system.

False Start

So I was scheduled to leave today, but my flight details were changed at the last minute.  The new schedule is sometime on Wednesday, (the flight time hasn't been confirmed yet) luckily no longer requiring a Herculean run through London via auto-mobiles and trains.  My visa has been procured, and bags are packed.

I'm not sure what to do with the extra time though.  I feel that something should be achieved with this time, but I don't know that this short amount of time will allow me to do anything productive.

I'm also a little sad that I can't fly on an A380!  Maybe my next flight will still be of that type, who knows.

Attack of the Volcanic Entities

So as it turns out, mother Earth has gastroenteritis, and England is suffering from a freak occurrence of ash.  Like the erstwhile earthquakes inflicted upon Hull, much has been made of the catastrophic meaning of such events.  Everything from flying horsemen and impending apocalypse, to global cooling (an ironic comment, in more ways than I can list) as a result of reflected light rays etcetera.

Of course, this affects us not a jot, and despite the billions of dollars lost in revenue, the relative gain in PPM of Ozone will benefit the NHS in the long-term, as melanoma are reduced; subsequently costing less to treat.

And therein lies the problem of macro-economics - there are as many variables as people, making any attempt at predicting or modelling events futile.

As a side-note, I'm gearing up for the Korea bound move.  Having previously refused to accept the move as nothing more than speculation and idle hope, the necessary preparations have begun in earnest. (With or without my approval, ala my schooldays (Thanks mum!))  So I'm desperately trying not to get excited.  I'm failing, it must be said.

Country number fifteen, here I come!

That is, if the ashen cloud lifts.

Here's to positive thinking, eh!

Oh, and if you could all puff your cheeks and blow directly into the air, I'm sure we can hurry the cloud along.