Being slightly Heathrow-phobic, I wanted to avoid going through the London Heathrow experience again. Therefore, I've decided to fly from Manchester Airport this time around. I had the choice of flying with Emirates, Etihad or Singapore Airlines. I decided to go with Emirates since the timing of the flight was suitable for my needs.
It was about a 1 hour 20 minutes train ride to Manchester Airport from Leeds. Checking-in was no problem. I had a laptop bag as a carry-on luggage, and a little beanie pillow as an accessory. And thank you Emirates for not charging this poor little boy any additional fees for his chocolate-ful suitcase!! (^3^)/~~
I was seated at seat 11K (window seat! yippie!) this time, which was quite towards the front of the plane (behind business class). My seat was also located near (but not at) the wings, so I got to see views of the gigantic jet engine.
Their ICE (information, communication, entertainment) system also looked promising. You get to fiddle around with the system even before the plane takes off! Cool! (MAS' system was only activated after the plane has taken off). However, I was spending most of my time on land just browsing through the long list of movies and planning my movie marathon for the flight.
Check it out - 149 new movies (including Harry Potter, Fantastic Four, Spider Man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates of The Carribean) and 25 "all time greats" (e.g. The Sound of Music (gasp!), The Matrix, X-Men). And this is just movies and does not yet include TV series, animation and music! I'm so not sleeping today!! (>.<)
I was tempted to re-run the latest Harry Potter and TMNT, but then decided against it. Might as well make better use of the system. So I ended up watching (after much deliberation) Arthur and the Minimoys, Bridge to Terabithia and Firehouse Dog for the first leg of the journey.
At the beginning of the fight, I was served some refreshments.
My lunch consists of marinated prawns served with potato salad, seasonal salad, orange and chocolate truffle torte, cheese and biscuits, a bun, mineral water, a can of soft drink and a main course.
The main course was either Pan-fried chicken medallions (complemented by creamy morel sauce, farfalle pasta, roasted courgette and a carrot bundle) or Tilapia fish fillet (served with Basmati Rice, stir-fried mixed vegetables and a coconut chilli salsa). Hmm... hard decision... but I finally decided to go with the latter which seemed more exotic (^,^)
After about 7+ hours of flight, dining and movie marathon, I finally touched down at Dubai International Airport. Pictured here is the forward camera.
After going though a horrifyingly strict security checkpoint where I spent forever trying to strip off all my possessions save my clothes (a tip, don't carry too many coins in your pockets when flying >.<), I waited at the airport for my connecting flight for 3 hours. After that, it's back on my flight from Dubai to Jakarta via Kuala Lumpur. This time, my seat was at 10K, which was again a window seat (^_^)
For this leg of the journey, I started out listening to some 90s JPop music while deliberating on the movies to watch. I've decided to watch Mr. Bean's Holiday, 1408 (halfway only, almost fell asleep watching this supposedly horror thriller), License to Wed and Meet the Robinsons (also halfway, didn't manage to finish it in time ToT).
Food? I had breakfast (where's my dinner??!) consisting of fruits, orange juice, croissant, muffin, and a main course of either Mushroom Omelette or Seafood Congee.
Again, after much hesitation, I settled down with Mushroom Omelette (with Turkey Bacon, a tiny Bratwrust sausage and baked beans).
And I'm really happy to still get a window seat (despite the inconvenience to visit the loo) since I got to see fascinating views of white fluffy clouds. Yes, I'm still a kid (>.<)
After almost 18 hours' worth of journey, I finally touched down at KLIA.
And fortunately, my luggage touched down safely with me this time (>.<) No thanks to my previous experience, I was getting quite worried when my bag took so long to arrive at the conveyor belt...
There you have it. My long enjoyable journey back to Malaysia. I barely slept throughout the journey (save for the 10 minutes cat nap while watching 1408 >.<) In fact, I have managed to stay awake for almost 24 hours (from the time I woke up to get ready in Leeds). It's all thanks to the nice entertainment system provided by Emirates (^_^). Now, I need to finish up Meet the Robinsons somehow (^,^)