October 27, 2025 to October 28, 2025
The Lost Day
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The Lost Day
I remember much happier and exciting times on planes. In the '70's I'd fly back to the States from Asia in huge 747 Jumbo Jets with only fifteen other passengers on board! We could pick whichever sets of seats on which to make our bed! It was incredibly inefficient and I'm glad that changed but it is rare today to be on a plane that isn't packed full.
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One of my trips to Asia in the late '90's I had worked especially hard all summer and somehow saved enough money to fly to Asia for a winter of exploring. I was so excited to be on the flight that I wasn't about to sleep as every other passenger on that plane was doing. I thought I deserved a celebratory drink so I asked a flight attendant for some bourbon (which was free back then). She must have seen excitement plastered all over my insomnified face because she plunked down an entire bottle of bourbon with the weak excuse, "We needed a new bottle. You can have this."
Another time, after an incredibly grueling trip through SE Asia, I was in line to board the plane to go back home and a flight attendant asked me if I minded being bumped to first class! Minded? Not only was I suddenly in luxury I had never imagined on a plane but I also was allowed access to the first class lounge in the Seoul airport where for hours I ate and drank like I had never eaten or drunk in my life. After an intense trip where I often did not eat because the food looked so sketchy it was pure joy to be in that lounge eating. There were hot showers too!
Those were the days. There is no way I will ever be bumped to First Class because the First Class passengers now would complain that an obvious imposter was in their midst. No way will I ever have an entire bottle of bourbon plunked down in front of me. The seats feel like they are ever-shrinking from year to year. Certainly it couldn't possibly be I who is ever-expanding. There are no free toothbrushes in the bathrooms nor do we get cute bags of toiletry items, the bag itself being the best item. No free little slippers for padding around the plane, no in-flight magazines! On domestic flights there is no free food and the snacks are boring. Alaska Airlines always used to serve free beer. One time I flew from LA to Portland on New Year's Eve and Alaska had supplied each plane with a few bottles of champagne. I'll never forget how excited the flight attendants were. They were popping corks all over the cabin and we few passengers were in for a raucous time.
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No, our flights from Portland to Chiang Mai could be described as tedious at best but actually I don't know who would give such high marks. Andrea and I both felt that it was more like we were barely able to endure the experience. The long segment of our three flights meant we were nearly 14 hours in the air. Endurance turned into something more like torture. I'm not kidding. For one thing the plane was beastly hot. It was 62 degrees below zero outside at 40,000 feet and all I wanted to do was open the window. The flight attendants never came by with water. In fact it seemed like the flight attendants had left the plane for hours at a time. I could go on about how bad our flights were but you don't want to hear more.
I considered that it was I who was the problem, that I was not capable of getting excited about going on yet another adventure. Maybe I was Debbie Downer. I wondered if after you do something a few times it can never be filled with wonder like it was before. Or, maybe age has a lot to do with it. New cars lose their new car smell eventually also.
But, think about it. Take hundreds of people, pack them like sardines into a big, hot, metal tube, deny them much drinking water, and certainly do not give them bottles of bourbon and cute toiletry bags, and then fly the tube at 40,000 feet over a vast cold ocean at 550 mph.! It's really quite an amazing thing and at the same time ridiculous. An incredible experience especially if you don't think about your chances of survival in the cold remote northern Pacific being near zero. Quick correction; it would be zero.
And then there is this deal with losing a day! Somewhere over that vast ocean when you are finally worn down enough to sleep for a few minutes you wake up and it's a day later. An entire day is gone from your life unless you return home someday. That's an interesting concept and I do understand why it has to be but it's also one of those things that I can't think about too much.
Maybe the way I was able to endure our longest segment of this flight was because I thought of the time Andrea and I were flying over the Pacific Ocean in the middle of a moonless night. We had no idea where we were. We looked down and saw little roads lit by glowing orange street lights outlining a jagged coast. It looked so neat and tidy that we both immediately agreed; Japan. It had to be Japan but we didn't even know we would be flying over Japan at all. Other possibilities could have been, Sakhalin Island, S. Korea or Taiwan but we were certain it was Japan, and it was. It's fascinating that we humans are able to know things we don't even know we know until we need to use that hidden knowledge. It's fascinating that little roads along a coastline seen from high above in the middle of the night can somehow appear unmistakably Japanese. How could a culture come through so strongly? What clues did our brains have that it had to be Japan? It's mysterious and magical to me.
So, with that knowledge, I wonderd if enduring some torture on this flight would lead to other things we never knew we already knew. Who knows!
It did not come to pass however. After the torture there were worse problems when we had twenty minutes to get to our connecting flight in Seoul but I won't get into that. We have all been at dinners with friends when someone tells a long-winded depressing story of flying. Suffice to say, the Korean Airlines employees went the extra mile to make sure we got on our next flight to Chiang Mai. We are grateful for their effort.
After 32 hours of nearly constant travel without much sleep we arrived safely in Chiang Mai. As soon as we exited the plane we smelled Thailand and all of a sudden, who cares about what we endured, we were in Thailand! And there's another fascinating thing; each country in SE Asia has a particular unique aroma that hits the olfactory immediately upon arrival. The Thailand scent is particularly familiar to us and it brought smiles to our tired faces. Yes, we have put a day on hold for a few months but we will get it back. It's not like when I gave myself a 25th birthday present of a year-long trip in Asia and I carefully figured out when to fly so as to arrive in Thailand on my birthday. The plane broke down in Anchorage and my calculations got screwed up. Somewhere over the Pacific I woke up and realized my 25th birthday had never existed! But the present I gave myself way back then keeps on giving. We're back in Thailand!
lovebruce
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 15 |
2 months ago
It actually happened to me in 1994 (I think) after fog in Chicago delayed takeoff of the flight from Dayton so I missed my connection that would have gotten me to Korea within about 28 hours. Got re-routed through Seattle and then the 13 hours with a kid kickkkking the back of my seat to Tokyo, where I waited a couple hours for my flight to Seoul. When they called for boarding, the person at the gate said "Oh, I'm sorry! We must put you in first class." It was the front seat on the upper bulge and I could see everything!!! Unfortunately, it was night and everything consisted of a few pinpoints of light, but I had legroom! I could have slouched all the way down in my seat and still had a foot to the bulkhead! Long story short, I was the last person out of the Seoul airport and they locked the gate behind me as I stood there wondering what to do and unable to get back in to change money for a taxi to the hotel that had been booked. Somebody had pity and we went back in looking for some money changer that was still not locked up... There was one, and I got enough to get a taxi to and from the hotel. After about 47 hours without sleep, I was finally able to sleep for 4 hours till I had to get the going for the flight to Busan. I could write a book about that trip,
2 months ago
2 months ago
One time coming home, in SFO, there was a dog who wouldn't leave my daypack alone. Finally I had to pull everything out of it and discovered a squashed banana down in there that I didn't remember having. He was a banana sniffing dog!!
2 months ago
And it's fun to imagine your arrival to a familiar and comforting sensory experience.
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2 months ago
However, our flight to New Zealand were so comfortable. The flight attendant were friendly, seats were comfortable, food and drinks were reasonably good.
*Please disregard this sentence.
2 months ago
I am remembering the good old days too. Our first time flying to Vietnam we were on EVA Air. It was still awesome back then. We had seats like living room armchairs with the ability to sleep comfortably, the hot wash clothes as we boarded, excellent food, attentive staff and even comfy slippers to wear onboard.
When we landed the entire plane applauded for the staff. We had never experienced anything like that and after we got over being startled, we found that such appreciation was a typical thing at the end of most flights on many Asian airlines in that era.
Not so much anymore!
And I just remembered that the upgrade from coach to the business class we were in cost us $100 each (2001 dollars).
How about a new meaning for MAGA? Make Airlines Great Again!
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