San Francisco to Hong Kong

When I was checking in, I became very aware that I was heading somewhere different. At the airport it was obvious that me to going to Asia seems odd to many people! I think even more so because I was by myself. I noticed plenty of people staring at me with curiousity. While I waited for my flight, I made my typical last minute phone calls. When I hung up, a few people around me from the Phillipines wanted to know where I was going and what I was doing. I have never gotten so many questions about my travel plans as I did before and during that flight.

I had chosen a window seat and my companions were an older couple who spoke no English but smiled a lot and were very nice. 12am is a great time to leave for Asia because you can get a bit of sleep and arrive to Asia in the morning. As we began our descent, I was hoping to get a glimpse of Hong Kong but it was dark and cloudy. When we were just about 10 minutes from landing, a woman in the row behind me got out of her seat, stood on it, and opened up the overhead bin to take out her bag. The flight attendant ran up to her and yelled, "What are you doing?! Get back in your seat, the plane is landing!" She literally tackled the woman and put her back in her seat. I have to admit the whole scene was pretty entertaining. You just never expect to see someone stand on their seat while the plane is landing. And you never expect to see a calm and collected Cathay Pacific flight attendant react like that. I guess during the whole 14 hour flight they had been trying to figure out what language she spoke as there are flight attendants who speak English and Cantonese and other languages, I'm sure. They didn't figure out until after the flight that she spoke only Vietnamese.