Our first flight was a claustrophobic nightmare. Our plane was a total of three seats across and my head barely skimmed the roof as I walked wide-eyed and panicked towards my row. Luckily I only had to feel crowded for an hour and a half. Thank God for Jason! When we got off the first plane, we had to walk outside to a shuttle which drove us across the runway in the dark to another wing of gates. We then had to navigate our way through those gates and back outside to finally arrive at the international section of the airport. I would have been crying and lost had Jason not guided me through these maneuvers every step of the way. We made it to our international flight with…hmm…four hours to spare. Somehow we missed our cast when they first arrived at the terminal and spent three of the four hours waiting alone. When we finally got together, we rehashed the stresses of our journeys and the excitement of our upcoming adventures.
Jason and I sat together on the plane a full section ahead of the rest of our cast. We were joined by an Asian woman who was unable to dampen our excitement even though the constant assault of her gaseous emissions became almost unbearable. I’ve never met another human who could maintain that amount of stench so frequently and for so long.
The plane to Hong Kong was much more comfortable than our plane to L.A. However, fifteen hours of any small space can become overbearing especially when the electricity in the seats is shorted out three hours into your flight. No more games, no more movies, no more music. Not even access to the overhead light. Fortunately I had just finished watching The Help which was almost completely uninterrupted by announcements of turbulence and which was not a bad movie.
The next twelve hours were spent in the darkness where fits of sleep came and went and where my bladder seemed to time out with dastardly precision exactly when the “fasten your seat-belt” light would click on. Out of boredom between running to the bathroom and before falling asleep I decided to open the window screen which the stewardesses insisted we closed as soon as it got dark. Out past the giant wing of the plane hung the stars, suspended and beautiful and bigger than I’d ever seen them. I’ve never been so close to space in the dark without any distracting lights. It was truly amazing and it made me think forward to all the night skies I would see out on the empty ocean.
Touchdown!! Our plane landed amidst the views of Hong Kong. Huge lush mountains framed by tall skinny city buildings surrounded by water. Beautiful, warm and humid! After some confusion with customs as to whom needed to stamp our passes, them or the seaman’s post, we grabbed our bags and headed with our guide Guy towards our bus. We stowed our luggage and hopped on for an hour drive to the marina. We disembarked from the bus, grabbed our suitcases and realized we were still a good twenty minute walk from our boat. Well, we didn’t so much as realize it as live it. We are all convinced that someone made Guy mad, because we seemed to walk in a circle instead of cutting straight across to the marina.
There she was, our ship the Silver Shadow, docked proudly in front of us. There was an awkward moment as we passed the cast that was leaving and all I could think was “I hope they didn’t trash our rooms like the cast on our sister ship did”. When we finally got to our rooms after schlepping around the ship on our official tour, filling out our paperwork and lugging our bags up and down stairs we had only a few minutes before we had to go back out to our safety training. From there we were kept busy all day from drills to rehearsals to additional tours. We were informed that we won’t receive our internet cards until the morning so there is no way to get in touch with our families and tell them we are alive and safe and only slightly sea-sick.
Our rooms are not terrible. They are bigger than the picture I saw of our sister-ships rooms. Jason and I have four beds and two closets. Ok…now that I’m typing so much I am getting sea-sick, so that’s all for now! I’m still very excited! I miss everybody!
Ok…day two. I finally got my internet card this morning, but between safety training, rehearsal, hob-knobbing and our “taste of what’s to come” show tonight, I haven’t had a chance to use it until now. I’m officially exhausted, but happy. Also, I feel much better today after the sea-sick tablet I took last night. That’s all for now though. I will be drifting off as soon as my head hits my pillow!
