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I am inside the flight of Asiana Airline, on the way to Chengdu, China.  At this point, I really do not know how to describe my feeling because since I was a young boy, I have always dream about visiting China, and now I will finally be there!  In a mere couple of hours, I will be stepping foot on a place that has been in my dream for so long.  All the movies, TV shows, musics, novels, books, arts, crafts that I have watch and read that are about China will all be concluded and come down to this trip.

So I really can’t describe how I feel at the moment.  Maybe a mixture of a little bit of excitement, a little bit of anxiety, and a little bit of scare.  Scare? Why scare?  Well, I am scare that China is not what I expected.  May be I have set my expectation so high because I have wanted to be there so much my whole life that I will end up being disappointed at the real China.

I really don’t know how I will react as soon as I step out of the plane and actually standing on China’s ground.  Will I kneel and kiss the ground?  Will I shout and dance like a crazy person?  I don’t know…  What I do know is that this flight will take another 10 plus hours before it reaches China.  So I am going to checkout what the plane has to offer so I can kill some times and perhaps help ease my eagerness a bit …

Well, the entertainment system on the plane is new and great.  They have games, movies, news, musics and etc etc etc to help passengers pass the long and boring hours on the plane.  Before I step on to this flight, I did vow to write down the details of my feeling and emotion during the flight.  I can use these records later when I write about this trip.  Of all the things I could do, including chatting endlessly with my neighbor, I have decided to start with watching movies and sleeping.  Good choice, I still think.

I did mentioned they have a great entertainment system right?  They also have a huge movie selection and most of them are new releases that I have not watch yet!  I ended up watching movies after movies and movies after movies.  I can’t quite recall how many movies I have watch but I believe it is roughly in the neighborhood of six or seven.  I know you are going to say six or seven movies  is not a lot, but it is if you watch it within about 15 hours.  Just multiply 6 (movies watched) by 2 (hour/movie), you will see that that’s most of my flying time.  I think I was able to catch up with all the new movies I have missed on this flight – Nice!! :)

All Asiana airline’s flight stopover at Incheon Airport for transfer.  My flight is no exception.  Well, that’s good, it gives me a chance to get out and stretch, relax and eat some Korean beef noodle soup.  Yup, the beef noodle soup is not bad, as expected, but the flavor is not much different than the Korean beef noodle soup in Seattle.  I thought it would be a lot better here so I was a little disappointed at that, but no big deal :)

Korean Airport has a lot of cool stores, especially those electronic stores. They have a lot of cool toys I have not seen before.  I spent a lot of time browsing, but I didn’t buy anything.  Incheon airport does not only offer free WIFI, they also offer computer station for you to use,  now that is very convenient and it help a lot with time killing.   If internet and computer is not your thing, they also provide a lot of places for resting.  Ah, those comfortable couches are so comfortable.  Of course, the real danger is overslept and end up missing the flight.  Trust me, it happened before, I have heard stories.

All these services offered really help if you have a long layover.  Time passes by faster when you have load of options of what you can do.  I will write an article just about Incheon Airport in the future.  Note that I use the word future very loosely, so please be patient with me :)

You see?  Incheon Airport really does have everything.

Not long after, it is time to board again.  It means that I am on the second half of the journey to Chengdu, it means that I am that much closer to my dream place – China.

The second  half of the journey has stared.  So, what else are there to do on a long flight besides movies and sleeping?  Oh yes, food.  I love food, I love to eat, and I ate a lot on this flight.  Asiana Airline did not go cheap on the food department.  They offers plenty of meals through out the flight and I did not missed a single one.

For the in-flight menu, they always offer you two choices – Korean style and Western Style.  I prefer the Korean style but it always ran out by the time the choices reach me.  So I have no choice but to stick with the good old Western style – steak.  To my surprise, it was not bad for an in-flight meal, not bad at all.  But I still prefer the dolsot bibimbap.  What could be better then having a Korean meal on a Korean flight?  Too bad, maybe next time.

I heard the Korean rice wine is very good in inducing sleep.  So to find out if this is true, I help myself to this delicious drink, generously of course.  Just like that, all of my time on the flight is spend on eating, drinking, watching movies and sleeping.  How about my big plan about writing down my emotions and feelings on the flight?  Simply put – gone …  I threw it out of the windows at 16,000 meters above sea level.

Hey, I will always have time for that later, right?  Wrong!!  I didn’t end up writing anything throughout the trip, not even after I have gotten back from the trip.  I was having way too much fun exploring the city.   In the end, Chengdu did not disappoint, I have the best time of my life here not to mention a lifetime of dream come true.

I have a lot more that I want to say and share about this trip with all of you.  Now that I have started, I will start putting up photos I took in Chengdu.  I hope through these photos, you can see what I see, and walk where I walk.  I will update this blog often, so please come visit often.  I hope all of you who visit can feel the way I feel about Chengdu, feel the romance of the city, the diversity, the cultures, the history and will fall in love with Chengdu just as I have.

/Lumaca Moderno

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