Last - and not to be forgotten - Dirty Dozen Donuts:
By that time - the flight was boarding, and simply walked down to the gate to que without sitting down, and walk onto the flight.
J looked like it was rather empty, but had 6 PAX or so, and not a single PAX in Y+. So off to my seat, a Window K seat, 3rd row down in Y, and found I had a companion to sit next to me in the 2 + 4 + 2 configuration of the A330. Normal chit chat, was her first time on CZ, had booked it 2-3 days before, return flight to Paris, and was only option to keep transit times down and get there the fastest, but still had 6 hours in CAN transit, had paid a premium, and wasn't overly happy at the service she had - needless to say my dealings with her was short lived, as no PAX were in any of the front rows - 10 minutes after take off the seat belt sign was off and she was off to the front row seat to be by her self - so party central was set.
Push back was on time, a little surprise as the incoming aircraft was delayed 45 minutes - but to be expected.
While I was quite set to not have anything on the flight, I was signed up to the fact of getting the food to do this trip report - and I was surprised at how eatable it was - but I wouldn't suggest to anyone to bank on that always being the case with any CZ flight still. While I didn't eat my foot long until I arrived in SHA and was at the baggage belt waiting for my bags, had 4 donuts left that I had as a snack before I hit the hay, and ditched 1 x 600ml coke in CAN going through security to get domestic flight - I would totally do that all again without any differences.
Being rather happy due to self prescribed mediation, made the flight enjoyable, quick, and more than survivable.
So anyway, back to food - had two meals, a lunch just after take off:
And had a dinner prior to landing:
I ate both meals, and found it to be passable, but not quite to everyones taste.
The flight in general was fine - IFE was better and modern, but after EK, the offerings were limited and nothing on IFE interested me, and had movies on my Ipad to watch, which I had assumed I would be watching anyway. So good to see improved IFE, I would have been disappointed with offerings.
2 hours into the flight, I smelt that lovely smell of cigarette smoke with soon after cabin crew running down the back to the lav's - having been use to flying from China and lighters being taken off everyone by security, it is not something I have experienced on a flight .... since my last CZ BNE-CAN flight, maybe it was the medication, but after a while I clicked, we departed BNE where they don't take lighters off PAX at security - and to a Chinese person is every invitation to light up and smoke. Needless to say, we had another 2 making 3 incidents in total of smoking on the 8 hour flight. I just have to laugh these days when they do such, not that the risk they are putting me in not escaping me, maybe I am immune to Chinese and smoking from spending so long in China the past years, but it just feels like a childish game of cat and mouse that PAX will just light up if they have the tools to and feel like it.
Anyway, 4 hours into the flight, the mediation had all gone, Ice also, and was feeling rather happy and comfortable - so got a couple of hours of sleep to be awake for the last two hours.
I felt I won, had flown for Cheap, filled in the gaps of the cheap flight myself with LAGS restrictions and what I could Macgyver up airside.
AND - we landed on time, and as we were coming to a crawl at the end of the runway, my mind went to start gambling with myself over if we were going to get an Air bridge or not. I am yet to de plane in CAN using an Air Bridge, it is a novelty that evades me. So when we pulled up to an Air Bridge on arrival, it was difficult for one to hold me down to my joy over the idea we were using an Air Bridge - but I was equally confused as we were at a Domestic Gate, and the opposite side of the airport to the International Terminal - needless to say my happiness was short lived as we walked off the plane, we were ushered to the workers stair case to the side - confusing many as to why we were using such pre-historic stairs that would eat high heal wearing persons alive - and what do you mean I need to carry my wheelie bag down these step steps - at the bottom was the bus I was so use to, to get on and take a 10-20 minute bus trip to the international terminal.
Bonus that I know I have this bus ride, and to allow 2 hours between any flight in CAN for transit as a minimum - as this combined with the 10-20 minutes to go from International to Domestic and vise versa + baggage & immigration.
