Hi, First Class

My flight from Toronto to Shanghai was “business class,” which basically means they gave me all the things:

• A lie-flat seat. FLAT flat. Like, all the way back.
• A mattress pad (srsly?), coverlet, slippers, and a pillow to use on the plane
• A bottle of water
• A toiletries kit containing all kinds of magical stuff like socks, an eye mask, lip balm, and a tiny toothbrush
• Noise-canceling headphones (Those I didn’t get to keep, but still.)
• 2 meals– big ones
• Wine (although, let’s be honest, I could have used some more of that)
• Movies on my own personal big-screen TV

Hi, lie-flat seat.

We basically flew over the North Pole. Hi, Santa!

Here’s the whole Instagram Story.

Movies I watched:

• 77 Heartbreaks – Cantonese with English subtitles. It was really good, actually. A young couple in Hong Kong breaks up, and we find out what led to it in a series of flashbacks.
• I Feel Pretty – An Amy Schumer one I meant to see a long time ago. It was really good.
• Sex and the City – the movie. I finished watching the series a couple of years ago (late) and then Amazon didn’t have the movies for free. So there, Amazon. I got to watch it anyway.
• The Wizard of Oz – Because there’s no place like home.
• I skipped the one called A Nail Clipper Romance. The description went thusly: When surfer Sean meets tattoo artist Emily, she confides in him that she is part of a special sub-type of humans that only eats nail clippers. I don’t even know.

My first picture in China: Shanghai out the car window. And then I fell asleep.

Now that I’m here, I can’t figure out:

• How to read my gmail
• How to look at Facebook
• How to log in to Skype, since it wants to send a code to gmail in order to log me in
• How to change the temperature on the thermostat. It’s just 22 degrees no matter what.
• And it took me forever to figure out how to work the shower, although I eventually did get that. (You have to pull the button out rather than push the button. Whatever.)

Bucket update: Tom says he still hasn’t come out of hiding, but he did sleep in a box last night as evidenced by cat hair, and ate his food and used his litter box. He continues to be basically the easiest pet ever. You don’t even have to look at him. In fact, he’d prefer you didn’t.