Beijing the second time around. Still wide awake after a tiring but very interesting flight from Abu Dhabi. My second experience working with a Cabin Senior and indeed it is better this time. Alexia from South Africa,eventhough direct FJ transfer from Gulf Air she knows and loves her work, she actually went out the cabin and served our guests. Bravo! Bravo! Not being grumpy, bossy and do that, this, that, this.
Seven hours and fifteen minutes seems fast. Passengers are mostly Chinese Male and a few female and colored passengers. Very smooth flight because most of them barely speaks English but some really studied the language through work and self-study I guess. Hydration and frequent lavatory checks were done, I'm satisfied but still contemplating why the lavatories were wet after each passengers used. I hate wet ones. LOL!
I flew with Khumo, my batchmate from abinitio and indeed its fun to see her again and catched up with the lost time.
One thing that most of the guests didn't try is the Nissin Cup Noodles, we had minimum load so we just offered it to those who were awake, which was nobody. Operating crew going back will see that almost 70 cups were still in tact. But the rest are well taken care of.
One concern is that when I checked the roster for EY 888, there is still staff no. 124++ in Coral and I was ? Marco, the Fil-Lebanese guy is the most senior with 15+++ then his beau Dorina, 160++ then moi, Khumo and Magdalena (blonde Polish girl) who speaks Mandarin fluently, weird Ei?
Anyway, the 12+++ Leila was assigned Galley Operator. So no problem for me, I am L4A floater for Diamond, Marco, R2A floater for Pearl. Then in the middle of the flight in between and after service, the galley was a real mess and she was quite bossy Ei! But I can still manage then aftern I've learned that our GO was just flying for 2 months but was with the company for a while as ground staff, Hello Garci! I almost dropped on my jumpseat, overacting of course!
I don't know but I have been very patient with her, unfortunately, until now SDO or whoever is in charge of assigning positions should be fair or our human resources since they were responsible for them. She was ground staff (with respect to other ground staff ) and of course when she transferred to Inflight department she carried her staff number. Thus gave her the privilege of getting the GO position surpassing more senior crew like Marco and Dorina. I have been in the company for almost 2 years now and seldom I get galley position since my staff number is low. Okay I envied them for getting faster promotion to FJ eventhough they have not served enough time in economy zone but since they have higher staff number they were very fortunate to be immediately trained for FJ's which for me is unfair. I have friends and batchmates who have previous experiences as Cabin Crew for more than 5 years and still stuck they are stucked in the jungle, few of them were upgraded recently in premium zone which they really deserved.
Oh well, Cest' La Vie. Just one of my breakdown moments. Please forgive me.
Going back. Arrived at Shangri-La's Kerry Hotel Bejing, nice room and bath. Had a nap for 4 hours, went to shower and met the crew at around 6PM. The weather is fine, actually, cool! Please bear with my attire, I wore a thin sweatshirt and I managed not to wet my armpits Awwww! We went for a 15 minute walk to Silk market, as usual, Chinese SA are clever and sometimes rude to customers but I didn't mind, I just wanted to eat. Then we look for a restaurant nearby and we were told its in the upper floor, we took an elevator ride and ALAS we had a very sumptuous Chinese dinner buffet on the 6th floor for only 78 Chinese Yuan. Not bad? I didn't eat any chicken so to ease my allergies but I drank beer and house red wine that according to Marco, tasted really bad. (Actually!)
I went back 4 times, imagine... How's Diether? (My Diet) Our Premium class crew Anthony and Arti told me it's fine and it gave me the boost to eat more... I need to vomit! Hu Hu Hu... I want my Green Tea HP!
It was a learning experience again to go out with the crew. Not an expensive day for me but very fun.
We decided to go back to the hotel, that was around 10PM so that we can wake up early for our Great Wall Adventure which will take place a few hours from now. And I am still awake!
I was watching CCTV8, A local chinese channel and I was surprised that Pangako Sa'yo ( A Promise To You ) a popular Filipino soap-opera in early 2000 was dubbed in Mandarin. It was also popular to our South East Asian countries and even in Kenya and some other Eastern Africans cities. Wow!
Well I need to sleep now for its a full day tomorrow. Bless my feet bukra huhuhu!
