after 14 hours of long haul flight.. with aching neck and shoulder, we are finally in San Francisco!!
ok..shall blog about my experience about the flight, since most people are wondering how I manage the heavy wedding gown on board..
Thankfully the wedding gown is not very heavy, perhaps less than 1 kg.. hand carrying was quite a breeze with the exception that its quite flimsy to carry around.. imagine a dress that is longer than your height.. the designer at Allure Charix taught us to carry by folding it into half and sling over the forearm..
Everybody at the airport was giving me stares.. I guess its just basic Singaporean instinct to give people weird stares when some1 is doing something or carrying something out of the norm.. Haha..
Cleared the first round of custom with a breeze, with some difficulty trying to hold my gown on one hand and trying to scan my thumb on the automated custom machine.. Upon boarding the plan, there's another round of custom to clear.. I totally hated this part.. as this is the part where you need to take off whatever outerwear you're wearing, take out the laptop & handphone, handheld cosmetics & facial products (in a small clear ziplock), and other hand carried luggage and placed them on a tray and sent for x-ray scanning... all these are quite routine since I travelled quite often.. BUT now with the wedding gown, its quite a tough task.. alerted the custom officer about my gown, and have to carefully arrange it on the conveyer belt and watched it passed through slowly on the other end..
The flight from SG to HK was full.. so imagine the large influx of tourists and locals on board.. lesson #1 learnt.. try to board the plane asap when your row number is called.. coz we waited to be the last few to board.. thinking that with the huge "load" we have, should let the others go first.. but we are wrong! by the time we are up on the plane, the air stewardesses & stewards are so busy trying to help everybody stowed their stuff up in the overhead cabin, getting the food&drinks ready etc.. called for the steward to help me hang my gown, but he was too busy.. so I just randomnly hung it over the railing that seperates the gallery & passenger seats.. that finally caught the attention of an air stewardess who kindly helped me hang the gown in their closet.. Upon reaching HK, we had to get out of the plane for transit (thou its the same aircraft, for security reason every1 & everything needs to be taken off).. The stewardess told us nicely to board the aircraft earlier for the flight to SF as they have limited closet space, they hung the gown in their cabin bunk earlier (feel so bad to occupy their tiny resting space).. All the stewardesses & stewards on board are really nice, kept sending their congratulations as I alight from the plane..
HK airport was a madrush, imagine all the "ah-tiongs" trying to clear customs alongside in the que.. there was que cutting here & there.. so pissed off but since I'm quite "handicap" with the gown, didnt really bother about them, since there's still about 1 hour before boarding.. there's an uncle who helped to check the luggage, he so cute lor.. keep asking me if I'm getting married in SF or what am I doing with that gown.. but I was in a rush, so the conversation was kept short..
Asked AH to go que up to board as soon as our row number was called.. this time boarded quite an empty flight.. as usual they staff on board the plane looked at me with curiousity and also congratulated me.. One of them even said its quite unusual for people to having their wedding photos taken in SF.. heee
All was good at SF airport, their staff were all as curious who kept asking me what am I doing with that gown.. that was like the 4th or 5th time I answered.. lol... The most tiring part of the journey was carrying all the luggage (without the help of airport trolleys) and the wedding gown to take the BART (like our MRT) and walking from the BART station to our hotel.. SF roads are not flat and smooth like SG.. their roads are steeper we were practically walking uphill with our stuff and their roads are super bumpy!
Reached the hotel safe & sound.. and time for bed (its was like 10pm when we arrived at the hotel).. the adventure in SF continues!
