Flying with Jo

It's Chinese New Year, and following tradition we headed towards my husband's hometown for a time of reunion with his side of the family.

Air Asia gave us 2 seats in front and 2 at the back of the aircraft, so I ended up with Jo while Nel chose to sit with her daddy. Jo as usual loves flying (she's always had), while I totally hate it. Everytime I get on a flight I wonder "Why the heck do I have to fly?"

Anyway our flight was more of a learning journey with Jo being curious about most things. Before take off she looked at the safety manual and started asking a series of questions about safety. Then the plane took off and she asked what made an aeroplane fly? So with what knowledge I had, we discussed flight.

Barely 10 minutes into our flight we hit a minor turbulence. At one point the plane dropped a couple of inches during which one of the passengers (more panicky than me), screamed "Oh God!." I panicked too, but Jo laughed and cracked unpleasant stories about how it would be to start diving and crashing into the ground. I got superstitious and told her to hush. Then with all the blur of clouds and wind outside she started discussing about what clouds really were.

Once the plane stabilised (thank goodness), the little one started making puppets out of the barf bags given and then started creating imaginary stories with them.
Then of course a small meal was served, and I think she loved that bit a lot.

When the captain announced that we were to prepare for landing, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We watched through open windows how the wings of the airplane changed to facilitate landing...and then as we flew lower she was awed by the long, meandering Sarawak river with all its tributaries. We rediscussed Mangrove when we saw lots of them from the sky, we discussed pollution when we saw how black some parts of the water at the river mouth was, polluting the sea. Then at one point where there seemed to be 2 rivers flowing she said "That must be like Tigris and Euphrates mum," showing she remembers stuff we learnt about Mesopotamia, and finally when approaching the city, she said "This is like lego land, little buildings and cars! I wish I could move things about..so cute mum!"

Closer to landing, at one point Jo started counting backwards from 10, and at the word 0, the plane touched the ground. woo hoo. :) So that was our flight. More updates soon about celebration here. So far it's been good. :)


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