I definitely thought that I would wait longer before writing my first blog post but just sitting on the plane on the flight out to Beijing compelled me to make a mental (and online) note not to fly long haul with Air China ever again. I'd thought, in booking the flight, that this airline was the equivalent of BA - i.e. I expected relatively high standards (even though I paid a pretty budget price). However, this couldn't be further from the truth. Without being snobby, the upholstery was a little shabby and the toilets were grim, although they had hilariously tried to jazz them up by adding a small red artificial rose wrapped in plastic uderneath the mirror. Needless to say, it didn't really improve the ambience. I can't imagine anyone wanting to join the mile high club in there, put it that way.

The worst thing, though, for a first time long haul flier such as myself was the inflight entertainment. Sad as it may sound, this was the thing that I was most excited about on this ten hour flight and I was sorely disappointed. There were no individual, in-the-back-of-the-seat-infront screens that I'd heard so much about - just four that came down in the central seat block and were really small. Then the films that were played were three short documentaries; one about a family of cougars, one about 'elite' sports with shots of horse riding and snooker, and one about some Chinese music. Finally, a feature length film was played that was certainly Chinese and appeared to be about a dog and the Chinese version of Tyrian Lannister (dwarf and blonde mop galore). Very odd. The worst thing was that the English and Chinese voiceover were played simultaneously through the headphones, rather than you selecting a language so all in all it was pretty confusing and extremely disappointing!

In terms of meals, I probably made the mistake of asking for the English food when flying with a Chinese airline as the beef and rice did look marginally more appetizing than the chicken and mash, but I didn;t really fancy the prawns and noodles for breakfast, even if the watery scrambled egg, salty bacon and soggy English muffin were pretty vile. All in all, Chinese customer service doesn't seem all it's been cracked up to be but I'm waiting to be converted...

I'm also hoping for the sake of anyone who continues to read this, that I have more positive things to say from here on in. Here's to Beijing, my first stop in China!