Before actually writing about my fun times in Western Asia, can I write about the process of getting there? I counted and in the past weeks I have boarded six planes. SIX. And I am not counting the two flights I had to catch from Abuja to Lagos because I went with Emirates (and came back with Qatar airlines). Considering this I had to really make us of the in-flight entertainment offered and I guess I am lucky, because both Emirates and Qatar offer amazing choices, i.e. choices that suit my taste. In other words those airlines have a wide selection of entertainment from Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe. When I visited the United States earlier this year I used British Airways and I pretty much had to use my laptop for entertainment, I remember I finished watching Sungkyunkwan Scandal in the air (and the person seated right next to me was into Korean pop music and dramas as well!). FYI, I usually cannot sleep while in airplanes unless I am extremely tired.
This post is dedicated to in-flight entertainment XD
I saw this article up on CNNGo on Qantas airs warning passengers on orgasms and flights due to in-flight entertainment. Well, I can certainly speak for the latter, I have cried due to watching movies while flying and so far the movies that have made me cry were Korean. I watched 하모니 and I cried and cried shamelessly, this was last year. This time I watched 마이 블랙 미니드레스 and the portrayal of female friendship, life after university and family relationship, just touched me so much I found myself crying. I don’t think I am someone who cries easily.
This aside, I watched some pretty good movies like Detective K and the Secret of the Virtuous Widow, De vrais mensonges (I love this movie, it made me laugh out loud in the plane) and 小川の辺 (which was slow but in a very good way). The list also includes Storm Warriors (*sigh* Aaron Kwok) and Mr & Mrs Incredible (which I sadly did not enjoy). I recall there was a time that Emirates offered Nollywood films as part of their in-flight entertainment, but I did not find any this time so maybe I imagined it in the first place.
After listening to the entire K-pop playlist more than once…remember, but six different planes…I had to diversify so I checked out the African and J-pop mixes, even checked out one of the Chinese playlists that featured artists singing in both Mandarin and Cantonese. When I discovered I had more free time decided to check out music I would have normally ignored, this was how I listened to the Russian mix which I enjoyed tremendously. By the return journey I had caught the Arabic pop bug so I browsed all the albums under the ‘Arabic pop’ menu and found some really good artists, I am still trying to sort out the Arabic pop I want to add to my library.