It didn’t seem long since I was last in London – only a couple of months previous when I’d flown from Heathrow for a short trip to Iceland. Sure enough we were back at the same terminal as well for a flight scheduled to leave at the same time as the Iceland flight. When we found the Air China check-in we found it was the desk labelled as Air Canada. We also spotted an elderly lady with a Voyages Jules Verne board, the company we were travelling with. It was a surprise to see someone from the company waiting for us, but she introduced herself as Rosemary and would be our guide for the entire trip.

Normally the weight limits for the flight are 20Kg for checked baggage and 5Kg for hand luggage. However for some reason that day it was 23Kg and 7Kg respectively. The security was a little quicker than normal and for once they didn’t need my backpack emptying of camera equipment – a welcome relief considering how long it normally takes to repack.

We ate at a place serving Italian food as we couldn’t be sure what food on the plane would be like. I went for a spicy pizza and water, but there were plenty of options containing pasta as well. We didn’t have much time as the scheduled boarding time was at 19:15. There wasn’t actually that many people boarding as surprisingly it wasn’t a full flight.

The entertainment system was far from perfect and was very time consuming to get to something you wanted to watch due to both input lag and how easy it was to make a mistake and then having to start over. I did actually give up for a while and watched some video I had on my iPad until they served dinner. The choices were either beef goulash or pork with soy sauce. As there would no doubt be plenty of chance for the latter over the next two weeks I opted for the beef.