If I could travel without the means we use now to travel, I would. I love traveling. I hate the means though. I despise them, not because I have a fear of it, but because I am not a patient person in all honesty. I hate sitting on my ass for hours on end without being able to move. Not that I would do much but I start feeling a bit claustrophobic, and I feel as if I am wasting time. I do realise how much of a blessing it is sometimes, it is the perfect time for some me time, for some pampering (as I said before facemasks are a must), catching up on lost sleep (and we all know that even after 10 hours of sleeping per night we still have sleep to catch up on), read, write, anything that I couldn’t do at home because of various reasons (eg loud family, people always calling you and wanting to talk to you, life in general etc.). Think that is the only good thing I could say about flying. I have done a lot of that during the past 3-4 years, and I have started getting used to it, now it doesn’t bother me as much. I found the perfect routine and I stick to it every time. Try to either sleep, read, listen to music. Do not forget the hand sanitizer and the hand cream (dry hands are the worst thing in the world). Lip balm. As little make up on as possible- if any at all. Do not drink fizzy drinks or alcohol. Water as much as possible (drink not water the plants). Ask for extra if needed.

Long haul flights are the best when you would like to have some personal time. At the same time, if you are not a patient person (I definitely am not) after 4-5 hours this personal time begins to become a torture. That is when I would usually try to sleep. And that is when everybody else, who’s obviously started sleeping as soon as the plane took off starts waking up. And rattle the back of my seat, and the babies on the plane start crying in hunger, and people start going to the toilet. And my plan to sleep goes straight down the drain. And it’s not like I find it easy to sleep on the plane anyways. It usually takes me ages to fall asleep whilst on the plane. However my mindset does change to ‘time to sleep now’ and the yawning and grouchiness starts. Which makes it more impossible to cope with everything that is going on around me. Then, is when I decide I need to help myself a bit and fall asleep and I would accept the glass of wine that the flight attendant gives me. Not saying that is okay, usually alcohol does not help with dehydration-it usually makes it worse, however, it helps with falling asleep. Not promoting underage drinking here! If underage, alcohol is out of the question.

Usually before I would go to sleep I would go on a rampage with my face masks and hydrating products. Before I learned that hydrating on a plane is important for my skin (this might become boring if you’re not interested in your skin’s health) I didn’t bother with anything that had ‘face mask’, ‘hydrating’, ‘cream’ on it. I would just use lip balm because I hate cracked lips. I did not realise that those cracked lips was my body telling me ‘Oi idiot, losing water here!’ I would get off the plane and not feel its effects immediately. I’d be fine usually until the next day, when my skin would start breaking out and kill me with its dryness. Ever since then I started using extra hydrating creams and face masks (usually clear ones) while on the long haul flight. If the plane ride is shorter I’d make sure to hydrate well the night before and apply a face mask. And only apply the extra hydrating cream before the flight and use minimal make up and completely forget about make up while on a long plane ride. (boring part is over)

Another tip, would be to never sit on a window seat. Unless you are traveling with friends that you could bother constantly with going to the toilet. Window seats are amazing if you know you have a small bladder and not as many necessities. Or if you know you’ll sleep the entire way. However, if not, window seats are the worst. I happened to sit on a window seat on the flight there and it killed me, especially since I have a small bladder and a lot of toilet necessities. I am a bit of a germ freak especially on the plane, and the hand sanitizer I had and the wet towels they gave us were not doing it for me.

Arriving in Korea wasn’t as bad as I thought, I had an overnight flight and slept for a bit on the plane (when I could finally fall asleep). Surprisingly, I wasn’t jetlagged at all. I did have to fight with myself for a bit to be honest, to go to bed at 10pm that night, but the excitement and the fact that I had an entire room to clean and luggage to unpack before I knew it, it was 10pm already.

Now, it all depends on the flight and timezones. Some people have difficulties with jetlag, and I read about any and every possible tip I could. Including the ‘do not eat whilst on the plane’ one. And I have to say that whilst I might find it a stupidity, it might actually work. If you have the patience not to eat out of boredom on the plane. Not eating for a while and then eating gets you easier in the time zone. Not to mention the fact that after you eat you do tend to get sleepy. But then, a 17 hour flight, with another 12 until I’d go to bed it was impossible for me. The fact that even if I became sleepy on the plane after I’ve had my meal but no matter how sleepy the food makes me the amount of noise and shuffling around still keeps me awake is another story.

I needn’t worry though, for the jetlag missed me completely every single time. Weirdly enough it did not miss me at all after a 2 hour change in the timezone.

And that was the start of my adventure. After that long plane journey, which in the end became my nemesis and I dread doing it again, my longer placement journey began. And no amount of facemasks or hydration, sanitizer or sleep could have prepared me for it. Well maybe sleep might have helped a bit…