1st Day - Leaving Sydney

Hi all. This is another one of my impulsive jaunts, where I take advantage of the fact Buckie has some free time during a overseas work trip to go sight seeing. This time we start in London - what will we do? Absolutely no planning this time, just going to wing it each day.

Was on the fence about taking this trip, only firmly decided the day before, even then there was a few things I had to reschedule/finish/organise that could have meant I would have to cancel.

Flights were hilarious. Twice in recent years I’ve gone to the EU and both times it cost me $3000+ for a return flight leaving from Sydney. This time the considerations were:

- Booking was super last minute.
- Fuel prices have spiked enormously in the last few months.
- And oh yeah, there is a war on. The conflict zone that sits directly between Sydney and London. And oh yeah, remember not to fly too close to Ukraine either.

So given that $3000 is what it costs under normal circumstances, I was expecting to have to pay a big premium given the above considerations. How much were the tickets???? Less than $1500. Unbelievable. I have not been able to figure that out.

The major dilemma I had was actually with donating blood. One of my goals 2026 is to max out my blood donations. With plasma you can donate every 2 weeks, with whole blood the cooldown is 4 weeks to start donating plasma again and 3 months before the next whole blood.

This year I intended to hit the donation times the moment they popped and donate the maximum amount of times. There is actually a trade off to be made because to acheive the highest possible donations, you take the repeatable plasma quest every 2 weeks while avoiding the longer cooldown from whole blood donations. However whole blood is much more important to donate (trauma patients, surgeries, etc), so it's better to max those out even though the total count for the year will be lower.

Why is this relevant??? Because I was due to make a whole blood donation on the day of my flight. The sub $1500 flight left first thing in the morning so I couldn't squeeze the donation in. There was a later flight, however they were $500 more expense. I kinda agonised over this for quite a while, am I really going to spend $500 just to donate blood slightly earlier???

I consulted with a psychologist about my moral dilemma. We went over a few things, due to his help I recognised there was other elements I hadn't considered. The early flight had a 14 hour layover in South Korea, where as the later flights did not. By not taking the earlier flight I would be giving up the chance to spend a big chunk of time in South Korea, a place I had never visited. Thus I booked the earlier flight. I would not be able to hit the donation cooldowns the moment they came up, but I resolved to limit the delay as much as possible by donating the moment I landed in London. Ok, not the most ideal but an acceptable compromise.

Checked entry requirements for UK, EU, and South Korea. Easy peasy for an Australian. Just some minor online paperwork.

Where am I staying in London when I land? Meh, I'll figure it out later.

The other big issue was I had a Uni assignment due. Theoretically I could get this done on the plane. Getting everything loaded on my Ipad was a pain, there are a surprising number of factors to consider. The assignment has to be in Word. Ok, do I have Word on my Ipad? Yes but it needs my Microsoft login. If I put in the login now, will it ask me again for it later at an inconvenient time? Ok, sure it now works - but will it work when I'm on the plane because it wants an internet connection? OK I've tested it with the internet turned off and it seems to function.... but is there something I'm missing that will trip me up later?????? And that was just for Word, add a whole bunch of other elements that I had to fiddle with and test out and try to anticipate problems with. Even once you think you have all your ducks in a line, and everything 'should' work, there is that nagging feeling that you have overlooked something. Something that makes all your other preparations pointless.

As I have previously, I lent my Tesla to Dave while I'm away. He also very kindly offered to drive me to the airport very early in the morning. A huge favour because he had a full day of work that day.

Ok - booked tickets at 10pm that night, flight is 7:55 tomorrow. Check. Transport to airport organised. Check. Everything needed to complete my assignment loaded on the Ipad. Check. Bag with some spare undies and socks, toiletries, chargers, etc? Check. (no checked baggage for me, haha!)

Ok, gtg.

Arrived at the airport on time (Thanks Dave!!!). Had some Macca's. Two funny things happened, the first was that my name on the receipt was "Valued Customer", which from now on will be the only name I respond to. If the situation is urgent, I will accept VC.

The other thing that happened is I had all the time in the world, so I left a review. Said the food was served quickly and tasted nice but the floor in the eating area was very unclean with lots of discarded food. I posted the review and thought nothing more about it, then 4 or 5 minutes later a Macca's employee comes out with a broom and starts cleaning the floor - I guess I caused that to happen.

Korean Airways flight KE402 - The seat has a very nice amount of room. Would prefer if the seat slanted down a bit more as the edge puts a bit or pressure on your leg. Nice food. Definately prefer window seats now so that I can lean against the wall to sleep.

Sent a photo looking out the window for Buckie to geolocate.

Flight takes off. Getting Uni work done. Watched inflight entertainment, the film Mercy (Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, it was... fine.) and Anyone But You (set in Australia!, with Sydney Sweeney and no one else notable). Slept a bit here and there. The personal overhead light was much too bright, so I stuffed some paper into the light fitting to reduce it.

Next up, Korea!Read more