As a parent, we always discover new things about our child as well as new things about ourselves through different situations. Since Covid-19, our little family of three (Missus, Lil Missy and me) had not had a holiday requiring any long travel time. We’ve taken one in late-2020 but that required only a ferry ride and car ride. It wasn’t cabin fever inducing.
For our first faraway-ish holiday, we had chosen to go to Kyoto. It was a place that missus and me had fond memories of and wanted to create new ones with the little one. The first thing for us to prepare for and get through was a five plus hours plane ride from Singapore to Kansai airport and an hour plus commute from Kansai to Kyoto Railway Station.
Due to the high cost of plane tickets in general, we had chosen to go for a budget instead of full service carrier. The airline we chose was Scoot. Missus and me did some prep in anticipation of the Lil Missy wanting to climb the walls while the seat belt sign was on.
First Missus had heard from colleagues that to help young children get over the pressure in the cabin and the discomfort it causes to their little ears, it’s best to let them wear ear phones. For this, we got the JBL kids earphones.
Next. to have some content go with the ear phones, we downloaded some YouTube videos. To do this, we needed to get a YouTube Premium trial account. We downloaded the the little one’s usual staple of video content including Peppa Pig, Come Play with Me and old episodes of the Korean variety show, The Return or Superman. About the last show, our little girl has specific preference for old episodes with the Song Triplets (father Song Il-kook) and Choo Sarang (father Choo Sung Hoon / Yoshihiro Akiyama — who had a revival of fame by being a standout contestant in the Netflix gameshow Physical 100).
Not wanting Lil Missy to spend her 5-6 hours watching videos, Missus prepared sticker activity books, paper and colour pencils for scribbling and games.
In all the rush to try to keep the little one entertained, we actually forgot our own entertainment on the plane…. And I wasn’t going to pay for overpriced and slow as a snail wifi on a plane….
How the plane ride played out was that the little one came through it quite okay. Apart from some restlessness which saw her switch between the window seat and the middle seat with my wife, she was kind of well behaved. A pleasant surprise.
How did I fare in a budget flight without in flight entertainment and without any reading material which I neglected to bring on board? Happy to say, my sanity was intact though I had my moments which led me to laugh uncontrollably at the boredom.
Moment number one came when I saw a fellow passenger reading the in-flight menu as if it was the most revetting novel — I saw that he had a book with him and he resorted to this! The page he was “reading” was as below.
I found myself suppressing an uncontrollable chuckle at the sight of this. My daughter saw this and the curious little cat asked me. I didn’t know how to explain it to her so I just made up something about the passenger being very funny. At this time, missus was asleep I think and didn’t notice my descent into momentary insanity.
Moment number two: I started thinking about the message on the little piece of paper they placed over the headrest which read, “Feeling Restless?” My answer in my head was, “You bet!” Then I thought back to the moment when I chuckled at the in-flight menu reader and started a suppressed chuckle again….
Missus had been noticing my very feeble attempt at a digital detox and kindly lent me her AirPods for me to listen to some music. My sanity was restored…
All in, I thought that the little one and missus handled the longish flight way better than I did. My two moments of sliding into pseudo insanity were actually quite funny to me as they happened and just as funny when I thought back on them. They were, in fact, the two genuine moments of entertainment I had on this flight.
During this flight, I discovered that we underestimated the little one. I discovered that my wife is the calmest person in the family and finally, that I am quite hopelessly addicted to external stimulation due to my attachment to an internet-connected smartphone.
Thanks for reading. That’s it for another blog post. Stay healthy and safe everyone.
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