H-moon Recap: We're seriously going to die...

...or at least vomit a few times!  No, really...our honeymoon plans took us from LA to Brisbane, Australia to Bali, Indonesia and back to LA by way of Hong Kong...it looked like this (except for I left out the layover in Hong Kong):

We started off leaving LAX right on time at 11:25 pm on Qantas airlines headed non-stop for Australia.  Because of the time/date line change, we would be traveling for 13 1/2 hours but arrive on Monday morning at 6 am.  I have to say, QANTAS was amazing!  I was pretty exhausted when we boarded...after all, I'd just gotten married the night before and then spent most of the day hanging out with family and friends and then packing and zipping off to the airport.  But just to be safe, I took half an Ambien sleeping pill so that I would conk out on this flight.

We were super excited about QANTAS...Mr Fix It had never flown with them before and he loved them.  They put us in 2 seats that were basically an aisle seat (which Mr Fix It insists on) and then a window seat (which I love).  But the window seat was actually pretty big because all the other rows had 3 seats in them except for ours...so we had a nice gap between me and the window to put my carry on bag down and stretch out my legs.

Anyway, I had asked Mr Fix It to buy neck pillows for us and eye masks.  He obliged and bought me a blow up one and him a stuffed pillow type one.  BEST investment we ever made!  Those things are amazing and a must for long flights!  We both slept great with no problems with kinked necks...and the eye masks were great too (even though it was already dark most of the night).  Here is a crappy pic of Mr Fix It with all his sleeping garb on:

So I slept really good for the first 6 hours or so.  When I woke up, Mr Fix It said they had served dinner on the flight while I was sleeping and he said it was good.  Qantas also offered free movies and tv in the sets in the back of each seat.  So each passenger could watch whatever they wanted.  I hadn't flown in a long time and I loved this new feature!  It made our flight go by fast...even though I fell back asleep again after breakfast.  :)  But when I woke up just about 2 hours before the end, we suddenly had some problems...lots of turbulence.  Mr Fix It is a tough guy, but he has a fear of heights...silly I know, but true.  He has an even bigger fear of flying and bad turbulence meant he now had white knuckles as well.  During our final descent into Australia the plane took a huge drop that sucked up our stomach.  It didn't really bother me, but even if it had, I couldn't be afraid because I was trying to calm Mr Fix It.  Poor guy. 

On Sunday, a week after landing in Brisbane, we headed back to the airport and got on a flight on Pacific Blue airlines to head to Bali.  It wasn't bad but Mr Fix It wasn't impressed with this airline.  The total trip was like 5 hours or so I think.  On this flight, you had to pay to watch the tvs and movies however, the entertainment system had some glitch so after about an hour they just gave us all free access to it.  That was cool because I watched a lot of Sex and the City.   

We have a portable DVD player that we had bought a few years ago and Mr Fix It was afraid that the battery wouldn't last long enough to keep us entertained on the flights...we had also brought a few DVD's of course.  He waited until just about 3 or 4 days before the wedding and dragged me around the county looking for a battery for our DVD player that would last a lot more hours.  Of course we couldn't find one so he eventually had one overnighted to his house on the day of the wedding and paid a ton of money for it!  Then we didn't even need it since the flights had tv's for each passenger :)  Though I did make good use of it watching movies by the pool and in our rooms during the trip.

On Saturday, May 1st, we headed back to the airport in Bali to go home to LAX.  Let me just say that the Bali airport is just silly...they did have food and shops and such, but nothing like the airports we visited in LAX, Brisbane, and Hong Kong.  (Which by the way, Hong Kong was so huge and really nice!)  In Bali, when we arrived the previous Sunday, we had to take a shuttle from the tarmac to the main terminal which gave us a great view of their scary airport digs.  Makeshift fences in the midst of rice paddy fields did not give me a warm fuzzy feeling about the safety regulations and condition of the landing strips and such.

The flight from Bali to Hong Kong was uneventful...I watched Twilight and had a good meal.  I was happy to be in the Hong Kong airport where things seemed more normal.  We were hungry so we ate these amazing nachos at a sports bar.  Mr Fix It slept on the floor waiting for our flight to board...but we didn't have to wait very long considering we had a 3 hour layover.  Again, we departed on time and I was so excited to be on the 13 1/2 hour flight back home.  But....

The ride home was horrible!  Once again, I did sleep for the first 4 or 5 hours.  But then we hit a ton of turbulence.  Mr Fix It said it lasted like 2 hours but it didn't seem that long to me.  However, when I woke up (after again having taken 1/2 an Ambien), I felt nauseous and kinda hungry, too.  So I asked the steward to bring me some fruit.  Almost immediately after eating an apple, I told Mr Fix It to let me up...we were sitting in the middle and aisle seats of the 68th row of the plane.  I ran into the bathroom and threw up due to all the turbulence.  BLECH!!!  Thank goodness I was at the back of the plane only 2 rows from a restroom.  I felt so much better but then only 30 minutes later, I got up and threw up again.  We were supposed to be in our seats, but the flight attendants knew better to leave me in the restroom.

Needless to say, I was so happy when we finally landed at LAX - and this time, because of the winds in the jet stream, we arrived like an hour and fifteen minutes early!  We had to be shuttled from the farthest tarmac I've ever seen at LAX and then ended up waiting for like 2 hours to get through customs, get our luggage and then find a taxi to take us home. 

We finally walked in the door to our home at about 11:45 pm.  It would be our first time sleeping there together as husband and wife.  But as soon as we walked in, Mr Fix It said it felt weird not having our dog, Kuta there waiting, jumping and wagging his tail around happy to see us.  I turned my head from him and said "Stop it!  Don't do this right now," and I was totally streaming tears down my face as I'm sure he was, too.  We decided we were hungry again and headed over to a local restaurant for a midnight meal.   I had the most amazing strawberry crepes...we drove home and climbed into bed and slept really good. 

As much as I loved the honeymoon and we had pretty smooth flights and traveling experiences, I was so happy to be done with airports!