Wednesday 22^nd August, 2018 1230

We took to the air more or less on time for Dubai. My maiden flight with Emirates and I must say they are good, I would love to fly business with them, if only to see what goes on up those stairs leading to the dizzy heights aboard. The A380 may be touted as the epitome of technology and fuel economy but I can't say I thought it noticeably quieter than other aircraft and despite the size it still gets buffeted by CAT.

The six hour layover in Dubai? Never again. At least, if I do, I will book one of those places you can go to have a shower and a bed for a sleep.

On the second flight, despite my asking when we checked in at Athens for an aisle seat, the best they could do was a window for me and a middle for Alice. I have absolutely no idea how she knew but a hostess came to me once we were settled and said she had found someone in an aisle seat who really wanted a window seat, would I swap? Well that meant leaving Alice but perhaps she was happy to be rid of me, for she urged me to do so. A woman in a burqa was very happy to leave her aisle seat just behind a bulkhead, I was fine until mealtime, when I discovered the fold out table cut my belly in two! Lesson learnt.

Although she nonetheless did it for me, as I was directly aft of the for'ard galley I didn't need her to ask for wine with each meal. I was chatting with all the girls and they kept bringing me bottles without my having to ask!

We arrived in Guangzhou airspace on time but were prevented from landing. You could see the violent thunderstorms sweeping across the city, so we were sent into a holding pattern, the result of which delayed us for an hour.

That hour meant we missed the deadline for the hotel shuttle bus (which was midnight) and had to take a taxi which cost 110 yuan and, once he'd spotted it, the 10 Euro note the young driver was intrigued by and wanted for a souvenir!

The Holiday Inn here is impressive. I paid for executive benefits and we have a very large pad, described by Alice as 'So luxury!” The only black mark so far was that after midnight (we arrived at about 0100) the 24 hour room service is closed! I couldn't get a beer to slake my thirst before turning in to the superbly comfortable bed. Luckily I still had a little jing jo left but I wasn't very impressed – what if we had been starving hungry? Eat the complimentary pomegranate, apple or dragon fruit??

Alice has decamped for the day, she left after breakfast to take extraneous gear to her dorm and collect stuff for home. Oddly, to get to her school she needed to take a bus back to the airport and the subway from there, a three hour trip each way so she won't be back until perhaps 2100, by which time free drinks will probably have stopped and I will be in the room again. I don't care, I am just relaxing and will get a catch-up kip in a while, try as I might I could never really drop off on the flight, which door to door took about 22 hours.

No lie in tomorrow, breakfast and then off to the airport for the final portion of the summer holiday – in Shanghai.