We were pretty excited leaving Vanuatu. Why? First class Qantas flight on the A380. Yeah baby!

This was the first of the first class legs of our round-the-world ticket (something we had decided to treat ourselves with when our trip got postponed for a few months earlier this year – you only live once) and in the A380 to boot, so we were pretty excited. The fact that we’d been living in the bush for the last few weeks didn’t exactly hurt either.

First stop, Sydney, where we stayed at the Holiday Inn (FANTASTIC view over Sydney harbor) and had a wonderful, indulgent meal at Rockpool (thanks for the recommendation, Dan) to get us into the right frame of mind. Then up bright and early so we’d have plenty of time to enjoy that FIRST CLASS lounge (Eggs Benedict and champagne for breakfast – yeah!) before boarding the plane and settling in to eat and drink our money’s worth with a fantastic 4 course lunch with matching wines, port and brandy. The seats are set up as quite self-contained pods, so James got some escape from me up until lunch time, when you can pull out a jump seat for dinner a deux (he was thrilled. Honest). A short siesta and a movie or two later, and we were in Hong Kong!

Of course, we now think this is how we should be treated in life, so it was fortunate that the short hop from HK to Beijing was also first class. First class dim sum, tea and champagne.

I could get VERY used to this!!