Bonus episode #167 – Airplane tales

Hello and welcome to bonus episode number one hundred and sixty-seven of the QLIPS English podcast. How's it going? Thank you for clicking play and joining me for this English study session today. I hope you're doing well. If you don't know who I am, let me quickly introduce myself. My name is Andrew, and here in our bonus episodes, what I do is I just tell you some stories from my everyday life. I'm a Canadian guy. But I live abroad in Seoul, South Korea, and I hope that by

hanging out with me and listening to my stories, you will be able to improve your English fluency. That's what it's all about here at Clip. And as I tell you my story, I'm gonna stop and pause along the way to explain some interesting and useful vocabulary that I think it's a good idea for you to know. And of course, to help you out, we have some amazing study tools. Free for everyone. There is an interactive transcript.

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Okay, so let's get started with my story for this week. If you listened to last week's bonus episode you'll know that I spent uh a week back in Canada I'm back in Seoul now and I had an amazing time back home and perhaps next week I'll tell you that story about what I actually got up to because it was a really good time and I had some

fun adventures and did some cool things. So maybe I'll talk about that next week. But for this week, I want to talk about airports and airplanes because over the last week I spent Over twenty four hours in the air. A whole day in the air going to Canada and coming back, and some of the other little regional flights that I had to do in Canada. Plus, I spent

another maybe six to eight hours, maybe even more, I'm not sure, in airports. So uh my last week was really dominated over a whole day, a whole one seventh of my week. was spent either in the air or in airports. So yeah, I'm gonna tell you uh a little bit about that experience here this week. Airplane tales. So I'm gonna start by talking about my flight that I took.

to visit Canada. So I departed from Seoul. There's a big airport here called Incheon. Incheon International Airport. So from Incheon International Airport in Seoul to Vancouver. Now That flight is a pretty long flight, as you can imagine. We go over the Pacific Ocean. Well really we go up. towards the Arctic and then over Russia and then down over Alaska and then down the west coast of Canada to Vancouver. So it's like this big arch pattern that we follow.

And it's a long flight. It's around nine and a half hours in the air for that flight. Now, when I booked my ticket, I swore, guys, I swore that I selected my seat when I booked the ticket. When you reserve your airplane ticket online, there's a section where you can choose your seat. Now you have to be careful at this stage because some of the seats cost extra. They're like premium seats. But usually there are some seats that you can choose from that come at no additional cost.

And so I swore that I selected the aisle seat. The aisle seat. That's where I prefer to sit. I like sitting in the aisle just so I don't feel trapped or claustrophobic, that I can get up and move around if I need to stretch. or if I need to go to the washroom, something like that. I like to be right on the aisle so I can easily stretch, easily walk around, easily go to the washroom. Of course, it's cool to sit beside the window because you get this amazing view.

But airplane seats are usually three in a row, right? And on these big international planes, it's usually like three on the side beside one window. and then there's an aisle, and then there are three or four in the middle of the plane. That's the terrible place to sit, in my opinion. I don't like to be in the middle. I think usually people who travel

With families like to sit there, right? If you have like a four-person family, boom, take up the middle, nice for your family, but as a solo traveler, not for me. And then on the other side of that middle row, there are an additional three seats on the other side of the plane. So in total you have maybe nine or ten seats in a whole row, right? So I usually like to sit in the aisle seat on one of the sides of the plane. So I swore that I had chosen one of those seats, one of the aisles.

However, when I checked in for my flight, and you can do this online, you can check in online just with the Airlines app 24 hours before departure. So I got an email 24 hours before my flight. was scheduled to depart and it said check in for your flight. So I checked in for my flight and as I was going through the app doing it, it gave me my seat number and I checked and I was in a middle seat.

I was on one of the sides of the plane where those three seats are, and I was in the middle. And so I was like, why am I in the middle? I don't want to sit in the middle. That's terrible. It's the most uncomfortable seat in the whole plane, right? You're beside two strangers.

And it's very tight and claustrophobic. And if you wanna get up and walk around or go to the bathroom, then you have to bother somebody else. And on these long haul flights, that's what we call a very long flight, is a long haul flight. On these long haul flights, many people are sleeping, right? So you have to wake somebody up to sneak past them and because the seats are so tight and there's no space, usually if you wanna

get up and walk around and there's somebody else maybe in the aisle and you're in the middle, then that person is gonna have to get up and stand up and move to let you out. So Just not ideal, not not comfortable. And so I tried to change to a different seat. I said, why am I in the middle? I didn't choose this. No seats available. So

Terrible, but not the end of the world, right? It's like it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it's not like something that I would like to do is sit in the middle for a a long haul flight like that. Anyways. The next day I went to the airport and as I was dropping my bag off and and getting my ticket.

I talked to the staff at the airline and I said, Hey, is there any chance that I could be moved from this middle seat to an aisle seat or maybe even a window seat would be better And they said, Sorry, The flight is sold out, there are no free seats, you're just gonna have to sit in the middle, so I said, okay. Fair enough. I guess when I booked my ticket, it turns out that I didn't select my seat. So that was on me. That was my fault. And I wasn't gonna make a big deal of it.

You know, it's gonna be uncomfortable, but I can I can survive. I'll survive. It's not the end of the world. So I got my ticket, checked my bag, and then went through security. Everything was cool. And I was just walking around the airports, killing a little bit of time. I had a an hour or so before I had to actually board the flight. And I was looking at my phone and I realized

I don't have much battery left on my phone. I think I was around 30, 35% battery remaining, and that wasn't great because I was planning to watch some Netflix on my phone during the flight. And so I thought, oh my gosh, I better charge up my battery before we take off. So I looked in my bag to grab my charging cable for my phone and It wasn't there. I realized that I forgot my phone charging cable. So not the end of the world. Again, I still had around an hour before my plane was set to board.

So I thought, well, it's actually good that I realize this here before my plane boards. So I can go and buy a new charging cable and then I'll have my phone all charged up and I'll have good battery life for the duration of the flight. So I walked around the airport looking for a charging cable. Now in my mind, I thought this is gonna be the easiest thing in the world to find. Every little store in the airport must sell a charging cable, right? Raw.

Guys, this was the hardest thing to find in the airport. I I went to every little store that I could in the airport. Now, of course, I've already gone through security, so I can't go back out of the airport. So I kind of braced myself like, oh, this is gonna be the most expensive cable you could buy is in this area once you've already passed security. So in my mind, I knew I was gonna have to pay a lot for this cable.

But I thought of course it's gonna be easy to find, but no, I looked everywhere. I walked

all through the terminal of the airport and I went to every single store and nobody had any cables. I could find lots of souvenirs, lots of snacks, lots of like luxury goods that they sell at the Inchon Airport, like perfume and watches and jewellery and all of these things, but nobody sold a charging cable until finally like 10 minutes before I had to board my flight I finally found this charging cable in this little back part of the store and it was expensive but I got it.

And so, okay, good. I have this charging cable. I can charge my phone. I can watch my Netflix. I can listen to music and podcasts on my phone during the flights. And then of course when I land, I can also have battery to be able to text my wife and say I arrived safely and text my folks to say I I'm coming. I'm almost there. Right. And so yeah, great. I got the the cable sorted out.

So I get onto the plane. That's the next step. Get onto the plane. Now I'm in the middle seat, right? So it's always a little bit scary. Who am I gonna sit beside? So I get on the plane, I take my middle seat, I was the first one there.

So I sat in the middle and I'm just watching all of the other passengers come towards me. I was seated towards the back of the plane and you're you're kind of watching like, is this gonna be the person who I sit beside? Is this gonna be the person who I sit beside? Now I have to say I really won the jackpot for the passengers who sat beside me because both of the people who sat on my left and on my right, they were both women.

who were probably like in their early twenties, like twenty two, twenty-three, and very tiny. And Very much not interested in talking with me at all, which as you can imagine, they were probably not super excited to sit beside like this 40-year-old Canadian guy, but I was excited to sit beside them because they weren't gonna take up a lot of space.

They weren't gonna talk to me. And this was pretty much if you have to sit in the middle seat, this is the ideal situation. So I was very, very happy. And in fact both of them are a as soon as we took off, they just put on their eye masks and went to sleep. They weren't friends or anything. If they were friends, I would have said, Hey, you guys sit together and I'll take the aisle seat They didn't know each other

But they both just put on their eye masks and their headphones and they passed out and slept and it was really great. No drama at all. And I thought, you know, if you do have to sit in the middle seat, this is pretty much the perfect situation. So Yeah, I get my seats and we take off and I plugged my phone in and started charging my phone. And then once we are in the air, then I watch.

some Netflix. I had downloaded some programs onto my phone to watch. Actually I'm watching this Korean drama right now. Uh for the first time in a long time I've been watching a Korean drama. The name is really long. 서울자가의 대기업 다니는 김부정 이야기 Which I call it for short, I call it Kim Butang, which is like maybe Kim manager or something like this. It's a great drama about this.

family and the head of the family, the the father in the family who works at a at a company, he's got a prestigious position and his life kind of falls apart in a very sad way. and it's a really touching and interesting uh story about this man. I've been watching it s over the last month or two. I'm very slow when I watch TV shows, so it takes me a long time to watch.

And I actually have one episode left. I haven't finished the whole series yet, but I've been really enjoying it. So if you like Korean dramas, I would recommend this one to you. Uh it's a good one. It's available on Netflix. So I I loaded that up on my phone and I was watching some episodes of that. And then after I was listening to some podcasts and listening to some playlists.

and just enjoying my phone like you know you would normally. And then I checked my phone and I saw that my battery was at like 10%. I got a warning like low battery, 10%. Like, what's going on? I bought this expensive cable to charge my phone. And then I realized that the USB plug that I had plugged my phone into. was giving off no power. It wasn't powering my phone. And so I I actually checked the person who was sitting beside me. She was sleeping, so I kinda

plugged my phone into her USB just to see if I was getting any power and also no power. So the USB plugs on the plane weren't Powering my phone. There was no power to them. So I killed my battery by watching Netflix and listening to podcasts. And I was stressed because I'm like,

I still have seven hours on this flight to go. My phone is gonna totally die. I won't be able to text my wife when I land. She'll be thinking that I died in a plane crash or something. I won't be able to text my parents that I'm on my way. So actually at that point I had to turn off my phone and just preserve that little bit of remaining battery that I had.

Actually, I didn't turn it off. I put it into airplane mode and turned off all the functions and put the battery saver mode on and just tried to preserve that little bit of battery that I had. So for the rest of the flight, like the remaining seven hours, I just raw-dogged it with no entertainment, with no podcasts.

I I didn't even watch the movies that were in the seat headrest because my Bluetooth headphones can't connect with that entertainment system. So I just raw dogged it. I I had no entertainment at all. I just slept and thought and enjoyed the rest of the flight as much as I could. Now, raw dog is slang that I should explain here. It's got two meanings. The first one is sexual, so I'm not gonna go into that. If you're curious, you can Google it on your own.

The second meaning though really became popular, I think, last year. And it means to endure a really difficult, dull or boring task or activity without any aid, without any diversions, without any entertainment, without any support. So doing what I did, air travel with no entertainment, with no book, with no podcast, with no Netflix, this is raw dogging it. Okay. So you're just doing a difficult task without any help or support. That is the second

slang meaning of this word. Guys, to be honest, because this slang has two different meanings, one sexual and one that is talking about, you know, enduring this difficult activity without any any entertainment. I would encourage you probably not to use this expression in your speaking because you don't want to be misunderstood.

But with all English vocabulary, I think it's good to know for your passive vocabulary so that if you do hear it used by native speakers in the future, then you'll know what it means. So that is one of the the definitions here of the slang term raw dog. So Yeah, I think sometimes it's actually nice to be free from tech's iron grip, right? Actually when you're flying in a plane, this is one of the few times where you don't have any internet connection, or at least

I didn't. Some people splurge and they buy the Wi-Fi that's now available on the flights. And and maybe some airlines actually offer this as a complimentary service as well, but mine didn't. And I didn't splurge to buy the Wi-Fi. So Yeah, I I had no internet, no tech, and it's just nice to be, yeah, like I said, freed from that iron grip that technology has on us in almost all aspects of our lives these days. So anyways guys, that was my flight from Seoul to Vancouver.

I arrived in Canada, everything was great, everything was cool, and then yeah, at the end of the trip, I had to go back to Seoul. And my experience was much, much different on the way back. So of course I learned my lesson. I made sure to select my seat in advance. That was one of the first things that I did once I arrived in Canada was actually go in and make sure that I had an aisle seat. selected in my airline app. So I had an aisle seat this time. That was great.

Again, I was the first one on the airplane in my row. So I was seated in the aisle. I got all my luggage stored in the overhead luggage compartment. Didn't put on my seatbelt yet because I knew I was gonna have to get up. to let the other two passengers in. And again, it's kind of exciting. You see all these people boarding the plane. You're like, who's gonna be seated beside me? Is it this person? Is it that person? Is it this person?

And the first person who arrived to sit in my row was this Irish guy. And he was probably around the same age as me, maybe late 30s or early 40s. However, he was much bigger than me. This was a big dude, guys. He was tall and he was wide and he was overweight. and he looked just super uncomfortable, even just walking down the aisle of the airplane. He was visibly and audibly expressing his discomfort, so he's breathing heavily, He was swearing under his breath.

Yeah, actually that's another great expression to know, to swear or to talk under your breath. This just means to kind of talk quietly and talk to yourself, kind of mumble to yourself. You know, sometimes when people are upset, they do this, right? Kind of talking to yourself. We call that.

talking under your breath or he was swearing under his breath. So he was saying, you know, I won't repeat what he was saying, very bad words, but F this and F that and you know, this kind of thing. So he didn't look very comfortable. He didn't look very happy. And he happened to be seated in my row on the window seat.

So I had to get out to let him in. And yeah, he could barely get in and was, you know, just like looking very uncomfortable. Finally sat down at the window seat and had no space, was very, very cramped. And Yeah, usually in this kind of situation I would have a lot of sympathy, you know, like, oh, it's terrible that you have to sit in this place and that must be so uncomfortable for you.

And maybe I would even be willing to trade somebody in that kind of situation. However, his attitude was really bad and he was swearing and like. Like I know it's uncomfortable. for him. However He he wasn't handling it in a way that that was appropriate, in my opinion. He was like very angry and like What do you expect? Of course, we know how big airplanes are and I imagine he he could have anticipated that it was gonna be pretty uncomfortable, right?

So anyways He got in and yeah, it was Winter. I now we're in February, but I I was flying in January. January in Canada is pretty cold. I was wearing my winter coat and a sweater, uh, a hoodie, uh, you know, this kind of winter clothing. He was wearing shorts and a T shirt. But he was already sweating and and looked really, really uncomfortable. So

not an ideal travel companion for the the first guy, but thankfully he wasn't right beside me. He was up against the window. I was in the aisle. So then I'm waiting, who's gonna be the next person? Who's gonna have to b sit between me and this Irish dude? And then finally we figured out who it was. The next guy came to sit in the middle seat, and he was a guy who was traveling with his parents. I would say he was maybe in his mid to late twenties.

And yeah, so his parents sat bes behind him in the row behind us, and he was in the middle in front of his parents. And Yeah, this guy I I I assume that he was Malaysian Canadian. And the reason I I think that is because I talked to him a little bit and he told me he was traveling to Malaysia. So he was going to Seoul. and then transferring in Seoul and going to Malaysia. So I just assumed that he was Malaysian Canadian.

and he was a really funny guy. He was probably Yeah, maybe mid to late twenties, maybe ten years or so younger than I was. And uh he was great because he kind of broke the ice and broke the atmosphere. Like this big guy was really angry and kind of made it uncomfortable for everybody in our zone.

But this this Malaysian Canadian guy, as soon as he sat down, he was like, Whoa, man, you're too big for the seat. Your arms are too big. Like you're taking up my space. This is terrible. But in a real lighthearted, funny way and he was expressing his discomfort, being like, Oh, this is terrible, like

This big guy was spilling into the other seat. And so the Malaysian-Canadian guy didn't just accept it. He said, like, we we gotta do something about this. And the Irish guy was like, Yeah, I can't deal with this situation. I'm already like so uncomfortable and claustrophobic.

So the Irish guy said, I gotta get out of here. So me and the Malaysian Canadian guy, we stood up, we got out uh of our seats and we let this big guy out and he got out and went and talked with one of the flight attendants and yeah Again, this flight was sold out. Like every seat was totally full. So I was very

I was very pessimistic that he would be able to change it unless maybe he paid to upgrade to like a first class seat or something. I don't know if that would have been possible. But me and the Malaysian-Canadian guy, we started talking about the situation. We started chatting because of that.

And sometimes guys, these kinds of situations are how you actually start talking with strangers, right? A lot of people ask me, like, how can you start a conversation with a stranger to practice speaking in English? And yeah, sometimes you need like some kind of event to happen which can kind of spark a conversation. So because of this, me and the guy beside me, this Malaysian Canadian guy in his twenties, we started talking. And

Uh we were like, uh there's no way this guy's gonna be able to change his seat. And we started actually uh just chatting about different app ideas and we thought, oh, it'd be cool if somebody made and programmed an app. Where everybody on the plane had access to this app and you could trade and swap and maybe buy and sell different airplane seats with the other passengers on the plane. So if you like sat beside somebody who maybe really smelled bad, you could be like,

If if anybody wants to trade me seats, I'll give you twenty dollars. Something like this. We talked about this. We were chatting for like, I don't know, forty, forty, forty five minutes before the plane took off. Anyways, this big guy, he went and he talked with a flight attendant, and miraculously he was able to get a different seat. So he was seated somewhere else.

And then this Korean woman, probably in in her maybe I don't know, late forties or early fifties, she came and she took his seat. So yeah, he was able to trade and I don't know where the big guy went. I never saw him again. But this Korean woman, middle-aged woman, came and took his seat. And so that was much more comfortable for everybody, kind of eased the tension. And I think the guy in the middle was super, super happy.

that he wasn't going to have to deal with this big angry guy beside him. And I was happy about that as well.

Now the rest of the flight was fairly uneventful. This time I actually did get a pair of headphones that I could plug into the entertainment system, and I I ended up watching a show that is an Apple T V show called The Studio. It stars a Canadian actor named Seth Rogand, who's actually from Vancouver, so it's kind of s cool to see him in the show. and actually a lot of other famous Canadians were in that program as well. One actress named Katherine O'Hara.

was in the first episode, I believe it was the first or second episode, and she did an amazing job. She's this hilarious, powerful actress. And so I thought it was cool to see her in the show and maybe you know her if you've watched the movie Home Alone. She was the mother, Kevin's mom in Home Alone. Maybe that's where many people would recognize her from, uh, a Canadian actress as well. And yeah, it was

Cool to see her in the show. And then today, when I I woke up and I checked the news, I saw that she had unfortunately just passed away and died. So I was sad. to see that because I just saw her in the show and I thought she did such a a great job. Really, really funny. She stole the show in pretty much e every movie or TV show that I've seen her involved in. So I was sad to hear about

her passing, but yeah, she did a great job in that show and I would recommend the studio to you if you like comedies. I thought it was really, really funny. I actually laughed out loud a few times, which I I wasn't expecting. However, I would say that the bar to entry with this show is pretty high. It's going to require a lot of pop culture knowledge to get some of the jokes and references.

It's a movie about uh movie studio head, the director of a movie studio who's trying to make movies and some of the eventful and funny things that happen to him as he is doing his job. So Yeah, I've been really enjoying watching the studio. I've actually watched a couple of episodes now that I'm back home as well. I want to finish the whole show. So there's a few more that I have to watch still.

But pretty fun so far. And I haven't watched an English TV show in a while, so I've been enjoying watching it. And yeah, if you like these kind of shows about Hollywood and lots of American pop culture references as well, then definitely check it out and see how much you are able to understand. It would be a good way to test your pop culture knowledge.

So yeah, I watched that show while I was on my flight, and that was pretty much it. It was pretty uneventful aside from the the little bit of drama at takeoff regarding the seating situation. Well guys, you made it all the way to the end. Thank you for listening to this story. I hope you were able to find it helpful and useful for building your English fluency and you can pat yourself on the back.

Congratulations on getting some great English listening practice in today. We're gonna continue the conversation about this episode and every topic under the sun over on our Discord community. If you're not a member of our Discord yet. Come on over and join us. It's a great way to be active with your English and it's a great way to connect with other QLIPS listeners and QLIPS members just like yourself. So the link to join is in the description for this episode. And of course,

Accessing our Discord is free for everyone. So we'll see you on over there. And I look forward to hearing about what you have to say about this episode. Alright guys, please take care. We'll be back soon with another brand new QLIPS episode in the very near future. Until then.