QotD: My First Flight

Do you remember your first flight? Where did you go? Why?
Submitted by Laurel.

Well, I still remember my first flight, which happened about... 10 years ago. It was in the summer vacation after my Middle School Entrance Exam when I was a 12-year-old little boy with very shot hairstyle. It was the beginning of a trip to Beijing, the capital city of China, with my mom.

In the days all my families are waiting for the exam's result, my mom asked me if I wanted a travel. "A travel to some big and famous cities for the historic sites! We could got a brilliant discount, maybe 50% or more, for the air tickets in summer vacation." She said. In that days, each of the monthly salaries for my mom and dad was only a little more than 1,000 yuan, which could not pay for one air ticket without discount. However, my mom insisted on the plan. "Go to see the outside world, my son." my dad patted my head and said.

Different from the westen families, trip was not a necessary part for most Chinese ones. Maybe, the most important reason was the people cannot afford it. If a travel would cost lots of money for which you should work so hard for half a year and keep saving money without consuming for any big things, who could even think about it? For many Chinese families, this situation never changed. But the idea of getting their son "to see the outside world" made my parents withdraw the money out of the bank and buy the tickets for my mom and me.

Finally, my grade for the exam was the best in the primary school of a small city, and mom was very proud of me and took me to the airport by bus so happily that I cannot forget for the whole life. Our plane to Jinan, the first stop of the travel, delayed, and I telephoned my dad and described the boring scene for him.

I still remember every moment of my first flight - the mood of excite, the shaking plane, the "fasten seat belt" instruction, and the kind expression in my mom's eyes. Short before landing, it's totally dark outside and I cannot see anything. I felt a little disappointed, because I had thought there would be plenty of beautiful lights on the ground. But that kind of thinking disappeared at once, and the eagerness of taking a glance of the big cities came back again...

From then on, my mom and I haven't travelled together for long, because I'm "too busy" nowadays. This stupid reason has came out of my mouth time and time again, and I discovered one day that we are all so busy that we cannot remember the first flight with mom or dad or both of them, which came true when we were their little lovely kids.