Meditations on aviation and 8,000-meter-high haute cuisine

The golden era of ancient Chinese poetry just missed overlapping with the age of human flight, but only by a millennium, or two.

Therefore, the closest one can get to getting in the flying mood is an appreciation for things audobon－named after US ornithologist, naturalist and painter John Audubon (1785-1851).

A flock of birds is flying high in the distance/

A lonely cloud drifts idly on its own.

We gaze at each other, neither growing tired/

There is only Jingting Mountain.

－Sitting Alone on Jingting Mountain by Li Bai (701-762)

Chinese poet Li had the distinct honor of being acclaimed "prehumously", and even beyond the life spans of the Wright brothers. Li contemporary, Du Fu (712-770), was also Li's close friend, and the two bards are perhaps the best known wordsmiths in the flourishing of poetry during the Tang Dynasty (618-907)－considered the "Golden Age of Chinese Poetry".

Some of the most famous artistic contemporaries in other cultural hot spots of the world were not so lovey-dovey.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was the bane of Antonio Salieri's (1750-1825) existence, mainly as the Austrian and Italian composers, respectively, rubbed shoulders in the metropole that was Habsburg Vienna.

What if the two put their heads together for a joint opus maximus rather than still-unproven stories that Salieri may have poisoned his rival?

One might also wonder if playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and contemporary Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) had gotten along better－or if the latter hadn't succumbed to a bar brawl months shy of his 30th birthday－if the two literary geniuses could have collaborated instead of competed, they could have made the Elizabethan era (1558-1603) the undisputed golden era of English written art?

Then again, perhaps it was their not-so-friendly rivalry that spurred them to soar to greater heights in the first place?

It reminds me of an interview snippet I once read where a business reporter asked the CEO of Coca-Cola to what he attributed the soft drink's stunning global success.

"Pepsi," was the executive's one-word reply.

Speaking of soaring to greater heights, flying has come a long way since Icarus, legendary Greek son of master craftsman Daedalus (architect of the Labyrinth), took a bold leap of faith off a seaside cliff in Crete to escape his pursuers.

Perhaps Icarus would have benefited from a bit more helicoptering from his father as he ignored dad's instructions not to fly too close to the sun, melting his waxen wings and plunging him to his demise.

I will also be pulling an Icarus soon as I head back home on annual leave to see the parents and siblings.

I will be neither booking a helicopter nor flattening out candles for a cape.

I will be flying coach, perhaps lucky enough to sit beside Lang Ping (women's volleyball national team coach) or Jose Mourinho, who stepped down as coach of Manchester United a year ago.

But more likely I will be sandwiched between a 20-stone Smirnoff-swigging stentorian snorer and an unaccompanied toddler with thunderous teething issues.

The back seat trivia games are a fun diversion, perhaps for the first hour out of the Capital International Airport.

But the catch-22 is if you don't do well, everyone wants to play against you to improve their success rate, while you basically get the gargoyle-on-the-wing treatment if you're a bit too clever.

So for the nearly 24 hours I'll be above the clouds next month, I plan to do lots of calf calisthenics, foodie experimentation and memorization of national capitals. And if my calves overdo it, I hope the kicked seat in front of me isn't filled with the coach of the Thai men's kick-boxing team.