New York modeling gig

by Kai Yan (Australia)

A leap into the unknown Australia

It was my first time flying. Also my first time traveling alone. Well technically I traveled before, back in 2009 I went to China with my grandparents to visit some relatives and we stayed fujian for 3 months. That memory is pretty faded since it was quite a while ago. Anyways, this is my first time traveling to the US of A. It was for work purposes, more specifically a modeling campaign in New York. Now as a 5 foot 5 Asian male, how I got in the modeling industry or more specifically getting a modeling campaign for a international brand is another story. My travel itinerary is for 5 days. One print shoot day and one for the commercial campaign ad, the rest of the time would be me exploring the amazing yet fascinating new York city. My flight from Sydney to Los Angeles would be around 14 hours and a connecting flight to jfk. The initial flight was a morning flight at 10.30 and that would allow me to get to New york the same day in the afternoon since the whole one day ahead timezone thing. I remember not sleeping that night and head out to the airport unnecessarily early, afraid that I could possibly missed my flight(which ironically enough the trip i took 2 months after this I completely missed the flight but that's for another story). The ride to the airport wasnt bad, except where we got stop by the cops due to taxi guy ran a red but we managed to make it well on time for my first ever solo international flight. The whole custom thing was extremely daunting and kind of scary to be honest expecially as a 17 year old. Finally, after getting through the whole security process I had around 40 minutes to spare. The sydney international terminal was extremely eye opening. There's so many different stores and restaurants to try out. There was even a sales lady trying to ask me to try some sample shots of whiskey! I didn't wanted to be late on the boarding so after getting some pho and exploring an extra few minutes I head to the departure area for my flight to lax. The airline that I was traveling with was united airlines. Although these couple years there was alot of negative media in terms of customer service related to united airlines from my limited experience with them they were amazing! My seat was a economy aisle seat(the idea of getting stuck in the window seat when you need to do your business wasn't appealing to me). On my row there were 2 young females sitting on my right. They look very young but it turns out that they were like years older than me! The flight was honestly not bad, besides my back was hurting I actually smashed through the hobbit and lord of the rings series in one go! However thing did hit me when I landed in lax. I wasn't able to use my phone! I didn't realize that my australian cellular device wasn't able to be used anywhere besides Australia! It's a common knowledge that cellular phones sim that uses service in one country are not compatible in another country unless you contact your provider beforehand. I never really traveled before this so it wasn't common knowledge to me. That was probably the only time where heart actually dropped! I was scared that I was going to be stranded in an unfimilar country with no way of contacting the people that was task to make contact with me(I also gave them my number which they couldn't reach me with). I was able to connect to the airport internet while I was waiting my connecting flight to New york city. I told them what had happened which I received a reply to not to worry. They assured me that someone will pick me up from jfk. Anyway this was the only first day of this trip and I was heading to New York city. Stay tuned for what happens next(didn't mean to have cliff hangers but I would exceed the work count:) Peace