Fighting the Jet Lap: Sleep Strategy

(warning: this is a very geeky post where I overthink things too much)

Leslie and I are flying to South Africa tomorrow, and due to our use of frequent flier miles with Cathay Pacific, we're going the long way - westbound. What does this mean? Two flights of 15 hours and 13 hours lie ahead of us.

Our flight to Hong Kong leaves at 1pm and arrives at 7pm +1 (meaning it's the next day in Hong Kong). That's a 15 hour flight during which I have to get some sleep. This is where I need to think ahead to adapting to the South African time zone (which is 9 hours ahead of PDT).

So, here's my thinking. When our flight leaves LAX at 1pm, it's 10pm in Cape Town - in other words, bed time there. I'm thinking of popping an ambien and getting to sleep as soon as possible with the goal of catching 6-8 hours of sleep (and since we're in first class with seats that become 90'' long bed with duvet and fluffy pillow, it's a possible proposition).  When I wake up, even though it's late afternoon over the Pacific, it's morning time in South Africa. I'll then eat my dinner (again, in First Class, you can eat whenever you're ready), and watch some movies.

We have a five hour layover in Hong Kong, where I plan to take a shower and freshen up in the first class lounge before leaving on our flight to Johannesburg (JNB).  That flight leaves at midnight, which is 6pm in Cape Town (and 9am in Seattle). I figure I'll take the opposite schedule on this flight. I'll eat and watch movies, forcing myself to stay away for the first 4 hours or so, then crash hard for the second half of the flight, trying to catch 6 hours of sleep, waking up (hopefully!) an hour before we land in JNB.

After clearing immigration and customs, we still need to catch a 2 hour domestic flight to Cape Town. I fully expect we'll both be taking naps on that flight. We'll need to be ready to hit the ground running once we arrive since according to the weather forecast, the day we arrive is the only sunny day of our stay in Cape Town. I'd love to get up to Table Mountain for the views of the area while the skies are clear.

Ok...I'm shutting up now. I'm just so excited to leave. My next post will be from somewhere along this 48 hour journey to Capetown.