Last year I took SIA, Korean Air and Qatar Airways. The year before I took Emirates and Cathay and Air Canada Business First (their combo of business and first class). When it comes to economy class, there's no difference in terms of comfort. The seats are narrow and cramped - and I'm a short person, I don't even need that much leg room and I feel cramped. 3 times I've flown SIA in the last 3 years and all 3 times I've gotten the middle seat with the basinets, with 2 crying babies on each side. My friend who is an SIA girl told me that they tend to dump people traveling alone especially with discount tickets in the middle seats rather than give them an aisle or window seat - which could probably explain why I have never been able to choose seats online whenever I travel alone but when I was traveling with my sister we were able to pick our seats online.
I dislike flying through the middle east because I like wearing shorts and tank tops to stay as comfortable as possible on the plane since it's a long journey, and it is extremely frowned upon by the locals to show that much skin, even when I'm just transiting at the airport. When I flew on Emirates the Saudi guy next to me asked the flight attendant to reseat me because he felt I was indecently dressed. When the attendant asked him to move, he refused, saying that he is not moving for a woman. A lot of the western movies shown are heavily censored especially sex scenes, which defeats the purpose of having a personal entertainment system. And my main gripe is that almost all the middle eastern airlines do not serve alcohol, I just don't feel that I'm getting my money's worth without downing a few drinks while on the plane.
I already have my CCNA, the exam is short, held often in convenient areas and cheap. I didn't apply under 0213, though. Canada does need IT workers in every province, but unless you specialize, you may find yourself manning a CSR (Customer Service Representative) call center help line even if you have a bachelors degree - that is the sub-area that seems that they need the most help. You can expect to get 1.5 times as much pay if you are bilingual - in Canada bilingual means English/French. If you are in the Toronto or Vancouver metro areas, there might be a demand for English/Chinese CSRs, but from what I can see it seems that there is more demand for English/Punjabi or English/urdu or English/Portuguese more because there are already a lot of Chinese in the area.
As with all areas of employment, don't expect to jump into a managerial role immediately. If you are a fresh immigrant, you might have to take what is known as a survival job just to get some Canadian experience - and more importantly Canadian employer references. Some companies do not recognize foreign work experience, some companies are unable to contact foreign references. Like right now, I'm a Ph.D. but I'm doing a temp job doing data entry. I tried giving them my references from Singapore and the USA and my employer said their phones cannot even call overseas and asked for an e-mail reference. I'm going to stick with this for a year or so until I build up 2 more Canadian references while I study for my CISSP and CCSP exams and then I'll venture back into the IT industry. Alternatively you can take a course at a local university and get Canadian educational credentials, which would also help in finding a job.
