Don't count your dragons before they are hatched

The dragon is the blazing red spirit of the skies, the luckiest animal on the Chinese zodiac. So surely, I thought, booking a plane for the weekend when the stars align for the Dragon Boat Festival in the Year of the Dragon would be about as auspicious as you can get. I thought my airplane's yin and yang was bound to be as evenly balanced as a spirit level - especially since I am a class-of-1988 Dragon baby.

As I arrived at Beijing airport on the morning of June 22, and was handed a freebie Dragon Festival-colored bracelet by a smiling official, I couldn't help feeling that my flight to Hong Kong was as in-tune with the heavenly spheres.

Oh, the tragic irony.