What does a 13-hour flight across the Pacific feel like?
Couldn’t tell you… I slept a lot. What I do remember is a great dinner (at an
ungodly hour of about 4:00 a.m.), some movies that I couldn’t stay awake for, a
great breakfast and a relatively smooth flight. We landed in Hong Kong without
trouble, got off the plane quite easily and then waited 45 minutes for Trevor
Day to pack and re-pack his bag. We then headed to immigration where the
security guard had a good laugh at me trying to unpack 3 computers, the VividQ
(ultrasound machine) and an iPad. Made it through there un-phased and straight
to the lounge!
This requires it’s own paragraph…
Cathay Pacific hooked us up with passes to the business
lounge at the airport. This is the single best thing I’ve ever experienced while
traveling. We walked in to a Dim Sum like breakfast, a perfectly made
Americano, which was then followed up by a beer. This was at about 9:30
a.m. I spent some time catching up with
the girls back home (Laurenne took a fall on a trampoline and put her top teeth
through her bottom lip- great start to my adventure, but she is fine) and then
went off to have a SHOWER! I should clarify, we all showered. We’ve been
nibbling on food on and off all day, and having a sip of beer, wine, champagne
and other libations all day and I just came back from my second shower!
A few of us decided to explore Hong Kong. This was a bit of
an ordeal. It took forever to get out of the airport and become a visitor to
Hong Kong, but eventually we were cleared for 90 days (although we only needed
about 6 hours). We took the train to Hong Kong proper and walked around this
crazy dense city with buildings that were at least 50 floors and up. It’s quite
incredible that there are 7 million people on this island. We didn’t really find
the ‘Chinese’ image of Hong Kong, so we hoped back on the train and went to
Kowloon to try to find a market. We ended up in one of the richest districts in
Hong Kong! Ferarri’s (599’s), Porsche’s, BMW’s, etc. everywhere. Gucci, Chanel,
Dior, Cartier ($1,000,000.00 HKD, watch- about $125,000 USD), etc. all with
line-ups! But we did find one of the craziest restaurants I’ve ever been in. 9
tables and they feed about 100 people while we were there. Lauren and I got
seated with a lovely Chinese lady and her daughter who didn’t speak a word of
English (I think the restaurateur only knew “thank-you”). I don’t think they
were happy to have to sit with us.
We then headed back to the airport and had to go through
about 3 or 4 checkpoints to get back into the airport. We’re now having some
noodles and debating whether it is Sunday or Monday. Phil is confident that we’ll
clear customs without too much trouble. Again, WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
Hopefully another post tomorrow telling about the final
flight and arrival in Kathmandu.
It was difficult to imagine that a full day hadn't yet passed since we boarded the airliner in New York. I paused. Medieval man believed that one was placed beyond the touch of time, and therefore aging, while attending Mass. What, I wondered, would he have made of those hours we left up in the sky? I would not change my watch until I gave the matter more thought. Cheap Flights to Mexico
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