Off to London

I sat around in the hotel lobby for about 30 mins trying to work out a cunning plan to fix my bag. Nothing came to mind so I read some of the newspapers instead and watched what was going on around me. I suppose that every hotel lobby is the same wherever you go. I was still trying to work out if I had cash and time for a coffee in the lobby bar, which was just opening, when the coach turned up early. I only had a voucher rather than a ticket which seemed to upset the driver but he took me anyway. I watched him try and move my bag without the wheels and thought I was probably going to see a lot of that

We stopped for several more pickups along the way. I was wondering if we were in the HK rush hour then it occurred to me that I probably could not tell the rush hour and the non rush hour apart. I quite like HK but I wonder what it is like to work here. As usual I became worried about whether I had left enough time to get to the airport and like usual I had plenty. I tried to take some pictures on the way but I was not satisfied with any of them.

I know that I said before that the airport at HK is big but it must have cost a fortune to build. The three approach bridges by themselves would have cost a kings ransom. Just as I was settling down to the run to the airport on the motor way we turned off. What, it's disneyland time! We are doing the hotels there. I worked out that I would not have 3 hours now, oh well nothing to do but sit and stew about how slow other people are. The hotels look nice if a bit sterile. Of course one of the groups is not ready so we sit to what seems like hours while they get their act together,but was probably 20 mins. At last everybody has their bags and we are off again. At the airport the driver fetches a trolley for me so no bag problems.

Like normal I have entered the airport at the furthest place I could from my checkin desk. Off I roll and after about 10 mins I am at my desk. Surprise there are no queues and even better they can check my bags through to London. Given what will happen at Frankfurt that's just as well, though at this point I don't know this of course. So now I have both my boarding passes (FRA and LHR)and by bags checked in. I go to return my trolley but despite not seeing anybody the trolley has gone, perhaps it dematerialised like the Tradis! I do think that compared to the 70's that the airports are getting better at this sort if thing.

Time to send some more post cards and figure out where to get lunch. I look around wondering how long will it take to find the post office and work out how to send a post card. Then I realise I am standing alongside the post office. That make a pleasant surprise, so in I go, working out how to send a card was not hard either due to it being written in English in big letters on the wall, somebody in HK post knows what he is doing. I sent some cards ( hi Clare) and it's off in search of lunch. Every thing seems to be sit down waiter service so I select wonton soup. Looks and tastes nice when it arrives, there is some chillie stuff which looks the most evil condimint that I have ever seen, I approach it like I am walking towards a land mine but it's nice and very hot. Just as I finish I realise it's time to head to the gate.

The gates are a long way away, no really they need a coach service inside the terminal. I feel like I am walking to London, its took 35 mins to walk from the lunch bar to the gate and as everybody knows I don't walk slowly. At the gate I realize that the locals don't know how to board a plane. The crew are trying to load by rows but the moment they start everybody rushes the gate. Do they think that it will leave without them?

What a old jumbo, it feels like it's out of the 70's (Flight 739, Seat 54F). No individual screens here just CRT in the isles. I can see 4 screens from where I sit but three different colours. The screens are so old that an actors jacket is red on two screens, blue on another and pink on a third. Lufthansa is also insulting us! During the flight they show us a film several times about how nice the new A380 is, ok but we are on this ancient beast! I want to be on a A380 please! Stop teasing us!

I am surrounded by asians who seem to be traveling as a group, the noise is unbelievable, I think some of the woman talked the whole flight. I have a small woman next to me, we are in a block of 4, it's not the seat that I ordered, so it looks like my seat requests have not made it.

The food is good and the crew seem to be working well together. I notice that the name tags dont show a furst name just an initial (Fraulein Shmitt is H.Schmit though she is introduced as Helena) I can't be bothered to try and watch a movie on a screen 10 feet away to me s I read my Kobo for a while and try and sleep. The Kobe works will in this environment but I must remember not to leave it in the seat pocket as it fits rather to well there. My travel buddy sees my bag and remarks that it looks like a good travel bag. Its the only exchange we have in the whole flight.

Then it's Frankfurt., another large airport and not laid out very well, certainly for xfers. I have an hour to make my xfer and I only end up with 10 mins to spare. Why do xfer pax have to go through security again. We just came off a flight. It seems that there is no xfer system here. You leave international to public then public to domestic so we all have to be scanned and checked again. What a waste of time just when most people don't have time to waste, jast as well I don't have bags to worry about!

Then it's on to a A319, talk about old to brand new (Flight 4742, Seat 16D). The German beer is good by why do they server it in cans on international flight but bottles on local? I need to know or I will be unfulfilled in life, well perhaps I exaggerate!

I must be feeling the stress, though I don't feel tired I fell asleep on take off and landing something that I have never done before. Here comes LHR but that's for the next entry.

The Day My Wheels Came Off.

Last night, my last in Hong Kong, I went out for a walk at 6 pm. Saw a lot more tailors than before but it is the massage touts that are like leeches. One saw me and chased me at least 100m up the street trying to get me to try her ladies. It was like being chased by a demented troll. The working girls in Hong Kong advertise on full length screens in the subways here. Full pictures prices etc, perhaps I should suggest that when I get back to NZ.

I have only seen one SIM shop here, I expected to see dozens. What has happened to all the electronic shops? Very boring shopping now all upmarket and bland. Back to the hotel for dinner. Food was good but the service was so slow I considered walking out. $80 for dinner was a bit more than I intended but when it did arrive I enjoyed it. I was going to go to the bar to see what was happening but world football was on so I turned in for the evening.

Early start, I did not have breakfast after yesterdays disaster. On the way to the lobby I realised I was loosing wheels! I went back through the hotel collecting lost wheels along the way. A pin had snapped so the wheels were coming off the shaft. At the checkout I tried to find some way of fixing it but without any luck. I removed the whole assembly so I did not lose anything more parts. I will just have to drag or carry the bag.

Will travel, will have fun, shit will happen.

A Day in Hong Kong

Breakfast was the worst I have had in a long time and at 32 NZD one of the most expensive. It looked good at first, a buffet style layout lots of pots and food heaters as you would expect. Everything was neat but the first thing I noticed was that all the plates were side plates, no decent sized plates, so you had to use a collection of side plates unless you used mugs, of which more later. Then I tasted the coffee, come on how do people make coffee this bad? I suspect the dishwash water tasted better. The hash browns were small and cooked so hard they could have been used as amour. Much the same could have been said of the bacon. There were hard boiled eggs rather than fried or scrambled, they were still in their shells. They were supposed to be fairly soft but were so hard because they had clearly sat for a long time in the heater, possibly weeks. They were so hot that it was like trying to handle little red hot rocks. I left egg shell all over the place to punish the waiters. It's not as if it was just me being fussy, after all I eat most things, you could see the other diners also wondering about the food. People were making multiple passes over the buffet as you would expect except they were not picking up any food. In the end they would just pick one item up and retreat with a disappointed look to their tables.

I did have some entertainment. A good looking Indian chick turned up on her own shortly after me. In her 20's very well dressed but her attire was let down by having old trainers on? She started off by bossing the staff into providing her with stuff in cups, though I was not sure exactly what they were doing. When she had a collection of mugs in front of her she started mixing up various strange selections. For instance rice and yoghurt, or yoghurt and fish sauce. None of her selections seemed to go together, I assumed she was preparing food for a party following her but nobody turned up? I wish I had had the nerve to ask her what she was doing.

Out and about the district. Walked the streets for about an hour, again did not feel as entertained as before, saw more tailors but not as many as previously and they seem more desperate. Then I bought a ticket on the ferry, which I still reckon is the best cheap trip in the world. Nowhere as much traffic in the harbor but still enough to interest me. It seems that containerization has reached HK and the old harbor is slowly dying. A ticket for the upper deck was 2.5 dollars, beat that for value.

I walked way to fast to the peak tram, I blame the dad effect. I was boiling when I got there as it was further than the map suggested. Then off with the other tourists and their moaning kids to the top of the peak. They have a new viewing platform there that is supposed to give a 360 view of HK. However as I got to the top I had the strange feeling of a lid slamming on my head. Not a real lid of course but a lid of clouds descending and closing on me. You can see in my photographs that I lose my view half way around the platform. It really did come down in a straight line, very strange.

As there was nothing to see now I came out and had lunch at Starbucks. Yeah I know how terrible but I wanted to see what they were like. Tiramisu and sausage roll, filed me up. I bought some bottles of water at a horrible price. It will be a theme of this trip, bottled water, I will end up buying large quantities everywhere.

Around the place I was seeing a particular breed of women that I had heard about but not actually encountered before. The expat wife! How to describe this breed, well l30-40, slim, wearing a obviously expensive summer dress and with a certain air about them. On the way to the peak I had passed two standing under a tree sheltering from a brief shower, as they were in my way they had to step to one side. Most places we would have exchanged a nod but not these two oh no nothing! They could see that I did not belong to the right club. All I could thing looking at them and at the ones I saw in Starbucks was you would have to pay me a lot of money to put up with these parasites.

Posted some cards from the top of the peak and then down on the tram again. It was a better walk back to the ferry this time as the weather had improved. At the ferry people kept on trying to sell me stuff mainly tours. The fact that I was off soon did not dampen their enthuse one bit. On the ferry I realized that everybody I could see was a tourist. What a pity, I suspect with the opening of the tunnel it's only us which keep things going.

Back to the hotel for a cold bath and a rest. I was complaining about the heat but little did I realize that I was going to be hot and in some cases very hot this whole trip. HK is to up market for me, piles and piles of high priced junk. Why do people spend so much money on this junk. Though I have to say that the local girls spend more money and time on their appearances that their New Zealand sisters do. Almost out of cash, will I make it or will I have to get more, tomorrow will tell.

21 June 2010 - Hong Kong Airport

What can I say about Hong Kong airport! Well it's big, really big, no bigger than that. It seems to go on for miles and miles. If it was much bigger then it would need an internal airline to service the terminals. Ok perhaps not that big but you get the idea. It has an internal train line but in IMHO it does not service enough points. Customs and Immigration went well enough with the exception of a couple of confusing signs. They have people with light blue jackets running around guiding people who look lost. Given the number of people who look like that at a airport it means that they had plenty of work to do. The one I got closest to had a jacket about six times to large for him which gave him a bit of a comical appearance but he did his job well enough.

No problems with my UK passport the only slight surprise was that I got a 180 day visa when I was expecting a 60 day one. As I will only be here for three days seems a bit of a waste.

After a bit of walking it was out to the public area for me. Like most airport it was a large area with lots of people milling around looking for one another. I had hoped that there would be somebody with a sign with my name on but no luck. I looked around, went near some desks which mentioned "transfer hotel" and words like that but no luck. Considered making my own way when after about 15 mins somebody turned up with a list and my name was on the list. He seemed disturbed that I did not have a certain kind of voucher but in the end took me to a side area and told me to wait until collected. I was told I was group D. As he walked away I noticed a group of people with D on their stickers forming up behind a guy with a D flag held up in the air so I tagged along hoping it was the right group. After quite a walk and some resorting me and about 10 others were on a bus so things were looking up.

It was a 25 min ride to the hotel. Hong Kong seems very packed and not that packed all at the same time. I know that's confusing I guess I mean there is plenty of space between the tower blocks at the same time the tower blocks as packed together in groups. Each block must contain about 400 families and each group of blocks must contain between 20 and 40 blocks. That's a lot of people. I could not really tell where I was at first in relation to previous visits until we were crossing one of the new bridges that points directly at Tsim Sha Tsui.

Royal Garden Kowloon Hotel.

Quite smart modern 3 star hotel with nothing outstanding. Reasonable double bed room but very small bath only just larger than a shower stall. Room safe so everything goes in there.

Out for a evening walk, it's very humid, I should have realized that but it still came as a surprise. There seems to be fewer street vendors than before though I was attacked by several people giving my vouchers for foot massages. I suspect what gets massaged is dependent on how large the "service" tip is. There was no street food which was a disappointment. There were restaurants but I don't like those places on my own unless desperate. I only got a bit lost once like an idiot I had forgotten to pick up a map from reception but as I had been there before I was able to sort myself out without to much of a problem. The shops are a bit disappointing with the mainly being the same Branson and styles at home. Seems to be mainly cloths shops here, all very boring. I did get a chance to buy an iPad but decided to wait until NZ.

By 8 pm I was starting to feel the effect of jet lag so I returned to the hotel. I was so tired and the food places so unappealing that I skipped food and decided to have a very large breakfast tomorrow.

21 June 2010 -07:30 -In the air

Stuck in a small seat next to a small man.

There must be a better way to travel than this. International travel must be the most uncomfortable things most people do in their lives (with the exception I suppose to giving birth but at least half of us can't do that). The small man is asian and has no english so we never talk. But he does not take up much room so thats OK, at least from my point of view. Food on Cathy is the same as always, barely edible. However it did not poison me so I guess that its really a win. The seats have a one screen per person with all the normal controls and options. Lots of movies but they failed to engage me, I spent most of the trip asleep and the rest reading on my Kobo. I am not sure about this ebook but this trip will sure give it a good test run. On this trip I found that the limiting comfort factor was not the distance from the chair to the seat in front but the width of the seat. I know I am a bit wide but I am not that wide! The seat cushion also seems to be made out of stone, additionally the wings on the seat never seam to adjust properly so its good that I bought that inflatable cushion.

The plane was full, which makes me wonder why the airlines complain of loosing money after all we were all but sitting on the roof. I did have a pleasant surprise, asian babies travel very well, the plan seemed to have several of them on board yet you barely heard from them. An example for western babies to follow, the only time I heard one was when he managed to break open a packet of food that his mother was trying to keep him out of and it went everywhere.......

The flight was a code share with LAN Air so we seemed to have a fair number of south americans on the flight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_International_Airport

20 June 2010 -Auckland Airport International Departures

04:30 Pickup. Why do airlines do this to us, its just to early! The taxi ride did not really wake me up so I am sitting here wondering what I left behind in my stupor. Seems I have my passports, my money and tickets and I am wearing pants so everything on first evaluation looks good.

I decided to buy myself one of those blowup pillows for the trip. I did not realise that it would be such a job! The are a dozen styles, how do you tell them apart. Why do vendors hide their special offers? I select a pillow and go to the desk to purchase it, after I have paid for it I also get handed a sleep mask. “But I did not pay for that” I protest, “But its a special offer, but that type of pillow get a free mask” claims sales chick. Thats find with me but as the offer is not displayed anywhere I can't see the reason for the offer from the vendors point of view.

Decided to have First Breakfast. Purchased it from the food court on the top floor. Soggy bacon, no Jam hope things get better than this.

From comments from the front line

Off on time, Cathy Pacific flight CX118 seat 70C @0730.

Cathy did not seem as polished service wise as they have in the past. I was near one of the toilets which made access easy but but a bit noisy. This flight was on an Airbus A340.



Time to sleep – Tomorrow will be Hong Kong and adventure time!

Start Of The Travel Diary

Over the next few months I am going to post the contents of my travel diary up here. Postings will be a random intervals as I get around to it.

I will include some links to pictures and off site pages as I feel like it!

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