Friday-Saturday,
October
22-23, 2010
Coincidence? I think not. Twice today we encountered women named
"Gemma". You could go years without that happening because it is
a fairly uncommon name. The first was the Cathay ticketing agent
at SFO and the second was a Dragonair ticketing agent at HKG. (Dragonair
is Cathay's China regional airline). That is Divine Providence,
no question about it.
We planned a *very* good travel itinerary this time. After
getting in pretty late last night, we were able to sleep in a
bit before having to leave again for the airport. We planned
plenty of time to be at the airport and get checked in, which
was important because we encountered a couple more glitches that
were minor, but took a good bit of time to resolve. For
instance, when Cathay says they allow a max of 20 lbs per carry
on bag, believe them. They get nervous about rollerboard-type
bags that are going to be in the overhead and will not allow
more than 20lbs. We had a little rearranging to do but it wasn't
too bad. The funny thing is that they look the other way on
backpacks. Presumably, they just think they're going to go on
the floor and figure it's not a big deal. This was very good
because mine was about 35lbs with all the camera gear, laptop,
etc. I still put it in the overhead though. All in all, not a
big deal really and they were very professional to deal with.
We boarded our 747 for HK. Gavin was totally excited and April
was completely tied up in knots as usual with long travel. It's
a mom thing, leaving all her other kids behind. As for myself, I
was very much looking forward to putting away all the work and
drudgery of the recent weeks and just relaxing with some
in-flight movies that we had planned to watch. We'd downloaded a
few on itunes, as well as some TV episodes somebody had
recommended.
Well, if you take Cathay, don't do that. It's kind of a waste of
money because they have hundreds of movies, TV shows, and games
to pick from on the seat back entertainment systems. We played
yahtzee, hangman, tetris, ice hockey, missile command,
centipede, the list goes on. Then there's all the new releases
as well as good vintage favorites. I'm telling you, they think
of everything.
Then there's the food. They fed us non-stop. First there were
drinks and snacks. After a while came a delicious lunch. Between
meals you could walk to the galley and pick up more snacks. They
had light sandwiches, noodles, and chocolate to choose from.
Dinner came later on and it was also delicious. Both the major
meals had meat and vegetarian options. Beer and wine? Yep, FREE!
To think that this was actually the cheapest of all options for
flights too - amazing. We were actually a little bummed when the
flight was over.
We chased the sun for the entire flight and landed in HK at
sunset, local time. Apparently this "super-typhoon" Megi
couldn't stand up to the prayers of all those praying for us
because it just seemed to fizzle out and we landed in partly
cloudy skies with no rain or wind at all. HUGE thanks to
everybody for that, but the biggest thanks goes to our Lord for
the answered prayers.
We had a brief layover with some time to relax, then it was off
on the next short leg to Guangzhou. After some passport checks
and a short bus ride across the tarmac, we boarded our
blistering hot Dragonair flight. Apparently they didn't believe
in AC because it was easily 90 degrees and stuffy in the plane.
Somehow it worked pretty good for me because I zonked out and
didn't wake up until we augured in on the landing (we slammed
down pretty good). Poor April was sweating it though. It was
actually too hot for her to be real comfortable and usually
she's the one that likes the heat. Thankfully it was only about
a 35 minute flight.
After zipping through immigration and baggage (which was
mercifully very efficient), we were met by our Lotus guide named
"Raymond". What a great guy! He spoke very good English and was
perfectly hospitable. Last time we did this, it was with
20-something other families and we went by bus to the hotel.
This time it was just us and we took a minivan. Raymond did the
usual talk about what to expect, dos and don'ts, etc. After
about 30 minutes, we arrived at the hotel - to the land of
excellent service. The bellman took our bags off and loaded them
all up. Best part - no tips.
Raymond got us all squared away at the counter and the gal did
us a huge favor by getting our suite located just down the hall
from our friends, the Perry's. They will arrive shortly and are
adopting a good friend of Gemma's. Having the girls just a few
doors down from each other should be great! We're really looking
forward to that.
We got up to the room on the 24th floor and started to settle
in. It's funny, you're staying at a Chinese equivalent of a
5-star hotel. The rooms sleep a max of four no matter what kind
of room you're in, yet they don't have sleeping arrangements for
four. We're in what's called a junior suite. It has a king bed,
but no other beds, not even a pullout. There's an outfit we
contacted a few days ago called
Gifts to China with Love and
ordered a couple twin air mattresses for the kids. If you plan
on coming here you definitely want to do that. For the two
mattresses it cost about $35 one time, but to order a rollaway
bed is $45 per night.
We got Gavin's mattress set up, got our power converters (more
later on that) and then crashed. This was another good thing
about the itinerary. We had built in an extra day before gotcha
day just to work off the jet lag. We had landed in the late
evening and went to bed normally on local time. Then, we had
plenty of time to sleep in the next morning. All in all, it was
an itinerary that worked well. |
The international terminal at SFO. Cathay is right in the
center, just a short walk from the door.
Our 747 to Hong Kong
Just getting started
The flight was about 13 1/2 hours total
and about 6,900 miles
The first of the delicious meals. Airplane food isn't what it
used to be - at least on this flight.
Gavin enjoying his "TV Dinner"
A little snack on our layover in Hong Kong
Everything had been on time thankfully |
