chase the light

I arrived tonight in Hong Kong at about 6pm after a grueling 15 1/2 hour flight. Longest flight I’ve ever been on. Besting Melbourne by a few hours. I checked on Cathay Pacific’s safety rating and it ranks right up there with Qantas. No fatalities since 1979. That still didn’t stop me from having a plane crash dream when I fell asleep somewhere over the Pacific. For some reason I was able to look out the front of the cockpit like it was a giant glass window and see us crashing through the trees. Not a great way to wake up.

After we landed, and I got through customs, all the illegal cab drivers were asking to take me wherever I needed to go. I walked around for seriously an hour trying to find the legit taxis. I did find the bus to Silvermine Beach on Lantau, and the bus was there ready to go, but all I had were large bills and they’ll ONLY take the exact fare or give no change. So I went back up and finally found a place to change to lower denominations. Of course the bus had left and the next bus was in an hour and a half. Ugh.

I finally got to the hotel about 11pm but while on the hour+ bus ride there I started worrying about them not having my reservation. That’s what happened in London last time when Jill and I booked through Yahoo. Great, I’m going to be stuck on some island with one hotel, completely exhausted, and they don’t have my reservation and no rooms left. It was fine though and I went up stairs and fell right asleep. Ha! No worries.

Doing the math on this trip I realized from the time I start getting ready, taking the cab, flying 15 1/2 hours each way, to the hotel, back to airport, and home… total travel time will be in excess 40 hours. Um, that’s a whole week of work! That’s if you work 8 hour days of course. Kill me now.

And hey a photo of Hong Kong out of the window of a really clean plane!