Friday, December 24, 2010

We made it to Hong Kong

Our flight actually ended up leaving Chicago close to 3 p.m. (originally scheduled departure of 12:32 p.m.). Besides waiting for the slowly pumping fuel, we waited on the tarmac for 5 different planes to land before being able to access our runway.

We watched "Get Low", with Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek & Bill Murray, then watched "The Switch" with Jennifer Aniston & Jason Bateman. Three other movies played at various times during the flight - The Sorcerer's Apprentice with Nicolas Cage, Despicable Me, and I don't know what the other one was because I was sawing logs. I slept intermittently during The Sorcerer's Apprentice & Despicable Me as well. Preston enjoyed an episode of Man vs Food at one point too.

We *all* enjoyed periodically watching the world map and our progress. How fun to go over the North Pole on Christmas Eve.

The plane food was surprisingly tasty. Our meal was beef brisket (very tender), mashed potatoes, carrots & green beans, a roll, salad & a peppermint/chocolate brownie (so moist). Later, we were given a "snack" of Chinese noodles & an almond cookie. About an hour before landing, we got another "snack" - a turkey sub, chips & Knott's Berry farm raspberry shortbread cookies.

I took a picture on the plane of a Coke Zero can:


Upon landing, we had to go through immigration BEFORE getting out checked luggage (which surprised me a bit). I converted some U.S. dollars to Hong Kong dollars and some more U.S. dollars to Chinese yuan. Then, we got a shuttle ride to Hong Kong FlyCity Marriott, which I think is actually still on airport property.

Airport pictures:



Here at the hotel, we got our train tickets from the concierge, but were surprised to discover it is a 1 hour taxi ride to the train station. We will need to leave by 11 a.m., as our train is at 1 p.m. We have access to a lounge with drinks, snacks & free internet access. This time, it was a Pepsi can that made for a cultural photo:


Hope to post more tomorrow from Guangzhou when I'm a bit more alert. Merry Christmas, everyone!

3 comments:

  1. Merry Christmas to you as well! Glad all is well! So happy for you!!

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  2. What a Merry Christmas and a wonderful start for a New Year for you all! Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete