Greetings from Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, HK.
We’ve made it safely here, after a long day in airplanes, and we’re wondering when we’ll get our Wednesday back. We departed Philadelphia on Tuesday Morning, and we arrived here at the hotel a bit after 9 on Wednesday evening. I hope you all enjoyed the day that was lost to us.
Let start with a photo… One that speaks to the celebration of getting all 9 of us here safely.
I’m hunkered down in the hotel bar, with cold beer and crunchy peanuts, furiously fighting the urge to put my name on the karaoke list, and trying to formulate this post. It’s intimidating – I want to make sure I capture everything!
As the first few words jump from brain to screen it does get a bit easier with each paragraph. For inspiration, before I landed at the bar, I wandered outside the hotel around the immediate neighborhood. What a crowd tonight, likely similar to most other nights here. Lots of energy for 10:45 in the evening. The most striking thing – EVERYONE had a phone. Even those who were not engaged in talking, texting or surfing held them tightly in their grasps, anticipating the surge of dopamine that comes with the next ringtone or WeChat alert. It’s fun for me to people watch, as everyone does their thing. As we’re usually the family that draws the most attention on the street, this is my little payback.
The second most interesting thing was that I stopped at 20 when I was counting the number of foot/body massage joints. And I’d only gone about 3 blocks, dodging their literature-hawking sales reps on the sidewalks! Most were nothing more that 8-foot wide doorways, leading just off the street to stairways Up or Down. Truth be told, I ALMOST went into one to get a foot massage (after the day on the road), but then I thought it would be best to meet our new son with all 10 toes and infection-free.
Then, I thought maybe I could camp out at one of the THREE Starbucks that are within 450 feet (!) of the Hotel – check Google Maps if you don’t believe me. But they all closed at 10:30 or 11. My next potential stop was the 24-hour McDonald’s around the corner. But there were no empty tables, thanks to all the teens and 20-somethings. Probably better, as I would not have fit in well with that crowd.
The flights were fairly normal, if your definition of normal includes micro seats, narrow aisles, and a regular procession of elbow and knee-crunching carts! Fourteen hours is a very long time for ANYTHING to be airborne. The graphic of the flight’s progress made it even worse – I swear there were times when the little airplane icone appeared to be heading back toward SF!
At least the meals were mediocre. We got 2 hot entrees, a sandwich and 2 (I think, but can’t be certain as our whole row was asleep for one) snacks. For the breakfast platter, Tyler ordered Eggs. But the flight attendant claimed that they were out of Eggs. Luckily, she found “the last” Egg plate available and brought it to him. Instead of his Eggs, he was surprised to find that he’d gotten a full plate of sausages (about FOURTEEN of them!). Oh well… He switched to Pancakes and ate two bites, before surrendering. Good thing we loaded up on snacks for the flights!
The landing in HK was one of the roughest I can recall. Not so much bumpy as we descended, but quite unnerving after wheels-down. The plane shifted very abruptly from side to side, as if the pilot was recovering from narrowly avoiding a deer sprinting across Quarry Road (for our Harleysville friends). It was downright scary, with more than a few screams for passengers. The kids took it in stride, which was nice.
As a closet geography geek, throughout the flight, I snagged a series of pics of the flight plan and stats. We headed NNW out of SF along the Alaskan coast, then tracked along the Aleutian Islands before crossing into northeastern Siberian. We followed a track that took us west ofBeijing and Shanghai, and nearly over Wuhan (Hubei Prov.), which is near Ashley’s birthplace. Interestingly, the location metadata on these pictures is accurate as to where we were when the photos were taken.
So ends the flight graphics part of the show.
When we finally gathered our luggage and settle on Taxis as the most efficient and effective way to get to the hotel, we queued (as they say) up. We were 9 strong with UC towering over the petite cab assignment girl. She indicated that 2 cabs would be enough, despite the facial expressions of the cabbies after shoved the luggage back toward the trunks of the cabs. We were able to split into 2 taxis, with each taxi needing a trusty bungee to keep the trunk closed and the luggage from dumping out onto the highway. Apparently, our cabbie (Me, Mom, Tyler, Ryan and Dylan) knew very little English. Three words, exactly.
About halfway to the hotel, he realized that the back passengers windows were both open, while he had been running the A/C. He grumbled (actually it was more of a bark) “Window. Open?” To which Dylan and Mom responded “Yes”. It was then we learned his third word: “CLOSE!!!”.
Still lots of comments and texts about the Fox29 piece with me, masquerading as Craig Lockhead. Very funny, after I’d spelled my name off camera for them!
Time to turn in, we’ve got everything that needs a charge charging, so we’re good to go for the AM! Hong Kong on our own tomorrow – looking forward to it…
More later…
