Day 27 - Taking Flight ( Up in the Air!)

Much of today was spent at the pointy end of a British Airways 747 as we jetted eastward in First Class to our final destination of this amazing holiday.. Heathrow to Hong Kong. We were greeted onboard by our own personal cabin crew. We were in fact supposed to be the only passengers in first class, but they had upgraded someone’s daughter!!! It was as though she wasn’t there as she spent most of the flight asleep and so it was really like flying in our own personal jet. Utterly amazing. At dinner time, which was really nearly midnight Heathrow time because we were so late leaving, Chris came around to my cubicle and sat on the small buddy seat that converts to become the foot of the bed. That way we could sit opposite each other while we were treated to a six course silver service dinner. The food was very swish and very yummy as this image of Chris' crayfish salad indicates. After all that, it was time for a rest and so we bedded down, literally. They come and lay down your seat flat while you slip into your flight pyjamas, put a thin mattress over it and give you a duvet to snuggle down under. It was quite comfortable.

Unfortunately Liz wasn’t too well During the flight.. the flight was exceptionally turbulent and a canapé served in the Concorde Room did not agree. This meant no brekkie for her, but the crew were fantastic making sure she was ok and providing drinks and cups of tea – thanks Raoul and Makmoud. All up it was a phenomenal experience, one which neither of us will ever forget. And so we arrived in Hong Kong.

The first thing that struck us was the humidity, even in an air-conditioned airport. After that, the sheer distance that we had to walk to get from our arrival gate to the customs and baggage area. A rough estimate.. perhaps one kilometre!!! Clearing customs was easy, although it took a while for the bags to come through and then it was off to work out how to catch the airport express train into Kowloon. We were having two nights at the Sheraton and our final night was to be out at the Regal Hotel at the airport. This Regal hotel is literally attached to the end of Terminal One and so we decided that we would leave our excess bags that we did not need at the Regal, and just take one suitcase into town. Great idea. We hit the doorway, were greeted by concierge staff who snaffled the bags away, gave us the collection tag and then we were off to the train.

Now this train was something else again. Smooth and very modern, with comfortable storage for luggage and a quick 25 minute ride into Kowloon. From the train we transferred to a shuttle to take us to the hotel and that was where the fun really began. The streets of Kowloon were utterly chaotic and we were about the sixth stop so we went around and around before we reached our hotel. Then we had to clamber off the coach very quickly and Chris exited without his backpack and Liz didn’t realize that it had been left on the bus. Thank heavens Chris realized almost immediately the bus had pulled out from the kerb and due to the bad traffic he was able to chase it and redeem the bag. No harm down, but the adrenaline rush left both of us feeling rather wasted.

We were glad that we were able to check in straight away at the Sheraton. We had been offered an upgrade by email some days before for a very reasonable deal and so Chris had taken it. When we checked in they had to upgrade our upgrade as they were fully booked. We ended up with a deluxe harbour view room on level 15 overlooking Hong Kong harbour, with “happy hour” drinks and nibbles in the executive lounge, 24 hr coffee and tea in the same lounge and brekkie dining on the 18th floor overlooking the harbour and other benefits. It was great. As they were still serving happy hour we had some dim sum for dinner there and then went back to the room. Unfortunately we were both exhausted.. the combination of it being a long day and the humidity and nearly losing the bag, so we didn’t have the energy to venture very far.

We took a wander, perhaps scurry would be a better word, up Nathan Road, where we ran the gauntlet of all the copy watch touters… they were everywhere. Had a bit of a look see and then went back to the hotel to crash, in the hope that we could start to get the body clock back closer to Sydney time… What an amazing amazing day.