Hong Kong

Catching up on my blogging, which I have been ignoring as of late.  In June, I had the opportunity to participate in the inaugural flight that my company started to Hong Kong.  I don't even have the seniority to smell this route, but I was asked to ride along as the "union rep" on the flight.  Since it was the first one, the company puts a service manager and a union rep on the trip to make sure things go smoothly.

My good friend Sandi was working the trip.  She is a delight to work with and still has great enthusiasm, even after 45 years of flying (she was 2 when she started).  They had lots of festivities at the gate before we departed and we had our picture taken with a dragon.

My friends Kelly and Kristi came to the gate to see me off.  They are new hire mentors, and we had two brand new flight attendants working the trip (Mandarin and Cantonese speakers).

The plane we use is the new 777-300, the flagship of our fleet.  It's a beast.  The flight is blocked at over 16 and a half hours and it's over 8,000 miles.  Because of headwinds flying to Asia, the flight is weight restricted and can only carry a limited amount of cargo.

Sandi was the purser on my first trip to Japan and was so kind to me.  I will never forget that.  Here we are back in 2008.  

And here we are six years later.  She looks the same.  I appear to have aged quite a bit, ha ha.I got a chance to repay the favor so to speak, as this was her first trip on the 777-300, so I helped her out getting comfortable with the plane.

My friend Glenda was also working the trip.  I hadn't flown with her in quite a while so it was a treat to see her too.

The Purser was nice lady named Ginny who just transferred in from JFK.  We had flown together to Madrid a few months ago.

Catering made little tea cakes for us since this was the inaugural flight.  They were delicious.

After what felt like a million years, we made to Hong Kong.  We left DFW close to 1pm and arrived Hong Kong at 6pm the next day.

One of speakers, Grace, took us out to a traditional restaurant with typical Hong Kong cuisine.  Everything was served family style and placed on a lazy Susan contraption in the center of the table and everyone helps themselves to the food.

You get two sets of chopsticks.  One pair is used to take things from the table and the other is used to eat with.  I forgot which ones I was using for which and ended up using both to eat with at some point.

Local beer called Party.  What's not to love?

Because Hong Kong is a new city for my airline, they had ground staff from Europe over to help train the new staff.  One of the ground supervisors I know, Miguel, from Madrid, was in town as part of the start up, so he and some of the other Madrid agents joined us for dinner.  

We were pretty wiped out after dinner and I slept great.  The next day we had a full day of activities planned.  Our layover is actually two nights, so the whole third day we have free in Hong Kong.  

We started off the next day with a visit to Lantau Island.  I had previously visited Hong Kong in 2007 when I did my round the world trip, but I had never made it to Lantau.  You have to ride a gondola to get to the Island and conveniently, you start your ride just outside our hotel.

We opted for the glass bottom gondola.

The main sight on Lantau is the Tian Tan Buddha, or Big Buddha, as it is commonly referred to.  It sits at the top of the highest point of Lantau, which is over 3000 feet above sea level. It was a clear day, so the ride up to Lantau was amazing.

We walked thru Ngong Ping Village to get to Big Buddha.  It's super touristy, but still fun.

The Tian Tan Buddha is part of the Po Lin Monastery and it represents the balance between man, nature, people and religion.

After a few hours wandering around it was time to head back to town.  It was hot, so we all got popsicles for the gondola ride home.

Our next adventure was to head into Hong Kong for some sightseeing.  Sandi had a little fiasco with the ATM machine.  It ate her card, so she stayed behind to deal with that, so it was just me and Virginia and Ginny.  The subways are very easy to maneuver and very clean (you can get a ticket for bringing food or drink onboard).

We got off on Hong Kong island and went up to Victoria Peak.  I had visited the peak in 2007.  It was basically just an open area on the top of a mountain.  Here I am in 2007.

The view is still the same, but now it is a developed tourist area, complete with restaurants and a mall and an observation area. What used to be a free view, you now have to pay for.

It was terribly windy at the top.

We were kind of chasing the sun.  We wanted to get to Kowloon Island to see the light show that everyone said was amazing.  We were tired and hungry and thirsty and getting a little cranky, but in "Amazing Race" style we made it down to see the light show which proved to be totally underwhelming.  Boo!

I did stop for a picture with some statues.

We finally found a restaurant and had food and drink.  Ginny is making a face to capture our mood at this point.

It was a long, but productive day.  We made it back to the hotel where I promptly collapsed but slept like a baby.  The next day was our flight home.  We all posed in front of the engine when we got to the plane.

I am very grateful for this unique opportunity and hope to get to work the flight again, someday.