Even though I am a Qantas club member, flying cathay pacific doesn't give me the privs to enter the Qantas club... but thanks to my bro's friend, we got an invite! YAY!
My family were quite impressed - well... at least Mark & Jen were, Tim got into QC last time we went to china (I was gold FF then). Sadly enough it wasn't up to the standard it used to be - the food was cold, the bar was closed so no beer or booze, but the phone and internet were appreciated. In revenge, Jen & I took almost all the teabags and all of the chocolate drink sachets. I also stole an apple , tsk tsk.
This flight (CX138) was an red-eye special - it was packed and hideously uncomfortable, the plane was an airbus A330 with an short persons seat pitch (mark ain't tall, but his knees were touching the back of the seat). Also the lumbar support was painful (and lacking). Obviously, CX cater for hunchbacked, insomniac dwarfs! At least the food was nice and the inflight entertainment system was good (watched Aeon Flux and bits of Narnia) plus played battleship against Tim. Naturally he thrashed me.
As with all dwarven airlines, there are even smaller dwarflings called infants. One child screamed blue murder and even with my industrial earplugs (used for jackhammering etc) I could hear her. Apparantly mum went awol at the back of the plane leaving her teen daughter in charge. Oh well, most of us couldn't sleep anyway due to compressed spinal injuries. Oh, the airbus also didn't have individual air vents so it was either too hot or too cold. :-) Last time I voluntarilly fly cathay!
We had fun flying into HK airport - low cloud and turbulence. Even I felt a bit green, and when the plane aborted it's landing (a "go around"with full throttle and steep climb), Jen lost her breakfast and quite a few of us felt similar. But at least we got down safely. Actually, the pilot was an aussie and geez once we were out of the cloud, it was a very very smooth landing.
We got to HK airport at 5:15am, and all the shops in the transit area were closed, so I made the executive decision to leave the restricted zone and pass thru immigration. We wandered around (Biffa the toy dog got some photo ops) till 8am, but the check in counter was still closed. So at least the shops were open at 7:30am, and I bought a prepaid SIM card from "3". An interesting stall we saw was the "Ice Crispy Dragon Beard Candy"shop - and the nice lady gave me a sample. Quite nice, like freezing candy floss surrounding a peanut/sesame core. Melted on the tounge and what a sensation that was! By now the airport was really buzzing, heaps of people milling around and we checked in finally at what was the emirates counter (the sign kept changing, maybe that's why the checkin dude was slow slow slow).
We rang aunty meilin who was in HK with her father - seems that the old mansion in the New Territories was demolished for redevelopment. Oh well.
After this we went airside again, and found an internet terminal, so we surfed and emailed till time to leave. By the way, I couldn't find our gate (12) on the map so it was with a sinking feeling that we got to the gate via downwards escalators - yep, it was a bus trip to the tarmac.
Packed in like sardines, and no seats. But at least Biffa got a photo op on the ladder much to the amusement of the ground staff - who actually waved at us as we left :-)
Not much view due to cloud and haze, but at least on landing had glimpses of Hainan (Haikou city). The airport reminded me of Honolulu or Cairns - that open, warm, sticky feeling as you leave the airconditioned plane plus the tropical plants everywhere. Pretty seamless immigration and customs and we were met by a horde of relatives - from my grandmother and great-great-great-grandfathers generation(s). Lots of teary welcome (not that we understood Hainanese) but we shook hands and hugged anyway.
Eventually the circus got underway and we left in a van with Qionghai uncle (Ye?) and his brother (?) who was driving the van plus their mother (pawpaw) heading for the ancestral county, Qionghai on the east coast of Hainan, 1.5hrs away...
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