So long, Farewell...

Well here it is folks.  The last entry.  At least for now.  I'll probably pick this back up if I ever leave the confines of the U.S. again.  But for now, its adios.

I wish I had more to offer, but my trip kept me away from home through the first week of school for this quarter, and as a result of my general laziness, I'm now about 2 weeks behind in actually learning the material.  I have kept up with the due dates and assignments, but the broad concepts are flying by at an alarming rate.  So I just don't have the time finish the reminiscing.

So here's a quick recap.

Argentina.  Awesome.  Bummed to miss "summer" but had a fantastic experience nonetheless.

America.  All one week of it was great.  Warm-ish weather was nice.  Seeing friends is always good.

Hong Kong.  Holy mother.  What a city.  Blown away by the scope.

Vietnam.  The people were astounding.  So warm, welcoming, open, hospitable, nice, generous, kind, affable.  The adjectives could keep on flowing.

Cambodia.  Stunning country.  Just didnt spend enough time there.  Ticked off a box on the bucket list though.  So worth the trip by itself.

Singapore.  Stark contrast to the previous two weeks.  Modern and up to date in every way.  Plus, F1 is AWESOME.  And loud.  Plug your ears.

Back to Vietnam.  Same description still applies.

Seoul.  Didn't see much, lotta jetlag.  But I did visit Gangnam.  It was NOT full of people doing that ridiculous horse dance.  I was severely disappointed.

And back to Seattle.  Probably the most welcome part of the trip was coming home to a city I have come to love so dearly and have adopted as my new home.


After 4 months away, it is good to be back.  I love you all, and thank you for reading this.  I appreciate your audience and your feedback.  I probably shouldn't have listened to your encouragement though, only because more of this garbage fell out of my brain and onto the internet.  Oh well, at least you put up with me.

And I thank you for that.

Best,
Corey

Checking One Off the Bucket List

I really wish I had more time to travel through Cambodia.  I spent all of my time there in Siem Reap, the town just outside of the temples of Angkor Wat.  And while Siem Reap is about as big of an international tourist destination as is possible to find, I was fortunate to stay in a hostel off the beaten path in a local neighborhood just across the river from “Pub Street”.

And when I say “international tourist destination”, it’s just that.  There’s a stretch of mega-hotels between the airport and town specially designed to accommodate large groups of people who travel around by air-conditioned coach bus.  You know the type, they’re usually led by a jovial guide who cracks jokes through a personal PA system slung over one shoulder and who's waving a colorful flag in the other hand so you don't lose them.  Every single one has a camera and they are INCESSANTLY getting in your way while you’re trying to take pictures or they stop right in your path while listening to an uninteresting lecture on bas-relief given by the tour guide with the flag.

But aside from the South Korean and Chinese mega-tour groups, there is a huge percent of the tourist population made up by the unwashed masses of backpackers.  Most of them are European, specifically Britons, the French and a few Germans (seriously, its impossible to escape German backpackers, they're EVERYWHERE and they always get somewhere fun and interesting before you).  If you didn't know already, Southeast Asia is a backpacker's paradise.  Everything is dirt cheap and your dollar or euro stretches for miles in whatever the local currency is.  Oh how I wish you could get a big meal and a few beers for 5 bucks in the US, but fat chance.

I'm not trying to get down on backpackers, hell its how I've made my last 2 major trips abroad (Canada doesn't count).  But I do object to the fact that many of them can't seem to find a shower or someone to wash their clothes.  Both of which are available in abundance at every hostel in the world.  I also object to people perpetuating the Ugly American stereotype, and for a long while I thought that it was a figment of Europe's imagination.  But I have witnessed some pretty boorish behavior by kids who are overseas on their own for the first time and taking every chance they can to act out.  It's seriously not hard to respect someones culture.  Just learn a few essential phrases in their language (they'll forgive your pronunciation if you actually say please and thank you) and don't get fall-on-your-face-in-the-middle-of-the-street drunk at two in the afternoon (saw that).

Rant aside, Siem Reap was an awesome experience.  Ever since I first heard about the 150 square miles of archaeological ruins spread across the jungles of Cambodia.  The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Angkor itself contains the remains of the various capital cities of the Khmer Empire from the 9th century and stretching into the 15th century and was recently certified as the largest pre-industrial city in the world.  The most famous site is Angkor Wat, which happens to be the worlds largest religious structure.  The entire temple is covered in intricate carvings, statues and bas reliefs depicting the entire theology of the Hindu religion.  It is the single greatest feat of construction, art and architecture that I have ever had the fortune to see first-hand.  It's really one of those things you have to experience to truly understand the magnitude of.

I hired myself a personal tuk-tuk driver and guide for 3 days to take me to all of the different temples throughout the huge site.  I forget his name, unfortunately, but he was really awesome and obviously knew the routes like the back of his hand.  He even took me to the airport on my last day there.  Being driven around in the back of a tuk-tuk kind of makes you feel like poor man's royalty.  Because they're super cheap, but at the same time, someone is driving you around and you're sitting in the back like Princess Kay of the Milky Way.

Unfortunately, it happens to be the rainy season in Cambodia (and Vietnam) and so my photos didn't turn out all that well.  It was raining especially hard the day I went to Angkor Wat.  And when I say raining hard, Seattle has NOTHING on monsoon season in Cambodia.  It rained so much in one day that I had to wade through calf-deep water just to get to one of the temples I visited.  I have never experienced rain like that before.  The funny part is, the owner of the hostel I stayed at (Mark) said that it hadn't rained as much this year as it did last year.  When pressed for an explanation he told me that this time last year, there were 8 inches of water on the ground floor of the hostel (where my room is).  My bed would've been floating.  Guess that explains why the rice is so delicious.

So apart from the blatant tourism, Siem Reap was a lot of fun.  A huge variety of restaurants and bars in a town that feels almost small and sleepy.  Absolutely worth the trip to accomplish a life-long goal.

Getting Sick Abroad

Ok, let’s face it.  The subject I’m about to espouse on isn’t a pleasant one.  But most of us have been there.  And everyone’s been ill at one point in his or her life.  So I’m gonna do my best not to dwell on the gory details, but be warned.  Those who get queasy easy (I love alliteration) may want to pass on this one.

First of all, before you go anywhere, you should make an appointment with a travel doc to be sure YOU are in good health before you take off.  Don’t want anything untoward surprising you on the road.  The next reason is because if you’re going anywhere that isn’t Cleveland (and maybe even if you are), there’s a chance you’re gonna need some sort of vaccine over and above the standard school immunization panel.  Good idea to do this as soon as you start planning, some vaccines are done in parts that need to be spaced weeks apart or have a long incubation time.  I’ve had Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Hep A and Japanese Encephalitis all in the past few months.  And carry that yellow card they give you with you, some countries won’t let you in without proof of vaccines.

The next step to prevent getting sick abroad is to hit the CDC or State Department website for info on common illnesses wherever you are going and how to prevent or treat them.  Malaria is a good example.  Best not to show up in a malaria zone unprepared.  I’ve been on Malarone for the past 20 days and haven’t had a single side effect, so I recommend that one.  I did hear a good joke in Cambodia, though.  It went something to the effect of; “I can’t remember if I took my malaria pill this morning.  Man, if I were a girl I’d be pregnant a lot.”

The old adage goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Always true.  The Boy Scouts say “Be Prepared” for a reason.  Although over-preparation can smack of neuroses, Cary.  Just sayin’.  There are 3 over-the-counter meds and one prescription medicine that you should always carry with you.  Pain reliever, you never know when you’ll get a headache and it sucks being stuck without.  Pepto Bismol tablets, they really help ease the transition across time zones and are a blessing after overnight flights, I’m usually chewing some before we even get off the plane.  But that’s just a personal thing I guess.  And the next two combat a rather unpleasant side effect of eating strange foods in strange lands.

Traveler’s diarrhea, the Trots, the Brown Rain; whatever you want to call it, its not fun.  But it is nearly inevitable, especially if (like me) you’re a big fan of street food.  Somewhere along the line you’ll gorge on something that disagrees with you.  It could have been that bowl of crickets or something as simple as bahn mi off a cart on the corner.  The tiny little organisms in your stomach that help you digest things, as an American, are very different from those of someone from Vietnam or Cambodia.  Your bugs may not be used to noodles or rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  And to punish you for the onslaught of new and different food, they will voice their protest in the form of frequent and noisy trips to the lavatory.  So the third bit of preventative medicine to always carry with you is some Imodium, or the generic equivalent.  Hopefully that’ll put a cork in the flood without totally corking you up completely.

And if the Imodium doesn’t work completely, it’s best to get a prescription for some Cipro or another type of medium duty broad-spectrum antibiotic.  Spend a few days taking those as prescribed, and you’ll be able to sit through dinner without bouncing up and down out of your chair every 10 minutes.  It’s also best to note that if the Trots do come calling, you should be drinking a lot more water than you would normally.  I ran into that problem as I left Vietnam for Cambodia.

On my last night in Vietnam I went to an expat bar for dinner and ordered a burger.  Seemed innocuous enough.  And it was a pretty good burger, great flavor and nice and juicy.  Wasn’t until I finished the damn thing that I noticed all that juice was pretty damn red.  Even I’m not stupid enough to order a burger anything less than well done in a country where refrigeration and food safety have a long way to go to catch up to say, India.  So I had an inkling of what was headed my direction.  I went home and started my regimen of Cipro, hoping to head it off at the pass.

Woke up a bit queasy the next morning, but I chalked that up to Tigers and not the burger.  Packed up and headed for the airport for my two-leg journey to Cambodia and Siem Reap.  The entire day was spent with that background nauseousness of creeping illness.  But I powered through and made it to the hostel I had booked.  Thank god I had thought ahead and booked a private room with A/C, climate control was clutch.  By the time I got there, things had gotten worse.  I was running a fever, which SUCKS when the ambient temperature is 90° F.  Couple that with the fact that I’d been in transit all day in similar heat and high humidity, was still suffering the beck and call of the brown rain, was sweating like a contestant on The Biggest Loser, and not drinking enough water and it’s easy to see I managed to get massively dehydrated.

I appealed to the hostel’s owner, a British expat named Mark and a really awesome guy, for some help.  He took the opportunity to tell me to quit freaking out about any weird tropical illness solely because I was standing there talking to him in a calm voice and not curled up in bed hallucinating.  Small relief, but I was grateful for it.  He told me to walk down the street and pick up a few packets of powdered vitamin C and salt packets and a bottle of water.  He advised I drink two of the packets over the next 12 hours and get some rest.  If I wasn’t feeling better in 24 hours, then he’d “take the opportunity to start to be mildly concerned” for me.  Normally I’d laugh at that dry British humor, but that’s a tall order when you’re simultaneously sweating profusely from the fever, heat and humidity and freezing because of the shitty undercooked burger.

I had no idea what these rehydration packets looked like, but thankfully another guy at the hostel, Stuart, offered to walk down the street “to the Chemist” and help me find what I needed.  During our epic journey of 300 meters, he recounted a story to me of how he managed to fall in a river in Laos and swallow more than a bit of it.  He said he wound up with searing stomach pain and vomiting for a few days before he “decided something was wrong.”  Being in rural Laos (its pretty much all rural from my understanding), someone took him to the closest thing to a doctor they could find, “he was pretty much some guy in a thatch hut with some bags of unlabeled pills.”  Stuart said the guy pointed to one pile of pills and motioned to take one three times a day, and then pointed at a different pile and indicated to take three pills twice a day.  2 days later, the witch doctor (I use the term lightly) had managed to cure whatever gut rot had afflicted him. 

Buoyed by this optimistic, if unappetizing, account of his bout with accidentally ingesting what was presumably the product of someone else’s similar affliction, I mixed up what amounted to a packet of Emergen-C and downed a liter of (purified) water.  I spent much of my time in the shower that night running the what-if scenarios through my head, all the way up to and including medical evacuation by the American embassy in Cambodia via military transport.  (Just goes to show you that letting your mind wander when wracked with fever can take it weird places.)  A lot of my night was spent drifting in and out of not-at-all restful half-sleep and alternating between sweating and chills.

Then somewhere around 4am I was summoned by an urgent and unmistakable call to worship the porcelain throne.  And as with almost every other similar occasion I’ve had to engage in such devotion, I was immediately cured of my fever and chills.  Hallelujah, praise be to the porcelain god.  Amazing how that one act can virtually wash away all illness, but I was transformed.

I managed a few hours of more restful sleep and then spent the day hanging around the hostel, not doing much other than drinking a boat load of bottled water.  All told, over my stay in Cambodia, I managed to drink seven and a half liters of water.  And most of it stayed in me or was sweated out due to the heat and humidity. 

I guess the tropics really are, well, tropical.

Stay healthy my friends.

Vietnam, More than a war...

Flurry of activity.  Whirlwind.  Call it what you want, I've been very busy the past few weeks.  The study tour kept our hours packed to the point of breaking, and there was a daily journal assignment that I still haven't finished from that trip.  Not to mention, once the trip was over, I managed to eat an undercooked burger and get wicked sick for a few days in Vietnam and Cambodia.  Don't yell at me, it was dark in the bar and I didn't see the plate covered in blood until I was done with the damn thing.

Oh well, I survived.  But that's a story for another time.

Let me tell you a bit about Vietnam.  And how awesome it is.  The first thing to strike me was how warm and friendly everyone we met was.  Granted, we spent most of our time in central Vietnam around Da Nang and Quang Tri province, so the perspective of someone visiting Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City might be a little different.  But everywhere we went people were smiling and waving.  Not because Westerners are a novelty but, I found out after speaking with a few people, because people are generally excited to share what is theirs with visitors.  Its the kind of hospitality that runs rampant in developing parts of the world.  Guests are respected and treated like royalty.  Americans have lost their way a bit in this regard.

Another surprise was how there was absolutely no animosity towards me as an American in Quang Tri province.  I suspect this is because the Americans who spend time there are always there to do some good.  But let me share one astounding statistic with you, and hopefully I can influence your perspective on the War.  Quang Tri province houses the DMZ from the Vietnam war, it covers only 1,800 sq miles (the size of Delaware) and is one of the poorest provinces in Vietnam.  During the War, more explosive munitions were dropped on this province by the US than were dropped by BOTH SIDES during the whole of World War 2.  Reread that last sentence and let it sink in.  We, as a country, royally screwed these people.  But there was no hostility.  I'm sure resentment is still harbored somewhere, but as I said earlier, it wasn't directed at us because (I hope) the people recognized that we were there to do some good.

Ron, one of the PeaceTrees board members and a Vietnam Vet, talked about how the entire area looked like a moonscape after the war.  Craters everywhere, no more vegetation (none) and a substantial amount of leftover unexploded ordinance.  Estimates range from 4-15% of the weapons used in the war remain unexploded and sitting in the earth.  Waiting for a heavy rain to wash away some mud or for a farmer to till his field.  Or a child to stumble across one and pick it up.  4-15% of all of the bombs used during WW2 are sitting in the ground of Quang Tri province waiting to explode.  And the part that bugs me is that the US government (responsible for leaving it all there) is leaving the cleanup effort to NGOs.  So much the better, given the US government's track record, they'd probably find a way to screw it up.

But it wasn't just PeaceTrees or the people in Dong Ha that were awesome.  The university students, tour guides, teachers, company officials and hotel staff were all totally amazing.  I've never felt more like a tourist, traveling around with 20 other Americans by air conditioned coach bus in a place where the average annual income is an amount most of you make in a month.  And at the same time, I've never felt more welcome.  People were gracious and quick to assist with anything.  Many knew a lot of English, and made me feel inadequate that I hadn't learned their language.  Cam On (thank you) was pretty much all the Vietnamese I learned in my two weeks there.  Tonal languages are hard.

Most strikingly, were the people on the street.  They would often approach you just to start a conversation to practice (and show off) their English.  No one was trying to sell me anything, no one was hawking knick knacks or touting tours or anything.  Just a lot of "Hello!  Where you from?  First time Vietnam?  You like? America very good, we like Obama, you vote for him?  Election important, yes?  Why you in Vietnam?  How long you stay?  You come back?"  I think perhaps I'll write something in the future on language, I feel like I've got a lot to say on the topic (pun intended).

Oh and the food!!  Holy crap it was good.  Vietnamese restaurants in the States come close, but cant quite hit it on the head.  Lots of seafood, and things prepared in ways that are familiar, but that we aren't accustomed to.  I think a lot of people in our group started to fatigue on some of the staples we were being fed constantly.  But stuff like shrimp cooked whole (legs, head and all) or fish served with the head, tail and fins still attached might put some people off.  But mind over matter, its just the way they do it here, so dig in and I promise it'll be fantastic.  And the one thing I was craving after Argentina (sorry Portenos), the food has flavor and spice.  It was so awesome to have a dish served with chili that actually burned my mouth.  Mmmmm, it hurts so good.  But no pictures of food.  I hate people that take photos of food.  Stop taking pictures of your food.  Nobody cares what your burger looks like.

I'm sure I'll come back to my experiences in Vietnam when I return there in a few days.  That's all I've got for now.  Topics on deck?  Cambodia, food poisoning, language literacy and a few others I've got wandering through my brain.  Anything you want to hear about in particular?  I play requests, drop me a line.

Wanna Buy A Watch?

Shady experiences are awesome.  They make for great stories.  Gather round, children, and let me tell you a tale.

Even those of you who haven’t been to Hong Kong are probably aware of the volume of counterfeit goods that flows in and out of the city.  Well, there are a few markets where it is easiest to find them.  But there’s a trick to it that we figured out shortly after arriving.

Often the vendors in the market will have the “Hong Kong Brand” stuff out in plain view.  These are things like bags and watches that couldn’t possibly be taken for counterfeit.  Think bags vaguely resembling Louis Vuitton, but instead of the trademarked LV logo, the Hong Kong stuff has a V and an upside down V, and they’re usually made from super cheap materials.  So think cheap knock offs rather than forgeries.

But often, while you’re browsing the fake-fake stuff, a vendor or someone nearby will come up and show you an index card with recognizable brands on it, and ask “You want copy?”  Its at this point that you realize you can have a look at some real-fake watches or handbags.  That gets the blood flowing a bit.

Some of the real-fake vendors will try to negotiate a price before the goods are even presented.  Just half the price of anything they ask for and stick to it until they agree to show you whatever it is you’re after.  Often you can pull up a photo on your phone and they will tell you straight away whether or not they have the item you’re after.  Once you find someone who’s got something that interests you, that’s when the fun starts.

At this point, I’ll cease with the generalities and parlay my actual experience:  We were strolling down the street (yes, I stroll, get over it) near, but not in, one of the markets.   And were constantly getting harangued by guys who kept sidling up next to us as we walked and asking “Copywatch? Copyhandbag? Copywatch? Rolexomegarolex?” in really hushed but urgent tones.  All of these guys insisted that I was their friend, but not one of them opened a trench coat to reveal a collection of watches, which kind of disappointed me.  I guess it was too hot for trench coats.  So with my curiosity sufficiently piqued, I finally agreed to check some out.  I figured what’s the harm in looking.  I’ll only get in trouble if I buy one, right?

So the guy immediately took off in a different direction, keeping his sense of urgency and insisting that we follow him.  So we settled into a brisk walk about 10 paces back from the guy, crossed a street and went down a few more blocks.  I should mention, at this point, a little about our guide/dealer/purveyor of illicit materials.  I have no idea what his name was, but he was bald and of vaguely Middle Eastern descent (as were most of the persistent hawkers) and to complete the seller-of-illegal-merchandise cliché, he had a lazy eye.  I sincerely PROMISE that I’m not making this up.  I’m not that creative.

So after a few blocks of power walking, we were led into a hallway, somewhat innocuously guarded by two other vaguely Middle Eastern looking men.  I presume they were there with cell phones to warn of any raids by the fuzz.  With a slight nod, we pushed past them and down the somewhat cramped hallway until we came to an elevator.  Our guide invited us in to the tiny elevator and we clambered in beside him, and I shit you not, a woman with a Rubbermaid box packed with dead chickens.  At this point, I’m thinking to myself that it can’t get any more ridiculous or awesome.  So up we go in this stuffy elevator, flashes of bird flu news reports buzzing through my brain.  Why the hell not, we’ve come this far.

We step out onto a cramped, but still somehow exterior, hallway somewhere deep in the bowels of a Hong Kong city block.  We come to a halt outside a metal gated door with a sign over it.  The sign reads “ABC International, Inc.”  Sketchy?  Yup.  But I have no desire to get back in the elevator with that old woman and her recently deceased fowl.  So we sit and look around as our guide makes a phone call, presumably to someone on the other side of the door.  After discussing the encounter later, I can proudly confirm that both of us were looking around for exits, should anything go south.  However I can’t remember seeing any, so fat lot of good it did us.

The door of ABC International, Inc. is opened by substantially younger, but equally Middle Eastern kid who invites us all in.  We’re led into a pretty tattered looking ex-apartment with some really worn furniture and a few broken fans buzzing in random places.  One room appears to be the office, while the other two rooms contain a table and a couch or some chairs.  The second room is occupied by a British expat in his late 50s buying at least 2 watches from yet another Middle Eastern guy.  We are led into the first room and invited to sit on the couch and leaf through what looks like a watch catalogue.

Everything is totally pleasant at this point, but we are pretty nervous about being so far off the street and so outnumbered by a group of guys conducting an obviously illegal operation, and on their own turf.  After spending some time leafing through the brand pages (Rolex, Omega, Breitling, IWC, Tag Heuer, Movado… you name it they have it)  we settle on a few that we’d like to see.

While the kid who answered the door leaves the apartment entirely to go fetch the watches we requested, we’re forced into the idle chit chat that people meeting in a foreign city are forced into the world over.  “Where are you from, what are you doing here, how do you like it, what do you do back home” etc…  Eventually the kid returns with a bag full of poorly packaged watch copies and we start to examine them.

Upon first inspection, the watches are impeccable.  They look exactly like they came from the real manufacturer.  And if we were looking at purses, that would probably be the case.  The people who work at the Louis Vuitton, Prada and other factories are paid to smuggle out the components of the bags piecemeal to be reassembled in another factory  and then sent out to Hong Kong to be sold at a fraction of the price.  But the watches only have to look like the real thing skin deep.  And that’s where it all breaks down for the watches.

After looking a little closer, you find that the weight is definitely wrong.  Every last one of them is far too light to be authentic.  Couple that with the buttons on the side of the watch not linking directly to the dials on the face, and you realize that while it may look real, its not really even close.  When you press those buttons, the hands on the date dial advance once with each click.  Same goes for the day dial.  But unless you’re gonna let a watch snob manhandle your timepiece, it’ll pass for whatever company is written on the face.

After we’d picked out a watch each, the guy with the lazy eye tells us his asking price.  It’s somewhere between “Hell no!” and “Are you kidding me?”  And the fun part begins.  We countered with somewhere around 20% of his initial ask.  Its still a fair price for the watch, but obviously cutting into the dude’s margins a little bit.  We go back and forth for a while, but its kind of hard to walk away from a sale when you’re inside of a locked apartment in a random Hong Kong high rise.  We eventually settled somewhere around 50% of his initial ask, as these negotiations tend to go, and we each walked away with a fancy new fake watch.

I’m happy with what I’ve got, it won’t pass muster with an enthusiast, but a passing glance will be moderately impressive.  It’s a nice enough watch.  I may have over-paid for the caliber of the timepiece I got, but I’d like to think that the “extra” is the price I paid for the experience.

Either way, I highly recommend the shady experience of buying illicit counterfeit goods in a foreign country from a dude with a lazy eye.  If I had his business card, I’d give it to you.  But I don’t.  Just go roam the markets of Hong Kong look for the dude with the lazy eye, I promise it's worth it.

Getting There

And now, after a 2 week absence, a little about Hong Kong. 

I apologize for the delay, but I’ve really had no time to write to you all.  First, after coming back from Argentina and saying hi to a lot of you (however briefly), I realized that my regular readership is at least in double digits!  So thank you for pitying me enough to drop by intermittently. 

But the reason I haven’t had any time, is because the Study Tour schedule I am currently on keeps us busy from around 8am until at least 8pm every night and sometimes later.  We’ve been having meals with local MBA students and touring companies with some connection to Seattle U.  For instance, we dropped in on the Wells Fargo outpost in Hong Kong and the Hong Kong offices of TBWA, among other places we visited.  So the little free time we have had has basically been spent getting up to the standard student abroad shenanigans.  And because of that, I’ve been neglecting you.

But no longer!

Definitely anyone who grew up with (or raised) me will know that I am fascinated by modes of transportation.  Trains or ships, basically anything big.  And my first excitement about our trip was just getting there.  We flew Korean Air from Seattle to Seoul on a brand spanking new 777-200 ER.  And I’m sorry to Brenna, Morgan and Sarah, but Korean puts Delta to shame.  There’s more legroom in coach (I’m sorry, economy) and complementary alcohol.  Both of those things are only available in economy comfort on Delta, last time I checked.  Plus, free on-demand video screens in the back of every coach seat.  I didn’t have to sit through “This Means War” for a fourth time this summer, hallelujah!  And the food is more entertaining.  Check it out:

My dinner came with a full page of directions on how to assemble it.  And as an aside, for some reason there is double the staff on Korean Air.  As far as I could figure out, there was a flight attendant whose sole job was to clean the bathroom after someone used it.  A for effort, Asian airline.

So, all in all, not too shabby on the flight to Seoul.  But the treat of it, as far as I’m concerned, happened upon arriving in Seoul.  We rocked up to the gate for the next flight and look at what we found!

That’s right another amazing technical marvel.  The ginormous A380!  A double decker airplane!!  How cool!!  And its absolutely immense.  Here’s a photo from the inside on the first level:

I stumbled on to the other cool feature of this plane totally by accident.  There are camera feeds from the nose, underside and tail of the plane that you can watch in the individual video monitor in the back of every seat (are you listening Delta?)

The flight from Seoul to Hong Kong was only a few hours and it passed uneventfully.  Another on-demand movie on my personal tv, some more dinner with directions and a few tiny cups of wine.  But of course, by the time we hit baggage claim everyone was exhausted.  Traveling non-stop for almost 20 hours will drain you.  

The first adventure of the entire trip was the cab ride from the airport train (awesomely nice) to the hotel.  For those keeping track, we stayed at the Cosmopolitan in Causeway Bay.  The cabbie missed the exit and had to drive through the tunnel to the other side of Hong Kong island in order to turn around.  An extra 15 minutes of touring the island, for free!  Although, most of it was in a tunnel. 

Had a relaxing, and expensive, Carlsberg in the hotel bar with Darcia and a couple of her friends that happened to be in HK by total coincidence.  Got some tips on what to do with my free day, and headed up to the room to crash.  Lots of moving about, but all in all, an uneventful day of getting from one place to the other. 

By the way, here is the view out my window the next morning.  Its a cool looking cemetery that backs up to the hills on the island.

I'm currently in Dong Ha, Vietnam.  There will be more to come in the next few days as I have the time to recap.  Keep bothering me, otherwise I will forget I have a blog.  Not really.  But keep doing it anyway.