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.