Quite literally long days when you’re crossing time-zones.
At first the flight is great. There is plenty of technology and entertainment to get your head around, and internet on board is great. That takes about 2 hours to wear off, then it becomes very dull. I’m sure plane seats could recline further in the old days, and discomfort slowly sets in. After 10 hours you’ve definitely had enough!
The flight was half an hour late into Hong Kong, and since we’re taking bags for family we had to wait at the carousel as well. How I hate the luggage carousel.
Finally through customs and the Regal Airport Hotel is literally attached to the airport. It’s quite upmarket, and a magnitude better that the sleeper hotel I used in Singapore about 20 years ago. The room itself was about what you’d expect from that class of hotel, but the bed was the “firmest” (charitably speaking) I’ve every slept on. Instead of falling to sleep instantly I lay awake wondering at the marvel of the lack of give in the mattress.
Very early morning wake up, easily done with a bit of jet-lag. We had a plane to catch at 11, a bag to repack and reorganise to get weights down, so I wanted to be at the check in soon after 8, leaving plenty of time. Breakfast starts at 6am and the Regal, and there were already a few diners at the breakfast buffet. A nice spread, although some thing were already a bit cold. Jess’s favourite was the Chinese pork buns.
Repacking mostly consisted of throwing out the ice packs keeping the cheese cold. It brought the weight down to the exact 20kg that was our limit for Cebu Airlines. Locating the check-in counter for your flight at Hong Kong airport is somewhat difficult, as the terminal is absolutely massive, and the are many many airlines and flights. We finally found the correct queue which started just as we arrived. About 7 fliers were ahead of us, and somehow the check-in guy managed to spend about a quarter of an hour with each one. Suddenly being early for our flight was looking like it wasn’t such a dumb idea. Finally after an infuriatingly long wait we checked our bags and made it through multiple extra immigration stations. Then we discovered that the gate our flight was to leave from involved multiple very long corridors and a train ride. We got to the gate with 20 minutes to spare before boarding.
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