Airports

(Written at 6:30 am)

After a frantic day packing following my last final (I will never forgive you for what you put me through, Remedies class), I am in Hong Kong!

The flight was a long thirteen hours. After hanging at the SF airport for a couple hours, I boarded my Cathay Pacific flight and was lucky enough to get a middle seat. Grrr. At least my seatmates weren’t too bad. The aisle seat was taken by a tiny gentleman who only spoke Chinese and slept through most of the trip. A teenage kid occupied the window seat. He was wearing a black and white striped baggy sweater, too much jewelry, and an iPod that may have been surgically attached to his head.

The teenager also slept most of the way. And not to be overly nosy, but that kid didn’t get up ONCE during the entire flight, and I found that quite weird. Have you ever gone thirteen hours without peeing? I didn’t think so.

So, the pros and cons of flying Cathay Pacific.

Pros: (1) A huge movie and television selection. I watched something on the Discovery channel, a few cartoons, the end of Aladdin, some news, a couple feel-good movies with famous people that I’ve forgotten the names of, and of course, Music & Lyrics, despite having seen it just a couple days ago. I now have the opening song (and dance) re-stuck in my head. (2) Excellent food. Dinner was rice and seafood in a mango cream sauce with raspberry cheesecake for dessert. Snacks available at any time from any flight attendant station included honey roasted peanuts (a necessary staple of any airline) and Tim Tams, which E got my hooked on. Several hours after dinner, we were also given the option of having “fancy” ramen. Not bad for instant noodles. Our second meal was breakfast, which wasn’t as fabulous as dinner, but was still tasty: scrambled eggs with basil, sausage, yogurt, and fruit. Yummy. (3) Cute free stuff. Socks and a toothbrush and tiny tube of toothpaste—whoo-hoo!

Cons: (1) Cathay Pacific planes are built for tiny Asian people. My knees were actually touching the seat in front of me, so every time the person in that seat shifted, my knees were poked. Ouch. I’m sore.

Hong Kong airport is very modern, with shiny silver angled ceilings and huge windows. My first glimpse of land as we touched down was a small green island, following by tiny rocks islands sprinkled around the edge of the big island that is the Hong Kong airport. Unfortunately, since I arrived here so early in the morning, all the shops in the airport are closed, so I won’t get a chance to check out the kitschy Chinese knick-knacks. Maybe on my way back in July.

I just discovered that the airport has free wireless—very civilized! My new Pakistani friend tells me that wireless access is free in airports all over the world except in the US. I can see the impact our country had on him in the five months he studied there. Now I have just a few minutes until my connecting flight boards and I get to go back to sleep!