19 Hours in Hong Kong – Part Two

I woke up early the next morning and headed out to a cafe ~10min from the hotel that was billed as a locals only type joint. Arriving I found the description to be true (I think they only had 1-2 english menus). Looking at the menu there were two breakfast combos (one noodle based, one not), and while I like noodles, the other combo (with eggs and sausage) was a little more appealing at the moment.

First came a bowl of chicken broth with a few peas and carrots and a lot of elbow macaroni. It was pretty tasty, although a little under seasoned. Shortly after that was cleared away arrived a plate with two eggs (over easy), a small roll with butter, and a hotdog… I was not expecting that! The eggs were really good, as was the roll. The hotdog was, well, a hotdog, and was an odd combination with the rest of the plate. Heading back to the hotel I decided to take a look inside the ferry terminal which was attached to the hotel. It was loud and chaotic, full of people heading to mainland China and Macau. After walking around for a little while, I headed back to the hotel to grab my stuff and head for the airport.

The train ride back to the airport was quick and efficient, as was security and immigration. I quickly located the Cathay Pacific “Cabin” business class lounge (another great perk of being OneWorld Sapphire), and got comfortable. The lounge was very spacious with several different rooms (bar, dining, quite), depending on what one was looking for. It wasn’t long before I had to get up and head for the train which would take me out to the end of the terminal, and to my gate.

As it turns out, the 777s making these trips also stay overnight in Hong Kong where they are worked on by maintenance crews, so I was taking the same plane back to Dallas.

I boarded into premium economy, (9 seats across as compared to the 3 in business. Regular economy is 10 across, I can’t even imagine!), and settled in for the long flight. The hard and soft products were certainly a large step down from business class, I found the food to be almost inedible. After watching a few of the movies I hadn’t caught on the way over, I slept for a few hours and woke up with only a few hours left until we were due to land. The rest of the flight was uneventful, and we touched down in Dallas right on schedule.

Global entry helped me breeze through customs. There was a short line to use one of the 12 or so kiosks when I arrived, and the line grew a bit longer as more people arrived. Apparently it wasn’t fast enough for two ladies who after cutting 10-15 people to get next to me, proceeded to complain about how global entry might not even be worth it anymore since “So many people have it these days” (meanwhile the regular line was 60-75 people long, and growing by the second. The thing that was holding the line up (slightly) was that most people can’t follow simple instructions. The woman in front of me decided that rather than following along with what the border patrol officer was saying (“if the machine doesn’t read your document, don’t press any buttons, just try it again”), apparently thought that pressing ALL the buttons might make something happen. Well, she got to the language menu, but remarkably that didn’t solve her problem! She promptly gave up, and got back in line in front of me, so I decided to give the “broken” machine a shot. By patiently waiting while the machine scanned my passport, I was done within a minute.

For some reason PreCheck had only been printed on my HKG-DFW boarding pass (where it didn’t even apply). Due to the long lines at security I decided to try and get another boarding pass rather than wait behind everyone in the regular line. After getting conflicting information from several agents (and accidentally knocking the facing off of one of the check-in podiums) I was finally directed to a self service machine back where I started to re-print the passes. Luckily it worked, because I think it took me almost as long to do all if that as it would have to just get in the regular line from the get go. After a quick stop in the Admiral’s Club to change I took the train over to my gate and scored a free upgrade to first. The guy who was sitting next to me from Hong Kong was also on this flight, and he decided that the upgrade was worth the ~$150 US Airways wanted.

The flights to Charlotte and Boston were uneventful, and seemed to be even shorter than advertised. I touched down at Logan just after midnight, and was able to make it home by 12:40am, giving me a total trip time of around 67hrs from when I left the apartment.

Overall it was a really fun experience, and I’m really glad that I did it. Right now I have one more trip planned for October (to Jakarta), though for that trip there will be more shorter flights (and a 787-9!).

So, after reading all of this, do you still think I’m crazy?

Cheers,

-N