Chez Schaub : Fifteen Hours to Hong Kong

Well, Josh and I have officially survived a 10 hour flight followed by a 4 hour flight. We left Seattle at 1:00 in the afternoon and arrived in Tokyo around 16:00 local time. We walked around Tokyo's airport for about an hour and half and then headed to a different plane. We wanted to be sure to get some sushi in Tokyo, so we found a little cafe that sold some. After wandering around the airport some more, we found several stores - including Salvatore Ferragamo - and a display about preventing the transport of contraband imitations of items like Coach bags and Prada wallets.

Our flight to Tokyo was long, but totally bearable. We were on a A330 airline, which is a large airplane but not as large as the Boeing 747 double deckers. It had personal tvs with some complimentary viewing, so it was very nice. Between the two of us, Josh and I watched four movies a piece for a total of 5 different movies. I'm all caught up.

It was surprisingly hard to read or write on the plane, because the laptop was larger than the tray-table upon which it rested. When I was working on my nutrition presentation, I had to swing my elbows out wide so I would have enough room to type and use the mouse. For our flight back, I think I'll just listen to music!

Since I'm interested in food and meal development, I was interested to see what type of food we'd have. We were served a shrimp cocktail (cocktail sauce was Heinz brand in a little packet), salad, and either an oriental style beef with rice dish or a dijon mustard chicken and orzo dish.

Tokyo was rather flat -- I guess we're not close the mountains. The coastline was very clear, and the setting sun was purple-red. Lovely. Josh quipped that he thought this was the land of the setting sun...uhm...no.

Sushi in Tokyo was probably better than lots of the sushi I have had in the past, but it's hard to know with the pre-plated trays that were served at the one cafe we selected. I am going to the other cafe next time, because they also had a ramen noodle house. I love ramen noodles, so I want to see how their ramen is cooked and flavored. The cafe we dined at conveniently took US cash, so it was easy to get around the airport. It's nice to not have to exchange cash for our layover, and it was nice to walk around on solid ground for a little while.

When we transferred flights, we exited one airplane and had to walk immediately to the international transfers area. This meant that we had to go through airline security again. The Japanese version of TSA is very efficient, and one agent stands next to the conveyor belt assisting confused passengers in getting their laptops and toiletries placed into the baskets. They were remarkably patient, especially since many of the individuals going through Tokyo weren't staying and probably spoke little Japanese. I was surprised that we had to through security again, since we had *just* gone through security in Seattle - and everyone else's original departure cities - but we didn't really lose any time getting through.

Flying into Hong Kong isn't the same as it used to be when I was young. We used to fly into Kai Tak Airport, to which you would approach by flying closely over apartments and offices on Kowloon. It was always a marvel to me to see how closely and safely we flew. The new airport is on Lantau Island, which doesn't have as densely packed apartment buildings and business complexes as Hong Kong and Kowloon have.

When we arrived in Hong Kong just after 11:00 pm, we followed the crowd of passengers to the immigration and customs desks and finally to the baggage claim. Er... baggage reclaim, that is. It's an odd feeling to be part of one mass of well over 100 people all flooding to the same few desks. Several passengers attempted to jog and squeeze past other passengers, and I was struck by how little the personal space bubbles are around many of the Asian travelers.

For example, when Josh was attempting to hoist our carry-on rolling bag to the overhead compartments, the passenger immediately across from us decided to remove her backpack after squeezing past/next to Josh in the aisle. The result was that the backpack had shoved into his back, and he had given a little jolt of surprise and borderline violation. It was hilarious to me, but I wasn't also being pressed into the sides of airline chairs while attempting to support a suitcase above my head. When she finally sat down, Josh finished loading the upper compartment, and he also sat down.

A similar experience occurred when we were unloading the plane. Oftentimes, when a plane is unloaded, all of the passengers (or most) in the front of the airline will exit before the back passengers. Not this time. This time, you had to physically and assertively insert your person into the aisle and speed-walk through the aisle to the exit, otherwise, you would be run over, or at least pressed hard from the back. The eye-contact-pause-merge method employed on our flight to Colorado over Christmas and often used at our church on the way to Communion was totally missing. We also learned that if you jump into the aisle to grab your overhead bag, the passenger behind will determine that the centimeters between your backside and the chair across from you is sufficient space for him through which to squeeze his bag and himself. Josh and I are made of strong, if compact, stuff, so we survived the stampede towards the exit and headed towards the immigration desks.

I haven't gone through immigration in years. Seattle to Denver and Denver to LA trips never required it, though sometimes I felt like I was going to a different country. The flight attendants handed out familiar white tourist visa applications, which I dutifully completed. I remember filling these in as a kid. My mom remembers that I would ask to be given my passport and immigration form and be met on the other side of immigration. Seriously. I was an independent kid. And no, my mom never let me go through immigration on my own. Can you imagine how easily I could have gotten lost?

Turns out we didn't need them, because we had working visas, since we're volunteering at Mother's Choice for the trip. The agent was very very patient and spoke excellent English. He calmly explained that we should have affixed our visas to our passports, and he actually did it himself. Then four quick stamps, a date, and a signature, and we were officially in Hong Kong.

Stuart, one of the employees at Mother's Choice, picked us up at the airport. I'm so glad, because by the time we saw his friendly face, we were pretty tired. I can't imagine trying to tackle a taxi or the MTR (underground) at 11:45 pm following a 15 hour trip. I think we did that as a family when we returned from the States, but I was somewhere between 2 and 9 during those trips. As we sped along the express ways - on the opposite side of the road - Stuart pointed out the one part of Lantau Island that had been the original island and then explained that much of what else we saw was reclaimed land.

We finally arrived at Mother's Choice's offices and guest flats, and we shuffled inside. I caught my second wind as memories - mostly in snapshot form - started forming in my mind. I looked up a sloped road and realized that I had attempted and failed to skateboard on that very hill. I glanced around the building, looking at the shadowed trees that looked black against the downtown lights. I thought about climbing those.

When we walked to the guest flat, I was struck by how familiar the floor plan was. It was the Snow's flat when we lived in Hong Kong. Craig, Becky, and their kids, of whom Laura is a dear dear friend and fellow blogger, had shared the two- or three-bedroom flat before they moved to Lantau. The image of seeing my friends' flat so changed and so unchanged was startling. I could almost feel the anticipation of seeing Laura climb down the loft steps to come and play.

Soon after a brief tour and a handing over of keys, Josh and I got ready for bed and crashed. Unfortunately, my body thought that it was 10 am, and I only got six hours of sleep. Actually, that's not bad for being jet-lagged.

So, a trip to Hong Kong isn't so bad. It's long and you get a bit tired of sitting. I definitely recommend taking a flight to Tokyo and then transferring to Hong Kong rather than trying to push out a 14-hour flight straight through. It's a much-needed break after ten hours to walk about an airport and eat food that hasn't been sterile-packed and microwaved. Besides that, going to the bathroom in a stall in which you can actually turn around is nice.

If all our flights were this straight-forward -- perhaps with a little less shoving -- and if they were affordable, I would definitely keep traveling. I think the traveling bug may have bit us both.