London to HK

So after a week in London working, and visiting with Neighboursman, going to the premiere London jazz club with Carnivore Boy 1....Neighborsmama and I are officially in Hong Kong now.

The Air New Zealand flight was awesome --it's a new 747-400 which seats about 383 people. You could travel around the world in this flight. Go from London, to HK, to Auckland, then LA, and then back to London again.

While we were waiting in the lounge, there was a huge bandof Polish guys going onwards to New Zealand-- we couldn't figure out if they were goingthere to work or on holiday -- but they all looked like working class guys. Sure, other guys were wearing jeans and windbreakers, but these guys all had the same look -- and they certainly weren't using $300 TUMI bags.

Ok, so the flight was really one of the best I've had. Plenty of entertainment. You can program your own music play list from the CDs on theflight -- about 52 hours of music, tons of movies and tv shows,documentaries to watch. We did quite well. And you can see how not cutting costs can affect the service -- the blankets were larger,thicker, more comfortable. The cutlery and bowls/plates were cool 70scolors. You had actual enthusiasm about the dining choices -- "Would you like lamb made with cumin, tomah-toes and pot-ay-toes" or "cod in XO sauce with boychoy and rice".

Boy, the driver was right about London traffic. For a 9:15pm flight, we really had to leave my hotel (which was in Canary Wharf) at 4:30pm to make it through the light traffic window. We got a lot more stuck around Kensington and it took 2 hours to get to the airport. I got another cool tour of all the important landmarks in the city, and finally saw Big Ben this time.

I don't really like Heathrow -- old and claustrophobic feeling. Checkin was easy, but security wascrazy -- and despite the 15 people telling everyone as we shuffle through the line that they get one plastic quart bag for small toiletries, there was still this idiot girl who brought two bags, and held up our security line while she had to figure out what to toss. So dumb. So it was like an hour of getting through that, eating in a brasserie, and then navigating the maze of duty free shops (we literally walked in a circle) before finding the proper exit to get to the gate, which was another 10-20 minutes of walking.

Whew -- HK airport was great -- as usual. Anyway, we just had a nice bowl of jook, and noodles, and are relaxing for the evening. I sure hope I can sleep - because I got about 6hours on the flight and feel quite wide awake.

By the way, the photo on this page -- that's from the Tate Museum -- they installed all these slides in there that are several stories tall. It's really cool -- but the line was so long.