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It’s Hard to Get Here From There
I made it to Hong Kong, but it wasn’t easy this time.
I got up early on Friday and loaded up my gear. My wife dropped me off at Austin Bergstrom airport at 0700, and the trip started out well enough. Only took 20 minutes to get through check-in and security, and the lounge was nearly empty. The flight to Los Angeles was very smooth and quiet; no screaming babies or anything! I even saw some (gasp!) empty seats in First Class on the airplane; a sight I haven’t noticed in months.
At first, Los Angeles wasn’t bad either. Sure, there’s a lot of construction there, on runways and in the terminals. But it wasn’t as busy as I’ve experienced before. The Admiral’s Club was nice and quiet, and even walking over to Tom Bradley Terminal was fine. And quick. The crowds were smaller than I expected; I could actually squeeze through. I worked my way through Yet Another Security Check and headed to Gate 102, where my Cathay Pacific flight would launch.
Or so I thought.
We got loaded on time, and I was in a nice, window seat up top of the Boeing 747-400, Seat 87A. This plane is one of Cathay’s older 747’s, and is due for an update on the cabin soon (I hope). It’s still comfortable, and the service is great. Said service started as soon as I was onboard. I got interrupted three times while unpacking my gear for the 14-hour flight. They just wanted to be sure I had drinks, my jacket was stowed, and could they help me with anything else?
Of the eighteen seats up top, about six were empty once we were loaded out. Then we waited. And waited. The captain came on the intercom and said we would be delayed while maintenance evaluated our left outboard engine. I was on that side, so I looked out there.
I probably shouldn’t have. There were more vehicles than the assault on Grenada out there. Some with flashing lights. And it looked a lot like an ant-bed that had been stirred with a stick. Turns out, one of the cargo loaders had nicked the engine pod while backing up. I sighed and sat back to take a nap. I knew it would be a while.
It was about 90 minutes later that we got an announcement to gather out belongings, we were changing planes. As I grabbed all my carefully scattered items, I wondered: Where would they get another plane? I mean, you don’t just drop by Rent-a-Plane and get one, do you. Turns out, Cathay had a spare 747 just sitting around, in case some ground jockey messed up an in-service airframe. Or something. We were lucky.
Or were we? The plane wasn’t serviced, so we had to wait for that. The lounge at LAX during construction is way out in the boonies, in a set of temporary buildings. So they had to bus us out there. And bus us back to the terminal later. So they could bus us out to a hard-stand that was even further out in the boonies, where our plane waited. Gate 213, which doesn’t show on anybody’s gate map of LAX. I think it’s closer to Malibu than Los Angeles. Anyways, we got there, and I got in my seat. Looked the same as before. And we waited. Again.
Seems some of the passengers disapproved of their seat assignments, or something. Big huhu, downstairs. Captain comes on the horn again, sounding patiently flustered. He informed all that we had only a few minutes to get going, or the current air crew would time out and we’d be stuck in LA for the night. That got things settled quickly, and we rolled away from the gate about seven minutes before we would been stranded. I don’t know how many bruises were handed out; I chose not to venture downstairs later and view the aftermath.
The flight itself was anticlimactic, just the way I like them. I don’t mind long, or even boring. Just get me there.
We got to Hong Kong way late, of course. It was 2300 local before I got to the airport hotel. Nice, and I was tired enough that I didn’t suffer any “wake up in the middle of the night” effects from the 11 zones of time change.
Later today I’ll go by high-speed ferry to the port of Shekou, a trip that is now possible directly from the airport. Then a 1o-minute ride by Chinese taxi and I’ll be at my hotel in Shenzhen. More on that later.
The important thing is, I’ll be enjoying Cantonese fusion cuisine for dinner. They don’t often have spicy dishes, but chiles are becoming more popular even in south China. Maybe I’ll even get some really spicy stuff..
Enjoy the Heat!
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