May 8
We waken and get packed in really good time this
morning. We have time to stop by the
little supermarket nearby to stock up on fruit and treats to take along on the
plane. Once we are stocked, we return to
the room with time to eat a quick bite and then say our good-byes to our little
Indian family and the dysfunctional kiosk salesmen on the first floor. No more Samosa’s at midnight! We are off across the street and waiting
under the appointed Rolex neon sign as we await our bus to the airport. This has been one of the very nice things
about Hong Kong….they make it easy to arrive and depart the city via
inexpensive means of getting to and fro.
We board the bus and arrive at the lower level, making our way up to the
China Southern Airlines counter and deposit our bags. We have plenty of time to wander about and we
enjoy a very leisurely time at the airport.
We have free wifi and a nice bookstore to browse through. We finally get
boarded onto the plane and the boys are all adither about it being a two story
plane. We are very impressed with the
spacious seats and very comfortable interior of the plane. They even have these little cubbies for first
class that allows the passenger to be in their own cubicle with a computer etc.
and a seat that folds down into a bed similar to our overnight trains. The flight is amazing and we totally enjoy
the comfort of this plane. After we
land, we ask the flight attendant if we can see the upstairs and she allows us
a very quick peak before we have to board a waiting bus that drives us to the
terminal for immigration. We make our
way through easily enough and once we claim our bags we are ready to try to
figure out how to get to our hotel. We
soon realize that very few people speak English and we are at a great
disadvantage because our Chinese is not too good. We
have decided that the best way to get to our hotel is by taxi, but we have to
take two separate ones since we are five people and they max out at four. We give our address to the taxi drivers who
both do not seem to know where we are going and we get a really bad vibe
especially since they are driving “on the meter”. We get back out of the taxis and I go inside
to try to get some better directions on where we are going along with a phone
number for the hotel. Finally, we get it
together enough to come back out and venture back to two new taxis who we give
the address to and they caravan to our destination. Wow….this is a huge city and it takes us over
an hour to arrive at what we hope is our hotel.
Turns out it is our hotel and we get checked in to our two separate
rooms. After getting settled, it is now
around 10:00 at night and we are a bit hungry for some dinner. We find a restaurant near the hotel and
venture down for a bite. The lady
running the restaurant is all smiles as we approach and she watches as we
attempt to order, pointing at various things on the menu and her daughter says
that all the dishes are very good and we will like them. There are pictures of some items that we have
no clue what they are, but take a leap of faith and order them anyway. Still no
good English, but we manage to point and gesture our way to having a great
dinner before a late bedtime.
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