Eating breakfast at the house lounge in Melbourne airport
OK, so as happens every November, I am heading to Japan for 4 weeks to climb mountains, shoot at typhoons and annoy the new Emperor.
This time I will be making a clockwise loop starting and finishing in Tokyo, staying at Takasaki, Niigata, Yamagata and Koriyama along the way.
Today I must first fly to Hong Kong. 10 hours. But then I must wait in Hong Kong for 8 hours before my flight to Narita. This is why I do not care if my flight is delayed.
During my 8 hours in Hong Kong I plan to start a third side in the ongoing riot situation, which sometimes shuts down the airport. My team will focus on the real issue, Japan is the real owner of China. The USA stole it from them in WW2.
After protesting, its another 4 or so hours to Narita, where I will arrive way too early to check in to my hotel, so again, I wont care if my flight is delayed.
Enough nonsense, I need to pace around before my 10 hour flight to focus my thoughts on how to start a protest movement.
I think I took a photo from roughly this spot on my way to Europe a few months ago. On the left you can see Australia's weak imitation of the glorious pants building in Beijing.
Here is my breakfast at the lounge shared by Virgin and Etihad, I ordered an omelet, which came without toast, so then I made my own toast and also got some yoghurt and fruit salad. Fascinating I realise, but photos of airport lounge food are the most linked of all my website content. Seriously.
It looks like my plane is not even here yet. So here is a photo of an air India plane. These photos are also very popular with people searching google image search. If you came here searching for boring plane photos, please read my whole site, I promise there will be more photos of boring stuff!
How to kill 8 hours in Hong Kong airport
My flight to Hong Kong was comfortable and less than half full. I had the entire middle block to myself and could have laid down, but did not.
In front of me there was a family with 3 small babies. As soon as the seatbelt sign went off the parents leapt up and started assembling various contraptions. After some time, it was ready to be inflated. Really.
The father pulled out a big bike pump and started pumping, and at the end an entire bouncy castle arrangement that could contain 3 babies had been constructed.
Then, just before he put the pump away, another father came and asked to borrow the pump, he brought his castle but forgot his pump. So there you go, coming soon on a flight near you, hours of pumping noises.
Now onto how to kill time in Hong Kong airport.
1. Walk a long way, I have walked at least 10km inside the airport.
2. Have something to drink. I have had a warm milk drink.
3. Take a shower. The Hong Kong airlines lounge has good showers.
4. Take a nap. I am going to try, but what if I oversleep? Its still 5 hours to my flight.
I do feel very tired currently, perhaps I am getting weak with old age.
Also an update on protesters, there are none. I walked to where they were protesting in recent weeks, which was immediately before the immigration counters, you can see out into the departure hall from just the other side, I could see no one in black face masks at all. Lots of old man security guards though, but I suspect they were always there.
Now, time for my nap.
Its definitely boring photo time. I stopped at Pacific coffee for a burnt brown sugar and ginger latte. I like these a lot and wish they had them in Australia. Pacific coffee is apparently Hong Kong owned, where as Starbucks is Mainland China owned, and hence, some Starbucks stores have been molotov'd lately.
I walked to every corner of the airport, but eventually ended up at the satellite concourse where most Hong Kong Airlines flights leave from.
Here is my shower. Lovely moldy wood paneling. American spell checker is doing its thing.
I have not much else to do, so heres a photo of a toilet and mirrors and whatever. Squint and you can see me.
And finally, here is my nap spot. Maybe. Hmmm. Its very dark in here, so this is a noisy photo to get some exposure whatever.