Do you like photos of food? Do you like photos of planes? Do you like photos of food on a plane? If no then piss off because this will be boring as hell.
After 9 or so months since my last mission to pollute the worlds upper atmosphere with radioactive carbon, its time for me to head off again, this time to Hong Kong, then Taiwan, then Singapore, possibly with Macau and Malaysia side trips, who knows.
First of all I have to get to Hong Kong, luckily Adelaide has a direct flight (except it doesnt), unluckily the direct flight goes via Melbourne, which is almost exactly in the wrong direction.
Still, boarding in Adelaide and doing the whole customs thing there is very easy, since its a rural backwater well practiced at people leaving the place, permanently. So their customs teams are well drilled. There was no line and it took seconds.
The initial 1 hour flight from Adelaide to Melbourne was uneventful, the seats are interesting, pictures contained below.
Before getting on the plane, I used the Adelaide Qantas club. This isnt a fancy one, its shared for domestic and international travellers, business and poor people alike.
I guess I am not normally there at lunch time, the food is no different to afternoons though, and the coffee machine was busted as usual.
Heres my plane, Cathay Pacific A330-300. Apparently their 100th plane, I thought they had more.
I took a second photo of the same plane, this happens a lot at the start of these things, eventually I get bored of planes and stop. But for now you have to put up with it.
My plane has an airbag built into the seatbelt. I cant figure out how this would work. I left my blackberry on and tried to make it connect to wifi constantly hoping it would cause the plane to crash so I could see what the airbag did.
There was some confusion arriving at Melbourne airport. The chief trolley dolly (air hostess) announced that passengers had to stay on the plane. This was the opposite of what we were told when we boarded.
She even asked people to be considerate of the cleaners by moving their belongings, and to not use the bathroom.
Eventually she made the embarassing corrective announcement that in Australia, unlike North Korea or Yemen, you are indeed allowed off the plane into the transit lounge.
This was good news indeed, as it means I can go into the Qantas first class lounge for lunch, with all the people travelling in full business suits dissapointed the lounge dragons let me in to de value their $30,000 plane flight experience.
Heres a random shot of the kitchen, despite generally being brave when it comes to taking photos in public, the lounge is pretty high class and empty, so I feel a bit sheepish.
Not to worry, a very gay man offered me the free day spa treatment, involving an aromatherapy massage and hot rock treatment (seriously, theres a free dayspa, and he really did offer, multiple times, guess he was bored).
Slightly wary that my famous good looks could get me into trouble with the Malaysian Fabio masseusse, I declined.
For lunch, I had salt and pepper squid, with mixed greens. Was very tasty. The menu is extensive, a lot of fois gras and wagyu etc. But I have to sit on a plane for 9 hours now so I thought something light would be better.
So I picked battered and deep fried squid as the light option...
Theres also home made ice cream with weird stuff in it, I wanted to try it but was full.
The flight was ok. Seats on Cathay Pacific planes are not the best, very hard, and they dont really lay back, instead the cushion moves fowards and downwards. I actually prefer this as I rarely lay back in the chair and it annoys me when the person in front of me lays their seat right back preventing me from eating etc.
However, my rather large ass lost all feeling quite early on in the process.
There was no turbulence for the whole flight, the crew were attentive even though the plane was 100% full.
Theres plenty of boring food pictures below, and there will be plenty more on other upcoming flights, as I warned.
Next to me on the plane (in economy cattle class), I had a chinese grandma and two twin chinese boys, probably 3 years old. They were very well behaved but there was one funny incident, most people on the plane were asleep and its pitch black, and one of these kids is watching an animated movie.
I am not sure what happened in his movie but he got very animated and started yelling at the top of his voice and hitting the screen in his seat. It was quite startling for a lot of people.
Arriving in Hong Kong was fast and efficient as it always seems to be, buying the MTR and airport train pass is easy, getting Hong Kong dollars out of an ATM is easy, the train came in 1 minute, it arrives at Kowloon where theres a free shuttle bus to most hotels.
They were very apologetic that it didnt go to my hotel, but I looked on my highly illegal stolen cached google maps and it went to a hotel about 50 metres from mine, so I took that.
My hotel is fine, very modern, despite it being 2am Australian time the first thing I did was check if the free internet works, it does, or else you wouldnt be seeing this.
Bonus Melbourne photo, because I know everyone loves photos of planes as much as me. Heres a Qantas A380 that just arrived, I was checking its engines for oil leaks.
First dinner in economy, some sort of beef thing. It was actually pretty nice.
Second dinner (which comes about an hour before you land), some sort of chicken pie. Also quite nice. You get a Weiss bar for dessert, I like those.
Theres no sign of drama at the baggage claim, everyone waits quietly. In the customs line before this, where you cant take photos, they employ racial profiling.
Theres 4 sections for foreigners, of which I am one, and somebody directs you to one of the 4 areas. As best I can tell they are determining who they are likely to ask many questions to (black people, arabs), and directing them to one specific holding pen, whilst those of us who arent carrying backpack bombs are sent to the other 3 where theres no line.
I think I have taken this exact photo before, its the airport train. I think it has free wifi.
As mentioned, after getting off the train I immediately transferred to this free shuttle bus. I was the only passenger, as soon as I stepped on he drove off.
The outside of my hotel, Butterfly on Pratt Street. The name suits me I guess. So far I only have very positive things to say about it.
The first of no doubt many pictures of neon, this is out the front of my hotel in downtown Kowloon. My street has a mcdonalds, 3 x 711's, and a circle K. Its also right by the Tsim Sha Tsui MTR.
I get a lot of requests to show the inside of hotel rooms. This is probably going to be the nicest hotel on my journey, This is the bed.
One interesting thing, the bathroom has a big clear window, lots of people on Tripadvisor complain about this. You cant quite see the clear window in this photo but it is indeed a strange choice of decor.
The shower is enormous and the pressure nearly pushed me through the glass.
My work station. Where I am sitting typing this.
Something great and unusual, a microwave. Not sure if I will use it but if I see any crazy foods that I need to reheat later, it will come in handy.
TV stations available are not great, discovery channel and fashion tv are the only 2 english ones I can work out. This is concerning as I want to watch the Melbourne grand prix.
Perhaps I will need to find a public place thats showing star sports or whoever has the rights in Hong Kong.