I love how a city of 12 million people can be so desolate at 4 am. I hopped into the Crown Vic. this morning (I called a car service the night before) and headed to JFK to arrive by 4:30. 30 minutes from Lower Manhattan to JFK. Try that at rush hour! 2 1/2 hours early should be plenty of time to make my do flight, right? Right. I assumed that there would be a hiccup or two along the way and was not disappointed to find out that it was going to cost me an extra $350 to check my nice big box full of tools, repair stand, pump, wash bucket, etc. Ok, I was prepared for an extra charge, but $350? Just in case you’ve never had the pleasure, the kindly folks who are employed by the airline to man the baggage check-in counter at 5 am are generally not impressed by a not-so-sob story coming from a short, fat, balding, almost 40 year old dimwit. But alas, this one was. I didn’t get her name. She wasn’t wearing a name tag and I wasn’t about to ask any questions that weren’t absolutely necessary. However, she let me in on a little secret…if I took out the heaviest thing in the box and checked that by itself, then I would have to pay for the extra bag, but not the overweight box. So instead of $350, it only cost me $125. Sweet! Now I had enough cash leftover for an egg and cheese croissant from the food court.
So, this isn’t a direct flight from JFK to Hong Kong. We had to stop in San Francisco first. I’ve never been San Francisco, but that’s another story. It goes without saying (I would hope) that the trip from New York to China is a long one. But man, 6 hours just to get to California? Oh well, it is what it is. I read the “Hemispheres” Magazine that United is so kind as to supply, flipped thru the Emergency procedure pamphlet, dozed off a few times and generally did all I could to kill off the time. YES, brought a book with me and YES, I had my computer and YES, I had my iPhone. But the flight from SF to HK is over 14 hours and I didn’t want to use all my good time wasters while I was still over US soil. As far as I could tell, San Francisco is nice. It looked pretty cool as we flew in and the 1/2 hour we spent in the airport was painless. But that’s about all I have for ya on that. Maybe I’ll make it back someday and form a different opinion.
A Boeing 747 is a big-ass plane. I know they’ve been around since the 70′s and I’ve flown in them several times. But it’s still a freakin’ huge piece of machinery! We all boarded the plane Ok. At least I think we did. I’m sitting on the plane right now as I write and none of us knows where Andrew Kozak is. Chad, Brian, Gavi, Vladimir and Alberto are all accounted for, but we don’t know where Andrew is. The last we saw him was before we boarded the plane. The rest of us had our seat assignments, but he did not. We boarded and haven’t seen him since. I hope he didn’t get left standing at the window, tears rolling down his face, screaming “Nooooooo, Don’t leave meeeeeeee”. I’ll let you know how it turned out when we get there. Now as you recall I said we “Boarded” the plane on time. I didn’t say the flight left on time. For some reason this big-ass 747 was overweight. Yeah, yeah, go ahead, make your jokes about the fat, bald guy. But seriously, the plane was overweight, so they had to…uhhh…syphon off some fuel to get the weight down. I had the mental image of ole’ Billy Bob with his bib overalls suckin’ on the end of a garden hose trying to swipe some gasohol outa the neighbors Ford pickup. But no, they actually have a real machine that does that for him. I can’t quite quantify the disturbed feeling I had at contemplating a big plane traveling a long way with less fuel than the powers that be originally thought was necessary. We’ll just have to wait like 10 more hours to find out if this is a problem…or if I’m just paranoid. But then again, you probably would have heard about it on the news before you read it here. So everything must have turned out fine. We only fell behind schedule by about an hour, no big deal. Hey, if you can do 14 hours in a giant sardine can, 15 aint no different.
I think I remember a Seinfeld episode once where Elaine admitted that she likes airline food. Hey, I’m with ya sister! The Chicken Teriyaki with rice, Peas and Carrots, Salad, Roll and Brownie for dessert wasn’t bad. Of course, I should probably admit that I was starving. A warmed up old shoe with mud-gravy woulda tasted like a T-bone steak.
The good news is that the in-flight entertainment consists of the movies…Mama Mia, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Journey To the Center of The Earth, and some Euro-flick about wine tasting. Guess I’ll grab my book now. The Story of B, by Daniel Quinn…if you must know.
…17 hours later…
Well, I was wrong. 15 is a lot different then 14. Actually, although I’ve heard people talk about Jet Lag, I hadn’t actually experienced it myself…until now. We left New York at 7 a.m. on Wednesday and arrived in Hong Kong at 8 p.m. on Thursday. We finally did land in Hong Kong only an hour later than the original expected time. I sure hope someone is there to meet us. It’s shocking how exhausted one can get just sitting there in one place all day. Everyone was able to pick up there bags and bikes and everything just fine. Except for one minor failure. Vladimir carried his front wheel onto the plane with him ‘cus it wouldn’t fit in his bag. Unfortunately, he didn’t remember this until the plane had already left Hong Kong on it’s way to Singapore (or someplace else). Luckily it was his spare so he’ll still be able to race. After reclaiming our bags we all headed thru customs. Vladimir got stopped by the Cops and carried away in handcuffs, but they eventually let him go. Thankfully the race representative was still there waiting for us to arrive. So we all piled into 2 minivans and headed into Hong Kong. The drive was pretty uneventful. I’m sure I would have much more to say about it if I weren’t so exhausted right now. We crossed over a really cool looking bridge and into a couple of tunnels that are burrowed right through a mountain that separates Hong Kong. Lots of neon lights and tall buildings. Pretty much like I expected. We all eventually made it to the Hotel and got checked into our rooms just fine. Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you more about this place. Its pretty cool, too. Dinner and a shower would follow and by the time I’m done writing this it will be around 1 a.m. My brain is fried and the computer screen is starting to get all wavy. I better just shut up and get some good sleep. See you in the morning.
