16.5 hours in flight tomorrow

[Will]

16.5 hours in flight tomorrow.

Bad news: not in the cockpit.

Good news: business class.

The premium cabin experience on good airlines is kind of like what a cruise ship tries to do: make travel a good and enjoyable experience in and of itself. I don't pay for premium cabins for any domestic flight (and domestic can be up to 5 hours). I'm more than happy to sit in coach for that long, without any worries and without complaining.

However, I do save my frequent flyer miles, and I save my money, for upgrades when going overseas. For a 16.5 hour flight, it really makes a difference. You can lie flat in what passes for a real bed, with a real pillow, and a real comforter, after drinking some real wine.

See y'all on the other side of the world.

[Hardy Heinlin]

China?

[Will]

Yes!

[Hardy Heinlin]

How good is your Chinese now? On a scale from zero to ten for native level :-)

[Will]

Wow, I'd say:

English = 10
German = 7
Chinese = 3

The grammar and the pronunciation are actually really quite easy. Much easier than the Adjectivendungen in German. Mainly because there aren't any Adjectivendungen in Chinese. No word is ever inflected. No endings, no der, die, oder das. For example: 是 means sein, bin, bist, ist, sind, seit, sind, war, warst, waren, wart, werde, wirst, and so on. All of that is always just 是.

What's hard is the writing, and the fact that the Chinese are experts at subtly of meaning. They can use homophones like crazy to add all sorts of layers of meaning, and I can't get anywhere with that yet. For example, er ist and er ißt, you're familiar with some wordplay around that. Chinese has many more possibilities, since there are many more homophones. People can also use words that sound completely different but remind you of other words. So that part of the language still flies far above my head. But I'm good with concrete things: My name is Will. I'm from the USA. I'm happy to be here. Where is the bathroom? What do you think about socialism with Chinese characteristics?

[Hardy Heinlin]

Pretty high levels!

Was the last question another example or an invitation to a forum discussion? :-)

[Will]

Haha! Good question, about the question. The forum will speak for itself. Personally, I find China extremely challenging and extremely fascinating, both as a country and culture, and as a place to do business.

[evaamo]

I've been twice to China... one of my most feared words when I went to cities on the countryside was:

Gambei  (drink a shot of an alcoholic beverage they refer to as "white wine"). After a few of those you really knew the day after was going to be miserable. I should have listened to my body's early warning about that.

It is indeed a fascinating country and culture. Our friends there were amazing in their hospitality. In my case tho', after a few weeks I was ready to go back home. I usually went from ZBAA to LFPG before returning home, and tried to stay in Paris at least a few days. Eating breakfast in Paris felt like glory! Some cultural differences are stronger than others.

Cheers
-E

[Will]

I felt like I travelled all over yesterday, but didn't get anywhere. :-(


I was seated in the aircraft, buckled in, and had already enjoyed a pre-departure beverage, when the flight canceled.

Things started earlier in the day when there were thunderstorms at KORD. That led the inbound aircraft to divert to Milwaukee, arriving in Chicago several hours later. We boarded about three hours late, and by then the crew was running short on duty time. I suppose all was still well for a departure, but then the plane developed some kind of mechanical problem. Fixing the problem made the crew even more delayed, such that the whole trip would have put them over their limit.

So the plan was to interrupt the flight with an unscheduled landing in Beijing, pick up a fresh crew that had been flown in to Beijing to meet the aircraft, and then continue on to our ultimate destination.

We sat in the aircraft for another hour while the mechanics were working on the problem, but eventually the crew timed out even for the flight to Beijing, so the trip was canceled. We deplaned, and went back to the ticket agents for rebooking. The agents were a bit overwhelmed; I got the feeling they didn't deal with canceled flights very often. They told everyone to go home or to a hotel, and come back the next day with receipts, and they's reimburse us. A nice touch. All together it was 9 and a half hours in the airport of a flight that never left.

We'll try again today!

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

/o\  been there done that.  It really does not do well for your plans, but in all honesty, if you are embarking on a 1/2 world trip, of course it is in the back of your mind that you have to be flexible.

I got put in a Tokyo hotel myself once, on my way to Guam, in what was supposed to be just a 1.5 hour stopover. Actually it was very welcome: 1. I could sleep and eat properly, 2. I actually saw a glimpse of Japan (at night, in the rain, but still).

My personal macho attitude still is that I travel to those places without packing even a light jacket  :-)

Success with your next travel attempt!


Hoppie

[Will]

I'm a pretty low-maintenance guy. I understand that they only cancel flights for good reason, and not out of any personal animus towards the customers. :-) So it is what it is. A bit of an annoyance, but not much else.

There were some customer service issues, and I'll chalk them all up to poor training for cancellations. I think that's because the airline hasn't canceled this flight in recent memory. Anyway, at the ticketing counter, people were saying "when can I get on the next flight?" and the agents only replied "check the website." This was hard news for customers who wanted to rebook but didn't have a computer with them.

It turns out the agents, who were not native English speakers, were hearing the question as "when is our canceled flight going to take off?" They had no news about that, and so checking the website was the only alternative. But most people wanted to rebook onto other flights, something the agents should have been able to do. Therefore, hearing "check the website" made several people quite irate.

We rebooked by calling the 800 number, but the agents didn't offer that as an answer--we thought of it ourselves.

Anyway, we showed up the next day and they had a line for reimbursing people for hotel, food, and transportation expenses out of petty cash. As long as you had receipts, it was no questions asked. Most people had expenses between $200 and $400 for the night. So far, so good! Except that they ran out of petty cash after about 25 people passed through the line. We were the first couple to be told that there was no more cash, so we should save our receipts and email "the website" to obtain a refund by mail. Okay, we'll give that a try.

The actual flight departed an hour behind schedule on the second day, and was completely uneventful.

The only glitch in the works now is that we landed directly in the face of a typhoon warning!

[Magoo]

Welcome to Hong Kong!

[emerydc8]

Get your Octopus card and, "Please mind the gap."

[Will]

Octopus card obtained, gap minded!

Typhoon Nida turned out to be no big deal; not for HK anyway. Some signs blew down, there was a fallen tree here and there, and plenty of branches and leaves on the ground. No serious damage that I know of. The preparations were pretty interesting: ubiquitous reminders of what the current warning state was, and plenty of sandbags on doorstops and tape on windows.

All the stores were closed yesterday morning s happens when the warning level reaches "8", but by 3 pm, almost all were open again and it was back to business as usual.

[emerydc8]

If you're staying in TST, I recommend Nomads Mongolian restaurant on Kimberley Road. If you're a carnivore like me, two pounds of chicken, beef, lamb, shrimp and other sea food is tough to find in HKG. I can confirm it can be found at Nomads, and at a reasonable price ~ $32 (less for flight crew). If you go on the weekend you will probably need reservations. http://www.cafedecogroup.com/outlet.php?oid=12

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

*cry* that one time I was in Hong Kong I spent 90% of the time aboard the 777 installing and testing SATCOM gear and the other 10% in the taxi back and forth to the hotel for a shower (not for sleep). Saw zero of anything. Meh.

[emerydc8]

I remember flying a trip on Christmas Eve 2012 from EWR-ATL-TER to deliver a 767 engine for a Delta plane that was stranded there. By the time we got to TER we had been up for over 24 hours. I felt bad as we were heading for the hotel to see that the poor mechanics had to go right to work swapping the engines out. I guess you could argue that they slept in back on the way over, but still...

[Will]

Oh my goodness, Nomads looks like a yurt. I ate in a place in Beijing like that... they had spiced tea favored with yak milk.

I'm staying in Taikoo, surrounded by all kinds of great food. Tomorrow it's up into the hills of Sai Kung with a friend who lives here.

[emerydc8]

Wow, you can probably see RW31 at Kai Tak from your window (or what's left of it).

[Will]

Yes! The cruise ship terminal and all. I'm on the 26th floor with a huge window directly overlooking Kowloon Bay. The old runway is right across the water. Ahh, the good old days... I never saw it in operation; it's closure predated my first trip to HK.