Ok well to begin with I am no expert in this. In fact quite the opposite and it’s a huge amount of data to process as I learn the ropes of the international traveler. Please bear with me as I walk you through my journeys; I shall attempt to post photos as often as I am able and offer notes about my experiences over the next few weeks.. Also note that I am recording them here in lieu of Facebook (#fb) more for the fact that I am in control of this venue and completely own my content whereas with #fb you just never really know.
Flying to Hong Kong was an interesting process to say the least. From my point of view the jury is still out on what is the best way to facilitate this. Everyone seems to have their own exert opinion on how best to accomplish this. I can with all honesty say that if you must fly fly at least Business Class. Now that being said also know that not all Business Classes are created equal. I ended up flying from JFK to LAX on an economy flight to make a connection to Cathay Pacific (CX). This in itself is not bad other than the fact that I had to depart my house at 4am in order to catch the only flight available as a result of my rather short notice and particular schedule.
Once at LAX I had to collect my luggage and walk (left) out of American Airlines to the Thomas Bradley International terminal, which fortunately was covered and really took less than 5 minutes. I missed the requirement about going upstairs to departures and in my case it took a few extra minutes. This was not such a huge impact considering as I soon learned that I could not check-in for my 0140 until much later when the ticket window opens. This may not sound like a big problem however I had the fortunate distinction of arriving in LAX an approximately 45 minutes earlier than planned as a result of generous tail winds. Why is it the the pilots always act surprised when some event like this happens.
Captain of AA Flight “Good morning passengers well it looks like we caught ourselves a tail wind and will be landing in LAX approximately 45-50 minutes ahead of schedule. The time now is 0840 please remain in your seat with your seat belts securely fastened as we taxi to our…”
It’s not that I am ungrateful about arriving early, and I am quite certain that there are many who were on the plane happy to be in LA earlier than planned I’m just concerned. I mean where was the pilot for the last 5+ hours of the flight? Why does he sound so surprised we’ve arrived early?
So I am no at LAX in the terminal at roughly 0900 (that’s 9 AM) awaiting CX to open which I learn isn’t for approximately another 10 hours. Are you beginning to feel me? It was a long day of sitting and walking and awkwardness. I mean I had my luggage w/ me and it’s difficult to squeeze everything you might need to accomplish during a 10 hour span while ensuring that your baggage is not left unattended. Al I wanted was to be able to check my one ‘big’ suitcase and head up to the lounge. I had an invitation after all, which is to say I paid $6K for the privilege of flying BC on this particular airline that I was told is the only way to go. A lounge as it turned out that is shared with numerous other airlines at this particular airport.
What I am saying here is that it would have been really nice to have AmericanAirlines which owns or partners or something with Cathay offer to transfer my checked bag from their terminal to my connecting flight in lieu of me schlepping it myself. Had I been free of this baggage I could have breezed through security right up to the lounge and proceeded to imbibe copious amounts of complimentary Ashani. This latter step I made up for with great vigor after spending 10 hours on the other side. Yes in a lounge that made it rather effortless to conduct ones personal business while guarding their carry on luggage. Not to mention the free WiFI and ample outlets for recharging iPods, crackberries, and of course laptops. Yes the aforementioned beer helped immensely.
Finally at 0040 It was go time and I was off to the gate. Once on the plane I located my pod which if you’ve never traveled internationally (i.e., on a really long flight that takes say 14+ hrs where you really need one). If you are a seasoned international traveler you can just go back to searching for porn or whatever it is you pretend to do all day at your office. The pod is like a sleeping cubicle sans the square cornered walls and they are packed in rather tightly in a chevron arrangement on the aircraft.
In these pods there is just about everything you could possibly need save a toilet and shower, but that because adding that would really annoy your fellow pod mates. Besides it’s a 14+ hour flight you NEED to get you ass up and move around once in a while. Of course the plane didn’t have a shower at all which really would have been nice considering that some of the other passengers on my earlier flight really could have used one but that is an entirely different story. So the following is a picture of the screen from my pod.
I happen to be listening, ironically enough to Pink Floyd Blue Skies while watching the onflight cam. You can see the underbelly of the plane in the top quarter of the screen image and the telephone-esq remote control/game controller/hail the attendant/turn on blowers & lights/I honestly don’t know what else controller. Suffice to say if your pod had a built-in toilet you’d flush it from this handy little device. Although the chair controls are on a different portion of the console.
This is another view of the pod console and you can see that I am once again watching the onflight cam, in fact this is approximately 30 minutes after the previous as we have just touched down in Hong Kong. Quite ironically I was listening to Welcome to the Machine by none other than Pink Floyd when we landed here in China. In any event you can see the chair control I mentioned previously in the lower right corner.
Off the plane I headed to the CotaiJet counter to book passage on the ferry that takes you from Hong Kong to Macau. This turned our to be great advice as it eliminated the necessity to wait on the extremely long line at immigration as well as pick up my checked luggage. At the CotaiJet counter you present you baggage claim check and they arrange to transfer the bags to the ferry for you.
I ended up booking passage on the 0915 ferry to Macua (Tapia) which was actually very convenient. I learned later that if your arrive after 2100 you are basically screwed and will likely have to process you immigration here a HKG claim your bags and grab a taxi into Hong Kong to a different ferry service. Consider that you have now extended your travel by several hours. If you enjoy that sort of punishment then by all means have a go at it. I personally had had quite enough and was happy to be catching the shuttle train to the ferry terminal.
This last photo is of the actual vessel and honestly it is quite impressive. Well worth the Executive class fare, as they offer complimentary beverages and noodles, which I know contrary to American belief are quite good at 0915. Believe me you will be hungry after all the previous traveling. Oh and there’s also the benefit of departing the vessel first upon docking. Of course this does not eliminate the lengthy trek down the pier to immigration, but unlike Hong Kong Airport there was no line. Seriously there were at least 10 agents in booth waiting not so happily for our arrival.
Once through immigration it was a short walk like less than 10 steps to the baggage claim where I fortunately met up with my checked luggage. All in all it was an easy voyage but an extremely long one. I honestly have no idea what’s in store for me on the next leg of the journey but I leave for Malaysia in a few days and will try to note the exit of Macau & Hong Kong as I do.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mikel King has been a leader in the Information Technology Services field for over 20 years. He is currently the CEO of Olivent Technologies, a professional creative services partnership in NY. Additionally he is currently serving as the Secretary of the BSD Certification group as well as a Senior Editor for the BSD News Network.