February 12-13, 2019 – The Long Haul to Hong Kong

February 12 to 13, 2019

The ticket says it’s a 16 hour flight, but the navicomputer in my seatback screen says it’s really only a 15 and a half hour flight to Hong Kong.

Fortunately, we pre-flighted with a fleet if mimosas in the club lounge.  Every so often it pays to have logged all those international trips for work.

I gave mom the aisle and I’m the next seat in on a middle, four seat configuration. The guy next to me could be Yao Ming’s out-of-shape older brother. He’s a tall, husky guy squished into a seat. So I get there may be some personal space encroachment. But he’s less accidental and more… aggressive in his expansion. Not only did he commandeer the shared armrest, he eventually put it up to remove the barrier entirely. And he must be listening to some music channel on the inflight entertainment system as his leg keeps bouncing along like he was Thumper… whenever I’m close to dozing off, his dancing limbs jostle me awake. I think I saw a Star Trek The Next Generation episode that dealt with torture and mind game techniques; pretty sure it’s psy-ops SOP to mess with sleeping patterns and alter perceptions of time. I’m also pretty sure Picard insists there are four lights at the end of the episode. Well, here there are four seats, bucko, and there should be five arm rests.

The difference between intervals and fence posts if my 8th grade mathalete training was correct.

But I digress.

Movies watched on the flight:

  • Shoot the Piano Player by Francois Truffaut – great
  • The Defiant Ones directed by Stanley Kramer – also great
  • Bohemian Rhapsody directed partially by Bryan Singer – good-ish if superficial. I felt like it needed more scenes BETWEEN the scenes if that makes sense. But even in recreation, that Live Aid set by Queen is something else.
  • One Cut of the Dead directed by S. Ueda, a Japanese Zombie movie about filmmakers trying to make a zombie movie while real zombies attack. It starts interesting, gets kinda annoying, gets SUPER annoying… and then somehow spins around to being pretty fun.

And there’s still 7 hours and 21 minutes to go…

It passes in a restless fever dream. But we made it to the hotel. It’s better than the capsule hotel I surprised Mom with in Kyoto. But it is not much bigger than Harry Potter’s cupboard under the stairs.

Tomorrow we eat from trolleys pushed by old women.  No, really.  That’s in the brochure!