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I finally made it to Hong Kong after travelling about 30+ hours to get here from Toronto.
So to give you an update on my travel nightmare in Tokyo, after spending an unplanned night, we were all ready to blast off to Hong Kong. Everyone was back on board the airplane for 9am. At 9:40am we were still sitting at the gate waiting to depart. The reason for the delay we were told, was our flight number. Huh? Since our flight was delayed overnight, there was now another flight with the same flight number (it's a daily flight) due to come in, which apparently confused the flight management system at the airport. After they got it all sorted out, we were off, heading to the runway. Finally we'd be leaving.
Lined up on the runway, it was our turn to blast off. Being the plane geek that I am, take off for me is the best part of flying. Now I've flown quite a bit, especially in the past year, but this take off is one I've never experienced (except maybe with my own flying...in training). The captain powers up the engines and we start our takeoff roll. We go perhaps about 50 metres down the runway and all of a sudden the power comes off and we veer off the runway. In my mind I think, 'well that's weird...we just had an aborted take off'. The captain comes on the PA to tell us that there are futher maintenance issues with the plane that need to be sorted out, so back to the gate we go. Good decision to abort!
After about another hour of waiting at the gate, watching maintenance people come and go from the plane, we're told that we would have to deplane at wait at the gate. Well I thought there was going to be a full scale riot on the plane. Even I was getting a bit frustrated, which for maintenance issues I don't really since safety is at stake, but by this time being delayed close to 20 hrs, the hulk was about to come out. By 12:00pm we were all back on the plane, and by 12:30pm we were finally in the air.
The flight to Hong Kong was uneventful, landing around 3:30pm on Monday. I was supposed to be in the office that day, but given the time I didn't see the point, so I re-scheuled my office visting for the next day. My buddy Tsun also arrived on the Monday. How sad is this. I leave Toronto a full day before Tsun, but only get into Hong Kong a few hours before him.
My day in the office yesterday was nice. Only a handfull of people knew I was coming since I had some actual work to do, but it was a nice surpise seeing the expression on people's faces that didn't know. I felt a bit like a celebrity. So after a day of catching up with friends and colleagues, oh yeah and a little work , it was off to one of my favourite watering holes Sevva for a quick drink. The pic attached to this blog entry was taken there. I'll never get tired of that view.
Today, it's off to Macau, and it's also the day that Tsun is going to bungy jump off the Macau tower; 233 metres of sheer terror...I mean adrenaline rush. I'll be watching this time, once is enough for me. I wonder if he'll go through with it. Stay tuned...
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