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Saturday, December 13, 2008
Hong Kong 2008 - Day 1
Since the beginning of the year, it had been my intention to organise a batch trip overseas as a sort of graduation trip. This idea shifted around and around until we were left with only Jinjun and myself from our batch. However, Meiyi and Calvin decided to join us, marking our first adventure together. Organising the trip was difficult given the A levels and my subsequent flight to the Middle East, and plans kept changing, but eventually we settled on our dates and flights and found accomodation at the Golden Island Guesthouse.
As with most trips, this one began with a flight. Or rather, it began when Jinjun came over to my house in the morning to do random preparations for the flight. We slacked around, basically, and waited for my mother.
At the airport, we met up with Meiyi, who was sending her friend off, and Calvin at Terminal 1, by the Cathay Pacific check-in desks. Cathay was not my first choice of airline, I'm sure you all know what my first choice was, and I had had a bad experience with them in Dubai just a week and a half before. Nevertheless, we decided to give Cathay a chance, and here we were, bound for Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok International Airport via Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport on CX713.
While Calvin ran off to spend some time with a friend of his, the rest of us cleared immigration and roamed around the airport. Soon it was time to depart, and we headed for D41 to find B-HNH, the oldest 777-300 built, waiting for us. Boarding was smooth, but the interior was quite shabby. The windows were scratched and the IFE didn't work. Such is life, I guess, and at least we secured pair seats as opposed to the triplets.
I was somewhat disappointed at first, since I expected B-HNH to take off on runway 2C, limiting my views on takeoff to Changi Air Base (East). My spirits were raised, however, when we started heading across the South Cross, affording me excellent views of the airport during taxi and take-off.
At around 1330, the 777 soared into the sky, passing by Tekong on its way. Lunch was served, which was pretty decent. Other than that, it was an uneventful flight, and we arrived in Suvarnabhumi on schedule. At the airport, we received the sad news that we were not allowed to deboard, which was a pity as I had wanted to explore Suvarnabhumi a little. Still, there was quite a fair bit of interesting traffic (Finnair MD-11s and the www.rj.com A310) and some old favourites (my old friend and first fling with the 777-300ER, JA731J).
Soon, we took on more passengers and fuel and were ready to go. We swapped seats around so that the views would be more evenly distributed, and set off on 1L for Chek Lap Kok. Dinner was one of the best I've tasted on an airliner and I was beginning to think Cathay was not so bad after all (I would later be proven wrong, but that's another story).
Prior to landing, I swapped seats again to allow Jinjun the magnificent night view of VHHH, as we appeared to be landing on 7L. This did happen, and we taxiied into gate 34.
It was great to be back in VHHH again, I think it's one of my favourite airports, probably my favourite after WSSS. We cleared immigration, baggage claim and customs without incident and headed for the Airport Ekspres Express to town.
The airport express dropped us off in Kowloon station, where we headed for the bus stop, along the way noticing that the MTR logo looked like the Empire of the Rising Sun logo in Red Alert 3. The bus was in an underground bus bay, so as a result, the view took us quite by surprise as the bus left the bay. No matter how many times I see it, the view of Hong Kong's skyline by night never fails to awe me, and I'm sure Jinjun, seeing this for the first time, agrees.
We got off the bus somewhere near the Golden Island Guesthouse and headed for it (receiving a call from Shuhui on the way). We got there to find two problems.
1. They didn't have our reservation and were full
2. None of us wanted to stay there anyway, it was seedy, run down and looked as though it hadn't been cleaned since Hong Kong was still a British colony
We happily vacated the premises. However, we were now faced with a semi-serious problem. We were on the streets of Hong Kong with no place to stay and a few full luggage bags. Faced with this problem, we did what any sensible group of travellers would do. We went for dinner at a McDonalds.
At the McDonalds. we found a map of Hong Kong and started calling up all the hotels on it, to no avail. We did a walking tour of Kowloon too, but couldn't find anything. In the end, we found ourselves camping in Yau Ma Tei MTR station considering our options, but every hotel we called was full for the night.
The calling went on until the stationmaster advised us that the last train was about to leave. At this stage, I had the idea of sleeping in the airport, not a very uncommon thing to do. By this time we were all desperate, so this is what we did. As a result, we boarded the MTR train (after Calvin attempted to hug the one on the opposite platform) and headed for Tung Chung MTR station (the significance of this particular station would later become apparent).
Hong Kong's MTR is much like Singapore's MRT, to the extent that the font used is the same. We enjoyed a smooth ride to Tung Chung via Lai King, and I found myself at an all-too familiar 7-11 below Tung Chung Crescent. From there, we cabbed to the airport. The cold was beginning to get to us by this point, but I was used to it by now.
Once at the airport, we used our laptop to continue the search for accomodation, eventually finding the Rai Lei Guesthouse and booking it. We then grabbed some instant noodles and pitched camp at a corner of the airport near the Cathay counters. We took turns sleeping and guarding the stuff till the next morning, where the story shall continue...
Posted by Aaron