Well my planning day and last day in Delhi wasn’t as productive as I thought. The WiFi was as slow as a tax rebate and the options I was coming up with for Japan were not giving me what I needed. It was a pack-up day too. Interesting how your main Suitcase becomes almost like a room in your home. You start to know every nook and cranny (that’s every little bit of space, for my friends outside the UK who are following. My world map on my Blog Stats now shows following in Finland, India, Switzerland and the USA) although I expect the Chinese to be following me anyway), and the only thing that is missing is a light switch. One thing I know is that it’s full and so is my carry-on bag and it weighs a shade under the 23 Kilo allowance.
When I went through one of the security screenings at the airport last night, they asked that all Electrical, Computing and Metal items were taken out and placed in a separate tray. After the officer had inspected it, she looked puzzled at me and said “All these are going to go back into that bag?”, but everything now has an order and the chinese puzzle logic kicks in.
Before leaving the hotel, I had one last meal up in the rooftop restaurant. I knew it was going to be a very long and painful night as the flight wasn’t until 2.20am. I went for the Mutton Rogan Josh with my new found accompaniment Pea Puloa and Chapatis. The sauce was rich and just the right consistency for scooping into the Chapati.
Not only was the wind up in my body, but there was a very healthy wind across Delhi. Kites were being flown from roof tops, that were so way up in the sky that they mixed with the birds. I was thinking if anyone would do that in central London? other than Mary Poppins.
So off to the airport via the Express Train a straightforward check-in and through to the departures. After my praises of the Delhi Domestic terminal, my quality check (yes this is what you do when you have 3 and a half hours before the flight) of the International area felt that it was getting a bit jadded, tired. Soft furnishing ripped, power sockets not working and a general dullness to what is a modern airport.
I asked for an extra bit of leg room in my Economy seat and it was perfect, what I should have asked for was a bigger width of seat. Over the years I have got used to a number of airplane types and especially seating. Being able to move your leg to one side under the arm rest is quite empowering when your backside numbs as the flight goes on. The one I always hated was the seat which had fully enclosed metal dividers, and tonight it was one of those. I had my usual aisle seat but was not expecting to have a huge Indian man sitting next me who overflowed into my space. You could image he was one of those as a kid that ate his siblings and went to make a sandwich when the adverts were on for the slimming clubs. My head was starting to throb with tireness as we took off, so I just leaned into the aisle and let him spread like Playdough across into my ‘territory’. I thought to warn him (as I have done with other long haul passengers in the past) that if I snore too loudly, to wake me. I thought again, I thought live with it! I woke a few of times in the night when crew spoke to me to offer food or when I heard that we needed to prepare for landing. The fourth time was when we actually bumped down on landing.
Short and pleasant immigration (that’s the ‘process time’ not the ‘people’), baggage was there waiting on the belt and within 15 minutes from leaving the plane I was in the Express Train heading for Kowloon. Kowloon faces Hong Kong Island and is supposed to be the best place for seeing the HK skyline.
Because it was an early flight I was expecting that the room would not be ready for occupation. I was right, so I put my main bag into conciege and went for a little stroll with the help of a map from the hotel.
It is a grey and murky day here in Hong Kong and the weather forecast says that it is due to stay like that for the next 3 days. The hotel is about 300 yards from the Harbour and by the Star Ferry terminal, an icon of Hong Kong. My North Face coat made its official first outing as the rain was falling, but apart from being tired I am happy with that. What you immediately feel with Kowloon is that its designed with straight roads (very British city), which means that it will be easy to navigate and get home. I headed straight for the water and the promenade which faces towards the skyscrapers of Hong Kong harbour. I don’t think I will see it at its best as the cloud is so low that you can’t see some of the top floors. At about 10.30am I am marking the area, but there is hardly anyone around. The promenade is really nice and where I am walking has a Movies theme a bit like Broadway. I stop off at Starbucks. I haven’t had a fair cup of coffee since I left home two weeks ago. I added another day to that statistic. The coffee had a very earthy taste to it, which was weird. I am sure I will have another to compare. A few people have since started promenading too. Lots of people with Wheelie travel bags so have either just got here or who checked-out and have ‘no place else to go’ (I do like that Richard Gere line). It is funny to see that the population of Indians has now changed to mostly Chinese, but with more International faces. The view across the dark choppy water is still amazing. I can’t see the hillsides as they are in the mist but you can see the shape of the Hong Kong skyline. Fingers crossed that the mist will rise and that the lights will come through in the next days.
Hong Kong celebrates Easter so it is holiday weekend, so not sure how that will affect anything?? it looks mighty dark in the mighty offices.
As the day goes on and turns into evening very early with the rain continuing to pour, the skyline starts to light up. I have put my camera on a tripod in my bedroom to catch it lighting up. By 8pm there were about 20 or so neon adverts in the sky, still not office lights. I nipped downstairs to have a Face Time call with Jon which again was a bit hit and miss on quality, but we caught up. Unfortunately it wasn’t the only thing that caught up. I was looking at the fixtures for the Premier League on the iPad and I dosed off to sleep in the Lobby. A bit embarrassing when the Lobby is small and leads straight onto the open fronted Restaurant. I guess it was time to turn in. Hopefully the rain will break for at least 15 minutes tomorrow to get the pictures and to satisfy my reason for coming. We’ll see…
By the way if you see any weird words in my Blog, it is probably due to the ‘intelligent’ software on my iPad. I draft my thoughts on an Application called Notes and then cut and paste it. Sometimes it thinks, he didn’t want to say that he meant this, and corrects it. I try to review but I tend to miss a bit. Try going straight to my Blog at dunmoanin.com for the latest instead of the Email summary as it may make more sense in the edited version. Of course, the writing may also be correct and just point out my failings!
Dave's Sabbatical 
Sounds like you could do with an early night! Fingers crossed that the weather lifts and you get those fantastics views, amazing….