minutes. To get that, I had:
1) 9:30am Taxi from home at Macau to Macau ferry terminal
2) 9:40am Gone thru Macau resident immigration check point
3) 9:45am Darn it, no 9:45 ferry; have to wait for the 10am and it's
late coming from HK.
4) 10:00am Boarded the Tri-cat ferry. Full! Wow, Summer holiday.
5) 10:10am We are leaving for HK. Calm before the tropical storm.
Sunny, hot, calm sea...
6) 11:10am Dashed off for the 3 stories hike up to the HK
Immigration. Good design. Dumb. And e-Channel for me. Not quite;
sorry it does not apply here at this sea immigration check point.
Hey, not so with your Internet website promotion. Should be easy and
seamless. Macau is putting in e-Channel with passport scanners; why
can't you guys get your act together to do the same; you have just
installed the new e-Channel equipment. Piss me off.
7) 11:30am Very slow thru. The other day, dad got hauled off to a
room. "We need to update your file". He has gone thru HK immigration
numerous time, what so different this time that he needed his file
updated? I can see there are lots of "John Smith" in White Pages but
with his Chinese name on the Macau ID with the exact spelling? Easier
to win lottery.
8) 11:45am Hot walk from Shang Wan to Central Hong Kong Airport
Express station. Passed by my favourite hotel, Four Seasons, probably
won't stay there ever again. Price is totally inverse with the
economy. Just like some of the Index ETFs.
9) 11:50am Checked in at Cathay.
10) 11:55am High speed train to Airport. Communicated with Chairman
Lo in Chinese SMS. Finally forced him to use the new Nokia I got him
3 months ago. He now can write Chinese on the screen. Iron-wife
lamented that "there goes the legacy of Chairman Lo Cantonese
English. It's like a language within a language". For example, he
texted us on our anniversary wishing that he was there again on the
island. The phrase "cat island" was what he used to refer Maui. The
reason, he couldn't spell "Maui". Maui in Chinese sounded like "Cat"
"island". Hence that phrase.
11) 12:15am Arrived at airport. Did not seem a tropical storm is
coming. Sunny, calm sea, hot of 35C.
12) 12:30am Thru security and Immigration; this time, I COULD use e-
Channel.
13) 12:31am Heading to the lounge. Not too busy. IC. Trying to cut
back huh Cathay. One fridge said under repair. Right. Typical
Chinese approach. The food offering is getting close to Air Canada
lounge. Drink selection was cut by half. Have to check out the other
Cathay lounge next time. This one is close to Dragon Air
(subsidiary). Gate 62 has the main Cathay lounge.
14) 1:00pm Ready to roll; prefer to walk around for half an hour
before flight; to stretch my legs. Busy in the airport. O a new
Clive Cussler; what? HKD221.00. That's about CAD 30.00. I could get
this from Costco for CAD11.00. Right, I am NOT in Costco; no where
near one! No leisure reading. Come to think of it, when was the last
time I read something leisure. Answer: Almost a year ago.
15) 1:30pm At the gate. Switched out my HK SIM for China SIM. Yes, a
guy with five SIMs. Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Canada and China.
Used to have AT/T as well. ;-)
16) 1:40pm Boarded. Load of empty seats. OK, why did the agent put
me next to someone? Come on, come on, close that door so I could
move. Ha... Finally.
17) 1:55pm Door closed and I excused myself politely. Two seats, good
working service. BTW, I had a Biz seat. Less chance of being
quarantined. The guy sat next to me, he got an upgrade and his wife
had to seat in the back of the bus! How gentleman of him NOT to give
that seat up for his wife? I did when we went to Delhi from HK. Iron-
wife got my biz seat because I got bumped. O well. Not my problem.
18) 2:00pm Pushing off. Wow. Right on time and no Chinese Air
Traffic Control holding us on the ground. Maybe they felt sorry for
us about the incoming Tropical Storm to HK.
19) 2:30pm Lunch being served. Rush job. Good food though. Rice
with veggie and two big slaps of pork. That's the last of my meat
eating holiday. Haha. Red wine was good. Leman, red.
20) 3:50pm How time flied. We descended. Air quality was good.
Wow... Just like on Monday when I took off. I could see over 33 KM
away back to the edge of Pudong where those two tall buildings stood.
21) 4:20pm At the gate; now wait for the mask men to show up for
temperature control. What? They are not coming. We are off the plane.
22) 4:34pm Lining up to get thru the health check. No, they don't
poke you. Just checking the health form making sure we all filled out
properly.
23) 4:40pm Thru the health check; people fill the form yourself!!!
The Shanghai service is too nice. They filled the forms for these
dumb people.
24) 4:45pm Thru immigration, friendly and fast.
25) 4:50pm Luggage is here. Grabbed and dashed.
26) 4:55pm Met my drive on the departure level. Off we go... Much
faster than he parked and met me at the Arrival and paid for the
parking.
27) 5:00pm Started texting people just like every single Chinese. Hee
hee...
28) 5:10pm Setting in for the ride. No rush hour traffic; perfect.
Normally, I would have taken the Maglev and then No 2 line subway.
But the subway systems have been having a lot of problems. Outages
and all. I wanted to have a nice end to a trip. Private car, RMB
250.00 (CAD 35.00); a bit on the expensive side if you look at it from
the Chinese point of view but from North American point of view going
for 35KM or so from airport to home, that's cheap.
29) 6:00pm Home.
30) 6:15pm Checked my emails, unpacked and heading to the gym.
31) 6:45pm Darn it, I forgot my runners!!!!! Heading home; sweating...
33) 7:00pm Forget it, not heading back. Work on my fingers instead on
the keyboard. Hence this blog.
This is a day in my life flying 2 hours and 5 minutes internationally.
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