Flying to HK

Well, we are finally settled in Hong Kong after several months of anticipation and preparation. None of that preparation came close to preparing us for the brutal trip over. We left the Westing Peachtree, our hotel in Atlanta, at 7:45am with our travel partner Eric and arrived at our apartment almost 25 hours later.

Our first flight from Atlanta took us to Newark - a quick 2 hour jaunt up the east coast. As we descended into EWR, we got a great view out the left side of the plane of the NYC skyline, which is one of my favorite sights from an airplane. It's such an impressive sight, and I can never get enough of it. When I was flying in and out of Laguardia for 7 months in 2007, I made sure to always get a window seat on the left side of the aircraft because it gave great views of the city both arriving and departing.

Another great part about the NYC skyline is seeing the Statue of Liberty. I'm sure it will be more meaningful on my return trip, but none the less, it was a cool reminder of what we were about to leave behind. Don't worry Lady Liberty - we'll be back. I look forward to seeing you again in August.

Around 3pm EST, we settled into our seats on the Boeing 777 headed to Hong Kong. The TV screen in the seat in front of me showed our long voyage that would take us up and over the North Pole and down into China. When I went to India in 2006, I endured a 15 hour flight sitting next to the lavatory. This trip was much better a) because I wasn't next to the bathroom b) because I had someone to travel with and c) because of Continental's video on demand system that let me watch several different movies rather than running the same 1 or 2 movies every few hours. All in all, the flight went relatively well. I even got to look out the window at the North Pole (or somewhere close to there), which was pretty cool. It was very white and looked pretty cold, in case you were wondering.

When we landed in Hong Kong, we didn't have any troubles getting to our place. The airport was relatively quiet, our luggage came out quicker than it does in Wichita, we walked right through customs and onto the train. After getting off the train at Hong Kong station, we caught a cab that took us to our apartment. More on that later - time for some exploring now. Kowloon - here we come.