First off, Danny’s mother was flying in from Ottawa to join us on the flight to Hong Kong. For reasons not clear, he had her arriving just barely in time to get to our flight. Needless to say, the kids and I could have grown horns and he wouldn’t have noticed, as he kept his eyes glued watching for her arriving at the gate area.
The flight was packed full, every single seat. All in all, though, it wasn’t too bad. Stephanie had a melt down about 6 hours into the flight, crying that she “really just wants to go back home”. That wasn’t fun. And for some unknown reason, she developed a fever while we were flying. Yeah, about 8 hours into a 15 hour flight, my kid spikes a fever, and a pretty high one at that. Luckily, I had the foresight to have tossed a bottle of kids Advil into my purse just before leaving, medicated her up, and by the time we were landing she seemed fine again . No idea what that was about at all. No signs of a cold or flu or anything else, just a fever.
The meals were “special” as always. First, mystery meat on rice, or mystery meat with noodles. Great choices eh? Five hours later it’s Cup O’ Noodles and a bun with a slice of “roast beef” or something. Finally, about an hour and a half before landing they offer a choice of eggs and sausage or congee. That’s actually the best meal of them all. Or maybe I’m just so glad that that meal signals the end of the flight that it actually tastes good? Who knows.
We got to Hong Kong on time and just fine, after all that. I’d ordered a minivan to drive us to the hotel. We dropped Danny’s mother with her sister and niece who’d come to the airport to fetch her, and we had no troubles getting our luggage and being on our way.
It was HOT HOT HOT!!! Probably about 36 and 85% humidity. Yeah, that kind of hot. The van took us right to our hotel, and surprisingly they actually had one of the two rooms ready. Usually they keep us waiting on both.
The hotel is the same as always—nothing fancy, but in a great area, reasonable price, and tidy enough. We got ourselves settled, and I went for a walk for a grocery run. The usual staples……cereal, hotdog buns, snacks, noodles, bottled water, etc. By the time I got back, both kids were ratty and seriously tired. We’d agreed beforehand that we’d go to Pizza Express since the kids love it, and it gets us out of the hotel for a short walk. The pizza was lovely as always, the kids both stayed awake right to dessert, and we managed to make it back to the hotel without any of us collapsing from exhaustion. We called it a night very early, since we already know that jetlag is going to knock us for a loop for the next couple of days.
