Hong Kong

Turned out that we were the last flight to depart from Terminal 3 that evening. It really is amazing how quick you can pass through security when they are all itching to get home!!!

Taking off from Heathrow at night is quite a sight. The whole of London was lit up like a christmas tree, unfortunately I have no photos of it to show you!

The flight to Hong Kong (Cathay Pacific Airbus A340) was very good. Very little turbulence and the service was great. Tania and Aidan ended up getting two seats each whereas I had to put up with one. :(

The food was edible and the beer and wine were drinkable. Really, no complaints from any of us. We were quite surprised to see the crew and many of the passengers wearing face masks to protect them from the impending doom of the swine flu. Last I had heard, the masks were of little use and would offer very little protection from the virus anyway.



Once we landed in Hong Kong 13 hours later, we disembarked the plane and found multiple smoking rooms. Again, masks were around every corner you turned. I had to laugh when a gentleman walked into the smoking room wearing a mask, proceeded to remove it to smoke his cigarette before wearing it again as he left. Obviously, the swine flu doesn't get passed from person to person whilst smoking!

We bought Aidan a die-cast scale model of the Cathay Pacific A340-300 that we were travelling on from a duty-free shop as long as he promised to not fly it around on the plane while making crash sounds.

Security was a breeze and we were on the plane again for the next leg of the flight (only 11.5 hours this time).

The plane we had this time appeared to have a different seating layout to the previous aircraft. Legroom seemed to be more cramped and the in-flight entertainment was an older system that was quite poor quality compared to the previous plane. The service was still good though with Aidan requesting two seats again (and getting them - jammy git!). I was once again confined to one. Next stop Auckland!