Dave Sabol

Well, after taking the great tour of Hong Kong we headed back to the Grand Hyatt to catch our breath, eat lunch and figure out what we were going to do next. On these business trips we work hard and play hard, so we try to maximize every bit of time we have. We decided to have lunch at a hotel associated with our hotel called JJ’s, a Thai restaurant. Instead of trying to order for ourselves we asked our waiter to order a representative sample of everything on the menu that we could share among the group. Truthfully, I never had Thai food before so I can’t really say how good it was, but I can say that it was tasty and I really enjoyed the way Thai food combines sweet and spicy flavors into many of their dishes. Like many other Asian foods, I think Thai food is definitely an acquired taste, but I can say that my introduction led me to think it was another type of food that I would enjoy just about anywhere (so long as it was good!)

Lunch consisted of many courses and lively conversation and I think we spent a few hours there. The group decided that after lunch they would freshen up and then head over to Kowloon (across the harbor) to do some more shopping at the “Night Market”. As for me, I was feeling pretty tired and dirty by then, so while I wanted to go and experience some more of the area, I thought better of it and decided to stay at the room. I took a shower (which felt great) and then crawled into bed for what I thought was going to be a short nap (it was around 4:30). When I woke up, it was 11:30 PM. I guess I was more tired than I would have thought. The downside was that I hadn’t eaten dinner and my minibar didn’t exactly have a huge variety of treats to choose from. I spent the next few hours trying to get in touch with Singapore Air and U.S. Airways to try and figure out if my luggage had a chance of arriving today.

It was a very frustrating experience for me as everyone I spoke with didn’t speak English very fluently and I found myself explaining my situation over and over with little success. An interesting tidbit is the fact that the customer service folks at Singapore Air, who I would have expected to have more difficulty with English actually spoke it considerably better than the customer service representative at U.S. Airways. Go figure. By the end of my time on the phone I felt somewhat confident that my luggage was indeed enroute and I should be receiving it at some point during the next day.

It was now around 3:00 AM local time and I figured I should try to catch a few more hours of sleep. I didn’t feel tired, but I wanted to try to equalize myself so I could be effective during the remainder of my time here. Unbelievably, I fell right to sleep and woke up around 7:00 AM local time. My mission for the rest of the morning was to find my luggage. I was tired of being a captive in my room and wanted to be able to get out and my luggage was the key to the whole equation.

Fortunately, after a few unsuccessful calls to the Singapore Air luggage desk I finally contacted them. They said that my bag had been on the flight and was in the process of going through customs. The minute that it cleared customs, they would ship it to the hotel. That was a few hours ago and I don’t have my luggage yet, but I know it will be here soon.