Dave Sabol

Well, after a 14 hour flight, I finally made it to Hong Kong. The Singapore Air flight that I took was crowded but comfortable and the time seemed to go by pretty quickly thanks to sleeping for almost half of the flight and reading a great book for the other half. (More on the book in a separate post). The most amazing thing about the flight was the flight path we took. If you have never taken a international flight you would assume that the old addage “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line” would apply. However, in this case it isn’t true. Instead of flying directly across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Hong Kong, the flight path took us over western Canada, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, Siberia and then down the Eastern Asian coastline.

The above graphic isn’t the exact flight path, but it is pretty close to what we actually did. I wasn’t aware of this at the time, but found out after inquiring that it has to do with the curvature and rotation of the earth. Interesting stuff.

The plane touched down a little after 6:30 am and the deboarding process went quickly. Making it through immigration was a non-event as they have a pretty efficient process in place to minimize everyone’s wait. The final hurdle that I had to clear was claiming my luggage and finding the car that would take me to the hotel. I should have known that something was bound to go wrong since everything had been going so smoothly. I tried to find my bag on the luggage carosel, but after 10-minutes of fruitless searching, I came up empty handed. I even had extra help as the COO for the Association that I work for was on the same flight and was searching along with me.

I approached the Singapore Air luggage desk and they told me that it was likely still in San Francisco probably because U.S. Air never indicated that it had to continue on with me to Hong Kong.

Not a good way to start a trip to a city you have never been to before and that is literally thousands of miles away from home. Despite my frustration, the airline did step-up and gave me 450 HKD (approximately $58.00 U.S.) to help me pick up some basics (toiletries, etc.). It should help a bit, but I just hope it arrives on the next flight in because I didn’t pack much in my carry-on luggage.

With every negative there is always a positive to counteract it. In this scenario was the fact that the hotel had a car waiting for me (a super-nice Mercedes) and they made sure that the ride to Hong Kong Island was very enjoyable. As an added bonus, I got to have an enjoyable conversation with my COO and got to know him a bit better. From what I could observe on the ride between the airport and hotel, Hong Kong looks like a fascinating place and I can’t wait to get out and do some exploring. The hotel we are staying at - the Grand Hyatt - is nothing short of phenomenal and I was treated like a international dignitary from the moment I got out of the car. In fact, I had two people assigned to me to carry my luggage and take me to my room. They also inquired about any additional needs and I explained my luggage issue. My assigned Concierge took it as a personal assignment to track down my luggage.

Considering it is still early, this day has been a roller coaster. Hopefully, I will be able to find some balance between good and bad, and just be able to enjoy the remainder of my time in HK. More to come…