One thing that always amazes me at Hong Kong Airport is the variety of airlines that come here. Pretty much all Asian and Pacific airlines (including many from North America), as you’d expect, but also European airlines (British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa, etc.) and Middle Eastern airlines (Emirates, Saudi Arabian). Perhaps the only airlines that don’t use Hong Kong would be those from South America and Africa. I can’t see any from there at the moment, but that may just be the time of day or week.
Please tell me it isn’t so
4 04 2009I grab a bread roll and a small bowl of Minestrone soup at the Cathay Pacific lounge in Hong Kong… and spot the name of the butter! Then I see that it’s a US brand. Is that right???? I’ve seen plenty of ‘sus’ brand names from Asia that don’t translate well into English, but this one from the US was a surprise.
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Categories : Life stuff
Fabulous hotel
4 04 2009If ever you have to stay overnight in Hong Kong purely to catch a connecting flight and you only want a bed and a shower and not all the shopping etc. that HK has to offer, then seriously consider staying at the Novotel Citygate right near the airport.
I stayed there last night and it was fantastic. I just had a standard room (for around AU$150) but the fittings, furnishings etc. were top notch. The hotel was built about 3 years ago and boasted some things I’d never seen in a hotel (or a house) before. Like light switches that turned on and off the same way, which, when you think about it is pretty darned sensible. The switches looked like rocker switches, but they didn’t rock in two directions, just one. You touched the switch (a sort of metallic square) to turn the lights on — the switch returned to the same position, so you touched it again to turn them off. None of this ‘Do I flip the switch up (US) or down (Australia) to turn the lights on?’ So simple.
The storage was neat too — lots of little hidey holes everywhere. And there was this strange sculptural thing in the middle of the room — it housed the mini-bar, tea/coffee making facilities and the fridge. The bathroom was part of the room, but the toilet and shower were completely enclosed — in opaque bluish-green glass inside and out. You couldn’t see in or out, but it made for such a nice light! The desk had a hinged panel in the top that concealed the data cable ports and two power outlets, which presumably went through the leg of the desk into the floor as there were no cables/cords from the desk to the wall.
The bed was good too! And there’s a free shuttle every 15 minutes from the airport arrivals hall.
Part of room at Novotel Citygate Hotel, near Hong Kong Airport
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Categories : Travel
Methane on a plane
3 04 2009For some reason I’ve really noticed the odour of methane on this trip. I know people cannot control their gaseous emissions when they are asleep, but boy, every so often the smell would waft through the cabin. Not pleasant.
Oh, and the toasted Reuben sandwich — with sauerkraut — that Cathay Pacific served as a snack halfway through the flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong? It didn’t help…
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Categories : Life stuff
What’s with light switches in hotels?
2 04 2009The only annoyance in our room suite at The Westin Seattle was that a power outlet’s ability to work was reliant on a light switch being turned on! I’ve had this once before, in a cheap motel somewhere in the US, but it was the last thing I thought of when the power outlet next to the desk stopped working and thus stopped charging my laptop etc.
There were lots of power outlets and light switches in this suite, but for some reason the one near the desk was chosen as the one to be linked to the light switch near the main door — some 10+ feet away! Go figure. You had to turn on the light switch for the power outlet to work…
How did we find this out? After the first night, I realised my laptop’s power light wasn’t on and nor was the light on the power board. So I tried the power board in other outlets around the suite and it worked fine. It just didn’t work in the power outlet near the desk. The top outlet was connected to a power board that ran the router, desk lamp etc, so I couldn’t swap it out. Anyhow, I called maintenance and the very nice man said that probably at one stage a lamp was connected to that outlet that turned on when you came in the door and turned on the light switch (one of TWO) near the door. Well, the lamp is no longer there, and there are PLENTY of other lights in the room. So why are these things still connected. You’ve got to think that they get regular complaints about this, so how come they don’t fix it?
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Categories : Travel, USA
The Boardroom
2 04 2009I’m waiting in Alaska Airlines’ ‘Boardroom’, their club lounge, for my short flight to Vancouver which boards in about 40 minutes. Qantas Club members don’t have reciprocal rights with this lounge, but they do sell a US$30 day pass (and it took them a while to let me know about it after I’d exhausted all other possibilities!). As I was leaving within 2 hours, the girl kindly let me have a day pass for half price. But it included the usual stuff — free wireless, basic breakfast food and drink, etc. Oh, and they appear to have Aeron chairs (or similar) at all the workstations.
My flight to Vancouver is only 50 minutes or so, then I have a 5 hour wait for the flight to Hong Kong. Fortunately, Qantas has reciprocal rights with Cathay re: the lounges, so the wait shouldn’t be too arduous. The flight to Hong Kong is about 12-13 hours, I think. Whatever. I don’t arrive in HK until around 8pm Friday night (it’s Thursday morning now), and pretty much miss most of April 3 — it’s like it never existed for me (but then I got two March 25ths, so I guess I can’t complain 😉 )
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Categories : Travel, USA
It’s snowing… in Seattle… in April
2 04 2009
Snow falling in Seattle in April
And no, that’s not an April Fool’s Day joke! I went up to the room suite during the mid-morning break and saw snow flakes dropping past the window. Seriously. I then thought that maybe they were up this high (40+ floors), but at ground level they would be gone. Nope. When I got to the next session (on the 4th floor) the snow was still coming down. It doesn’t appear to be accumulating on the ground, so I expect it’s melting pretty much straight away.
And right now at 12:30pm it’s still coming down (though more lightly now).
But it IS snowing. In Seattle. In April. Sheesh.
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Categories : Travel, USA
Slept in Seattle
31 03 2009After my dose of food poisoning on Sunday night, I slept through the night last night, though the wind was howling around the building and the creakiness 40+ floors up was a bit scary.
Char and I went to dinner in the hotel (Coldwater Bar and Grill at The Westin) with Bonni G and Sharon B. We each had a FABULOUS meal that we ranted and raved about — I had the Alaskan King Salmon with a to-die-for lime fraiche sauce on the side. (Dinner menu)
I’d hate to have been a table anywhere near us — we were laughing heaps, sharing stories, and just having a great time without a drop of alcohol anywhere to be seen! It was a fun night, and it’s the first time I’ve met Sharon B. I knew her by reputation but I’m pretty sure we’ve never met before — she’s a hoot!
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Categories : Food & Wine, Life stuff
For Sue who likes pink
31 03 2009I mentioned in yesterday’s post that another friend loves pink, which is why I didn’t make the laptop bag for Char in pink!
So before I left for the US, I decided I’d better make something for Sue otherwise she’ll give me a hard time about ignoring her… Sue loves pink, so pink she’s getting (well, she should already have her gift now as I’m writing this a few days before I leave, but post-dating it for after I see her… confused?)
Here’s Sue’s gift — very pink coasters! (all nicely fabric protected too):
Pack of four coasters for Sue
All the coasters
Front and back of the coasters -- yes, the back is pink too!
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Categories : Quilts and fabric stuff
Sleepless in Seattle revisited
30 03 2009Was it something I ate? I haven’t slept more than a few minutes at a time all night. I’ve felt nauseous to the point of putting the trash can by the bed — just in case. Last night a group of us went to dinner at a seafood restaurant, so perhaps any of the crab cakes, potato and halibut soup, grilled halibut, or the assortment of desserts was to blame. Perhaps not too. Who knows? All I know is that I haven’t had much/any sleep and I have to do my presentation later today!
If I feel sleepy during the sessions today, do I consume more caffeine (Diet Coke) or come up to the room to grab an hour or so’s sleep?
In the meantime, I’ve taken two Tums to try to settle my stomach. BTW, it’s not nerves. I know how my body deals with ‘stage fright’ nerves — and it’s not like this.
Update: At least two other people at the table also were sick last night, and the organiser has called the restaurant to let them know. we think the common element was the crab cakes or the sauce that went with it, but there were some who ate the crab cakes and didn’t get sick. But there’s no other common element that we can figure out.
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Categories : Life stuff
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 