A Rough Start

Hello From Hong Kong!



Warning, some of the following might be considered too much information.

I wasn't completely sure if I was even going to make this destination. On Tuesday afternoon, 14 hours before takeoff, I started getting chills, fever and fatigue. Then I vomited in the car on the way home (lucky I had a a bag). See, I warned you. Just wait.

Some of you may know, I have an enlarged prostate. Over the weekend before the trip, I had a catheter to help empty the never ending bladder. I did warn you, didn't I (grin)? So Monday, it came out and all was well. Now go forward to Tuesday's madness, and I'm thinking, damn, do I have an infection from that thing. I called the doc, and he said probably just a GI thing going around, but to watch it. After having only broth, the fever went down Tuesday night and I was better, although already tired. I think throwing up the Wendy's burger made me feel better. I should have known better than to grab a quick lunch like that.

After all that, we finally head to the airport at 5 am Wednesday. Did I mention, my sister Lisa is on the trip too. We have different flights, me through San Francisco,  her through LA and Shanghai. I'm feeling better, but as we get to the airport, I get out and have some dry heaves. Yay! 18 hours of flying ahead and this. Surely, it will be ok after the  Pepto. I'll sleep on the smooth flights.

Tuesday, March 8, the entire western US experienced a Pacific front and Austin had massive thunderstorms. The thunder didn't help sleep with a 4 am wake up call. But that front gave every flight going west very strong turbulence. We were bouncing around for 45 minutes. I wonder what happens if you have an upset stomach and have rough turbulence. Ok, don't worry, I actually had no issues and was a able eat meals on each flight. Even the flight to HK was getting bounced around, but I slept most of the way, even though we started 45 minutes late. It's a little disconcerting when the pilot says, "we're having an issue with the fuel pump." Luckily it was minor and really an indicator problem.

Apparently, the planes Lisa was on had much more violent turbulence. People behind her were praying the whole way to LA.  She thought she was next to get sick. Then both flights from LA to Shanghai and Shanghai to Hong Kong were delayed at least an hour. Instead of taking the airport shuttle, whose last depart time is 10:45, we take the Airport Express train to Kowloon, then taxi to Hotel Panorama. Except the taxi diver doesn't know the hotel and doesn't even know the address when I gave it to him. Then he says he knows it. We get to a hotel, not named Hotel Panorama. But people are very helpful here and the hotel clerk writes our hotel name in Chinese characters on a card. 

We'll keep this the whole time here. We finally get to the right hotel and after a rough start, we have this view, towards Hong Kong Island, a harbour view.

It's now Friday morning in Hong Kong, and we have sightseeing, eating, and shopping to do. We'll report back in a few days, I think. 

Peace!