You know how I said previously that the French people had been a delight and that the stereotype of them being rude wasn’t true? Weeeeeeeell, you get rude people in every culture and we ran into one on the flight from Paris to Hong Kong.
The flight to Hong Kong was… uh… not great. I’m now rather puzzled as to why people rave about Cathay Pacific. My experience was the exact opposite. It didn’t start well. When we got on the plane, there was absolutely no room left in the overhead locker because people had gone crazy with the duty free shopping. Which, of course, you have to take on the plane with you. Then the guy in the aisle seat in our bit of row was most indignant when we indicated those two empty seats next to him were ours. He begrudgingly got up to let up get in. The air conditioning on the plane was incredibly noisy so it was impossible to hear any of the cabin announcements except, interestingly enough, the captain’s and the ones in French. The seats were weird. Instead of reclining like normal airline seats, the seat padding moved. Which was totally useless for me because it left an enormous and uncomfortable gap between the back bit and the base. I could only recline a little bit which wasn’t conducive to sleep at all.
For the first time ever, I felt totally ignored by the hosties. One came through with what turned out to be entry paperwork for Hong Kong – which we needed – but he zoomed right past us and we couldn’t actually hear what he was saying because of the A/C. Later in the flight, the hosties came through the cabin with water but I missed out because I couldn’t get their attention, even though it was obvious I was awake and reading. So I ended up with a massive headache because I was dehydrated.
But what takes the cake was the odious man in the row with us. He wedged himself into that seat and he wasn’t moving for hell or high water. I only got up twice but each time I did, he gave me the evil eye and then wouldn’t get out of his seat. We both had to climb over him. I’ve never had that happen before and it was disturbing. Personally I think he was hoping I’d stumble and end up in his lap. Eugh!!! *shudders* He was my first rude French person but at least it was on the plane on the way out.
All in all, it was an awful flight. I definitely won’t be in any rush to fly with Cathay Pacific again.
So yes, Hong Kong. The humidity has turned out to be too much for me and we’ve spent our two days here in the hotel, enjoying the air conditioning. I can deal with hot weather. After all, I grew up in country Victoria where the summers are blazingly hot and a cool change is when it dropped a couple of degrees from 39°C to 35°C. But I can’t deal with humidity at all. I hate the sensation of being sweaty and clammy all the time. I hate that it takes so much effort to move around. We went for a walk yesterday morning but I just couldn’t hack it. The whole time we were out I just wanted to go back to the hotel and read my book (I’ve joined The Games of Thrones bandwagon and have already gotten through the first book and well into the second one).
The hotel is pretty awesome though. I decided that we should go five star for our final hotel stay so we’re at the Regal Hong Kong Hotel in Causeway Bay. And we’re on the 33rd floor in a room that faces out towards the mountains, which are rather close.
This is about half of what we can see out our window.
To be honest, I’m kinda glad that we’re heading home. We’ve spent a lot of time in airports and on planes which sounds so much more fun than what it actually is. Reality is, airplanes are boring places to be. Don’t get me wrong – I love to travel but I really wish teleportation was a reality.
