International Travel, Part 2

The journey continues!

After a restful night in Anchorage we congregated back at the airport at 9:00am Saturday morning. The gate agents were very friendly and said all was well for a noon departure. We cleared through security starting at 10:00am and were positioned at the gate waiting for boarding... and we waited. Finally one of the gate agents announced that two parts on the plane had gone wrong and that both replacements had arrived... the bad news – one of the parts wasn’t the right one. The new replacement part was in transit from Seattle and was expected at the airport at noon. At 1:15pm, and that it would take about 30 mins to install and we will be boarding and on our way... almost. The part was indeed the right one but it took them a little longer than expected to install and then the boarding process was a tad slow... it seems they don’t get fully loaded 747’s on a regular basis. We finally got airborne about 4:00pm – smooth sailing to Hong Kong. I’m amazed at how well everyone took all of the delays, queuing for this and that, etc. Not one person got upset that I saw. Most of us just chuckled as the events unfolded.

The people I met in Anchorage were so friendly and the scenery this morning was spectacular. There’s a long ridge of snow-capped mountains to the north of the city. I’m not sure the photo I took will do them justice. I’ll post it here just in case.

Great flight to Hong Kong and although we were late arriving we all made our connection to Singapore. I literally walked off one plane, two gates down the terminal, and onto the Singapore flight. This one left right on time and we had a magnificent view of Hong Kong at night out the window. It’s an amazing sight. And Singapore at night wasn’t too shabby when we came in to land either.

Got to Singapore at midnight and I’m now waiting for my next leg tomorrow morning to Medan, Indonesia. There’s free wifi all over the airport so I’m happy.

I’m rich! I just exchanged US$100 and received Indonesian Rupiah 1,008,000 – I’m a millionaire! Bet it goes quick... :-)

And, I just realized, I’m definitely back in Asia – it’s not all of the Asian people – it’s the non-stop Kenny G that’s piped through the speakers at the airports!! He must be independently wealthy just on the airport and hotel royalties alone. The current tune is “Danny Boy” – not one of my favorites!! :-)