The flight out to Hong Kong

As is always the way when one wants to travel somewhere from the Cayman Islands, options are limited at best. I found a frankly remarkable fare of $600 return from Los Angeles to Hong Kong on United Airlines, direct on the way out and coming through San Francisco on the way back. This was simply too good to turn down. So on a typical Cayman morning I caught the first flight out to Miami on American Airlines and after a six hour layover caught my next flight to Los Angeles, also on AA. I could write novels on the trials and tribulations of travelling through Miami International Airport (MIA), an institution so highly revered across the world that even Americans tend to avoid it at all costs. Never before have I seen such startling inefficiency and poor service in the US, although sadly I am now used to this level of courtesy from MIA's employees. Possibly the most shocking endibtment of MIA is how much better Los Angeles fared upon comparison. Eventually, after some 12 hours of travelling and sitting around, I arrived in Los Angeles (LAX), a step closer to my eventual destination.

I would be spending the night in Los Angeles since my next flight out, the United Airlines flight to Hong Kong, departed the next morning. My cousin and her husband live near Los Angeles and I would be staying with them so we met at the airport shortly after I arrived. We always have a really fun time, our ideas of a good evening are totally conjusive, consisting primarily of good food, copius amounts of alcohol and funny stories. I'd also been wanting to meet their dog for a long time, Meatball the Bulldog. Bulldogs being one of my favourite breeds, along with Pugs and Chihuahuas. No further comment on that last selection is needed. Here is a picture of the 'Ball, living the dream


After dinner at Fogo de Chao and several scotches, Gerrit and I cracked open the bottle of vintage rum I had brought with me and began an epic Guitar Hero battle, a mutual passion at the time. I usually don't sleep at all before a long flight, I have such a terrible time getting to sleep on the best of days it is nigh on impossible for me to enter the land of dreams on a flight without exhausting myself first. This policy yields varying results, from the sublime to the ridiculous. On one occassion I may sleep for all but an hour of the journey, on another I will sit there and try unsuccessfully for the best part of ten hours to drift off. It is impossible to predict.

I was seated in the middle of the plane, with an empty seat on my left. This is always a most welcome sight. The flight clocked in at approximately 15 hours, which is up there on my all time list of long flights. As long as it seems the time passed reasonable quickly. A sustained and determined policy of scotch, films and naps got me through this one. A special mention must go to my iPod Nano, which refused to die on me during this flight. It earned the technological Medal of Honour in my books