As I start this blog, I want to dedicate it to my dear friend Nancy Warren who recently passed away from a very brief, but deadly cancer. She and her husband, TM Sell were avid world travelers and she began sending updates on their travels a few years ago.   Because I loved reading her travelogues, I started doing it for my family, just to keep them updated on where I was and anything fun that I encountered.   I know that Nancy and TM did South Asia a few years ago, and she would have loved to hear my experiences. So, Nancy…I will raise a beer (she always had to have a beer in every destination) in your memory.

Happy Christmas Eve!! Well here we are in Hong Kong where it is 10p December 24th, After two planes and already 19 hours in the air, we have lost an entire day. We left Newark at 3:45p on Dec 23 and landed a day later.  

We still have one more flight to go, but at least we are getting closer! In Newark, we only had time to walk from gate 90 to gate 121, which sounded fairly close, but ended up being the farthest away from where we were. When we got to the gate, Group 1 had already boarded, so we walked right on and found 10A and 10B where we would be for the next 16 hours. 

After having some nice salmon with lump crab, great wine, cheese and watching a couple of movies it was time for some sleep.   Since we had such a long time, we both took a sleeping aid, laid our seats flat and snuggled up with our duvets and pillows.   I feel asleep quite quickly, but Ken took more time and finally fell into a fitful sleep.   We both were awakened by dishes rattling and saw they were serving a snack. Neither of us were interested, so went back to sleep.

With 2 hours left, the cabin lights came on and it was time for breakfast. We unbelievably slept about 10 hours. Not bad for being 37,000 feet in the air and in an airplane bed.  It is nice to have some different food choices on the international flights. For breakfast, in addition to a swiss cheese omelet and cereal, there was Congee (traditional Chinese rice porridge) with sweet potatoes, mushrooms and pork. While Ken went for the cereal, I had to try the Congee, which was quite good!

We are now sitting in the nicest United Lounge I have been in yet.    Lots of cool food (sushi, spring rolls, edamame, and I am assuming in honor of Christmas Eve, turkey and potatoes. All of the airline lounges are on the upper level and Ken swears he saw Kanye West in the hallway leading up to the lounge, gossip columns say he is in Paris, but you never know. 

We have two hours before our flight Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), luckily it is relatively short (2 hours) but land at 130am. We figure out bodies will be totally screwed up in time by then!!

Merry Christmas!!