G & J away from home

Tuesday, 31 May 2016

Finally the big day arrived!  We were ready an hour early for those tricksy shuttle operators (who have been known to turn up 40 minutes before they were supposed to and so cause heightened levels of stress).  Of course us being so frighteningly efficient caused this particular shuttle driver to be perfectly on time - to the minute.

We had had a fairly quiet day; going out to visit Mad Hatter Books (and our queuing friends Jacoba, Helen, and Frank) then pretty much just fine tuning the packing and doing some last minute emails (Gary), cat business (Jane), and answering many farewell texts (Beth).

My final packing configuration came down to an 8.5kg checked bag, a 4.2kg cabin bag, and the clothes I would be wearing (this photo taken at home when the packing was finalised):

Final packing

At the airport we checked in as we belatedly realised that we didn't need to wait for Marianne as she would most likely (and was) checked right through to Hong Kong when she checked in for her Wellington to Auckland flight.  Here's Beth at the check in - again sporting a big smile:

Beth just after check in

We had a few hours before our flight left and found some comfortable seats that Gary and I usually walk right past:

Marianne & Beth

The flight got away pretty much on time (5 minutes to midnight) and we were all seated in the same cabin area.  Gary and I were lucky enough to have no third person in our set of three seats and Beth had a spare seat beside her.  I had chosen to pay extra for 'preferred seats' with more leg room - and what a difference it made.  Well worth the money for the three Air New Zealand legs of this trip and I must check if I can do the same with the Cathay Pacific leg, too.  Because of the extra space (I'm sure) and because the flight was leaving so late I actually managed to get some sleep - something pretty unusual for me.

During the times I was awake I discovered 'seat chat' where we could use the entertainment screen to chat to another entertainment screen on the plane.  After a little counting back I figured out Marianne and Beth's seat numbers and started a chat with Beth which ran intermittently all night:

Seat chat with Beth

Gary got less sleep than usual and had time to watch a couple of movies - including Kung Fu Panda.  (Excellent choice - and now he will understand my references to 'panda asthma'.)

Kung Fu Panda

I'll finish this post now and start with our arrival in Hong Kong on the 1st June.  (The Kung Fu Panda watching was probably 1st June, but that's neither here nor there!)

(I'm now going to change the blog time to local time which I seem to recall makes all the posts misbehave.  This is why I don't use the blog's dating and instead write the date in myself at the top of each post - but still they re-arrange themselves in ways I don't think I'll ever understand.)


Reading: Captain Wentworth's Wallflower (Jane)

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