We are flying home

Ah the sweet taste of business class lounge wine, especially when one has sweet talked the lounge dragons at Cathay's Pier into letting you into their very nice lounge and not BA's crappy little one stuffed out by the cargo sheds.

The ash seems to have dissipated and all things being equal I should be back in dear old Blighty at 5am tomorrow in time for bacon butties and a shower in the arrivals lounge.

I even managed to wangle a front upstairs berth on the plane, so first dibs at the food and not getting disturbed by people going to the bog whilst you're at 38000 feet over Kazakhstan.

Only piddly thing is I keep doing such a good job pulling their arses out of the fire whilst I'm here that the project manager, over a couple of beers between work and airport tonight practically begged me to come over for three or four weeks.

Don't know how Mrs Dracunculus will take that.... oh shit hang on she reads this blog. I'm screwed!*



*(only joking Mrs D... we'll chat when you're back from the Land of the Pharaohs.)

Ashes... all is ashes

Better sodding not be. OK the situation is this: I need the 6pm BA flight to HKG to leave tonight as it will become the plane leaving tomorrow evening for home. Now just in case I have had the company travel people get me a backup plan which involves holding a reservation on an Air France flight to CDG in case Heathrow gets "ashed in" as it were.

But they can only hold the flight until close of business today, by which time I don't know if the planes have taken off yet.

So around midnight Hong Kong time I have to make a call to issue or cancel.

Who said international business travel was all comfy lounges and fully reclining seats.

(which is generally is by the way)

Playing with new toys

Well I didn't mean to get one but I seem to have ended up with an iPad. Let's just say that I went into an electronics store In Kowloon to get a camcorder and came out with Apple's latest must have gismo. My logic in this is that as it isn't available in the uk just yet and as I got it effectively vat free I can try it out and sell it when I get back and maybe even make a small profit.

Present indications are that on balance I might shove it on ebay sooner rather than later. Ok so the screen display is amazingly clear and safari is a pretty decent browser and the control interface is nice and slick but, well to be honest its nothing that special. As the app store won't let me sign up as I have the temerity to live in the UK you're stuck with what is basically a clever portable web browsing tablet. The screen based keyboard is ok enough for one finger typing blog posts and email but you would not want to do any serious writing on it and at 16gig you aren't going to be storing that much on it. Basically, what we have here is an overgrown itouch that you can't load apps onto.

Now where's my proper laptop, I need to log onto ebay

Moss?

We does not have it.

In fact it's rather a dull room really. Just another corporate hotel. However it's comfy, everything works and it has broadband (for 10 quid a day mind you, but the company is paying) and the shower is enormous.

As I mentioned earlier the hotel itself is in Kowloon, which is on the mainland opposite Hong Kong island. It's rather, different, this side of the water. Whereas HK Island is more upmarket, swanky boutiques, office skyscrapers and old colonial government buildings this side is a bit more edgy and probably the "real" Hong Kong. Slightly tatty apartment blocks, everything hemmed in, tiny streets, shops of every kind all mixed up from little tailors shops¹ and Chinese fast food joints to swanky bars, shops selling seriously high-end camera gear and a place that is basically a giant walk-in humidor selling Cuban cigars (we will be going back there on Monday for some Partagas No. 2 I think). I actually prefer it to the island side to be honest.

The only downside is the constant hassle I get as a gweilo from the touts... "Sir you want buy fake rolex", "Suit we sell cheap cheap!", "Lap dancy club sir, you come in now?", "Meester Dragon you want nice lady dragon? Wings go flap flap love you long time!"

I'm not entirely sure what the protocol is here. Do you just ignore them? Say you are not interested? Set them on fire?

I've been going for option number three so far but I just got a message from the Hong King Fire and Civil Defence people to please try the other options as they need to give their staff a break.






¹ Bespoke suits in silk/cashmere for $2200 (about 200 quid) with a spare pair of trousers thrown in ... I go to pick mine up tomorrow.

Kowloon 3am.

Been awake for the last hour as jet-lag plays funny tricks on my sleep patterns. However it was worth it to flip the lappy on and see that Gordon the Gorgon is gone.

Ding dong the witch is dead :-)

Now let's pack him off to The Hague and have him tried for war crimes.

My bags are packed, it's time to go.

"...'Cos I'm leaving, on a jet plane.
Because I'll be buggered if I'm going to fly all the way to China on my wings."

I'm only a little dragon.

Yes I'm off to Hong Kong again. This time courtesy of British Airways as they were 3 grand cheaper than Cathay. Currently tapping this sat in the lounge at Terminal 5 looking out over 09R which is currently in use for take-offs so I am in airplane geek heaven right now. In fact Cathay 002, my last transport to the far east, is just taxiing into position.

So far the "World's favourite airline" experience is quite acceptable. The lounge is nice, busy but not stupidly so, there's free food - I had a quite acceptable small plate of chicken tikka and now I'm in a cosy chair, slurping a very passable rioja, writing to you good people on the free wifi. You know I could get used to this!

Also due to having to fit this trip in around my holidays, other people holidays and (I swear I am not making this up) the Bhudda's Birthday I'm going to be in HK over the next weekend. I'm hoping to get some hiking done - 70% of HK is actually made up of nature reserves - and maybe go over the border into China proper for the day. However given the weather over there at the moment I'll probably end up trundling up and down Nathan Road doing some shopping and then getting piddled with the expats in Lan Chai Fong.

Anyway that's for the weekend. The current plan is:

1) Get tanked up on free booze at British Airways' expense.
2) Fall asleep on plane
3) ????
4) Profit!

PS: I'm staying in the Grand Hyatt in Kowloon which means I get to take the Star Ferry across the harbour which I think will probably make for a damned sight more interesting commute than the 7.23 to Liverpool Street.

PPS: Wonder if there will be moss?

Pony change

So it's goodbye Pebble and say a big hello to Hazel



15.2hh worth of what looks basically like an Exmoor that's been scaled up a factor of 2.

Don't worry about Pebble... she went back to the people we originally bought her off as a part-ex on Hazel and is probably being fussed to death my little pony-mad girls and having cutesy pink ribbons tied in her mane. Of course 3 years in the Grumpy household will have had an effect and she is probably trying to eat said pony-mad girls.