Photos by MJ Klein, with some FOOD PHOTOS
Part of the 2010 USA Trip Series
Hui-chen and I headed back to the US recently to visit our family there. We went a bit later in the year than we have in the past, so our flights were different. Also, Delta has merged with Northwest and so the trip routing was different as well. By the way, if you haven’t seen the series on our 2008 trip, you may find the first installment here.
Last time we left Taiwan and went through Japan and then onto the USA. This time, we went in the opposite direction: Hong Kong.
Upon our arrival in Hong Kong, we found that our flight was delayed for four hours and the monitors had an “estimated” time of departure. What we aren’t showing you is the grueling wait we had in line at the Delta counter to get our boarding passes for this flight. We had taken a non-Delta flight to get to HK and now we had to wait in line to get our boarding passes for the USA flight.
Hui-chen and I love Hong Kong, and we’ve been there many times before. But we were stuck in the airport with not much to do. Not enough time to venture into the city and too much time to just hang around – it wasn’t going to be fun. We headed upstairs to the food courts and got some cookies and other stuff to eat.
There is one good aspect of being in the Hong Kong airport though:
Shopping! Hui-chen and I like to shop in duty-free airports.
Checking out the Coach stuff is a ritual with us by now. Little did I know that we would be visiting a Coach outlet in the States on our trip.
As usual, the Hong Kong airport was shrouded in mist and the big city couldn’t be seen.
What I like about the Hong Kong airport is that it has two levels and has a very open feeling. There are lots of shops and restaurants on the second level and we went to find something to eat.
Not usually my style but we dropped into a sports bar that had pretty good fare. This is an appetizer sampler that we tried. It was just enough to tide us over until our flight.
Going through Hong Kong is the wrong way to head towards the USA, which is literally in the other direction, towards Japan. During our flight – something like 10 hours after we left Taiwan- I checked the moving map to see where we were, and our plane was just flying over Taiwan on it’s way towards Detroit! After all that, we were right back where we started from!
In keeping with some reader suggestions of a little teaser photo from the next article in the series, I present this one to you:
We bought a wood smoker while in the US and put it to good use smoking (for the most part) pork ribs.
Former field engineer MJ Klein now lives in Taiwan, and writes articles that primarily feature photographs of travels of MJ and wife Hui-chen, plus daily goings on in the bustling island nation of Taiwan, and other places in Asia. Articles feature people, culture, food, situations and sometimes the trials and tribulations of traveling in places such as China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Laos and of course Taiwan.
