Hong Kong & Vietnam -- Feb 2015: Hotel in HK to HK Airport on Tuesday, February 10, 2015

It’s Tuesday. At least, that’s what the computer says, and at this point we have to rely on that because the days and dates have kind of gotten mixed up without the normal things to keep the rhythm going.

At bedtime, I plug in my headphones to listen to WFAE online – and it’s just starting up with Morning Edition. Things are kinda backwards.

That’s OK, though. We needed today to pack and regroup in anticipation of our travel to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon).

Much like putting away Christmas decorations, when packing to go from one location to the next it’s sometimes difficult to get all that stuff back in the same package you know it just came out of. It takes a little time. And magic words, sometimes.

So after breakfast we started the process and for the most part managed to get it all in.

Going to the airport was actually very easy. We’d been told to take a taxi to the “Air Train”, and then ride it to the airport. It was a lot faster than the trip in had been by car, but we also didn't want to be jet-lagged and trying to figure out how the hell to get into Hong Kong in the dark. Riding in a car was undoubtedly the easiest solution there.

The train was nice, though. Clean and quiet, it made 3 stops along the way. The only confusion we had was whether we were to go to Terminal 1 or 2 at the airport – we didn’t have a gate assigned and our tickets didn’t seem to say. To decide, you got out either on the left or right side of the train.

Finally, we figured that the worst that could happen is that you get back on and walk through the next train that stopped to the other side if you guessed wrong. We opted for Terminal 1 and got lucky.

Security was about like everywhere else, except you didn’t have to take your shoes off. It didn’t look like others were pulling liquids out, although everyone dragged out computers, took off their jackets, belts, etc. to go through. I had the majority of the cords, plugs, extra batteries, etc. in my backpack, so I got picked for extra screening.

It wasn’t a big deal – we pack in “pods” – these great zippered pouches from e-bags – and the guy just pulled out one with shirts, one with cords and one with toiletries and ran them through again. The worst part was trying to get it all back in the pack after that.

After you got through their version of TSA you went through immigration where they looked at your passport and ticket and took back the little form you initially filled out.

We were plenty early, having vouchers to the business class lounge, so we found one (of the several available) and parked ourselves for a while. At first, it didn’t make sense that it was so crowded – usually these are pretty empty and quiet places but this one is quite full.

Then it hit us that we are traveling the equivalent of the week before Christmas. Of course there are lots of kids and grandparents, along with the usual mix of business travelers.

It’s still very nice and there are more than enough places to sit, along with an assortment of things to eat and drink. EB went exploring and found a coffee bar way at the back, and someone across the way came back and told his group about a restaurant where you could actually order off in another direction (as opposed to the sandwich and nibbles buffet that was right out front).

A couple of hours to relax, check email and get ready before our 4ish flight, which will last a couple of hours. The saved miles done us right again – we are in business class (there’s no 1^st class on this flight), so we’ll have a bit of space.