This trip is to support a second visit by Hope
International in their effort to develop Hong Kong as a support base. I won’t be reporting in detail the activities
during my visit, but will try to record aspects of the trip that may warrant my
doing so.
Saturday July 6.
Since I didn’t want to get in and start working the next day, I decided
to arrive a day earlier. There are
multiple decisions which taken individually is not significant but in total
could add up. First, the non-stop flight
from Newark to Hong Kong would have cost me about $300 additional, so I decided
to do the EWR-IAD-NRT-HKG route which would take about 24 hours
airport-to-airport. (My return itinerary
is HKG-NRT-SEA-EWR, same as my last one, only this time the connection times
are better.) The total scheduled flight
time is over 20 hours (non-stop is 15 1/2.)
Second, I had a phone call with Kin H last night that lasted from 10 pm
to around midnight, and I had not finished packing yet. Third, I decided to do the dishes late last
night, which meant I didn’t get to bed until 2:45 am this morning. Fourth, Joe and family are visiting this
week, and they won’t leave until late tonight.
I wouldn’t mind spending a bit more time with Emmie who is about to turn
6 months old. However, all that added up
to a hurried and tiring trip (of course I found out about this as I landed in
Hong Kong.)
With TSA pre-check it took less than five minutes to go
through security. This is the second
time I made use of the channel and I am starting to love it. The euphoria soon morphed into concern as our
plane had to wait for a crew arriving late from Pittsburgh. Instead of 10 am departure, we didn’t push
back until about 10:30 am. I had a 55
minute connection, at another IAD terminal.
So I was mentally calculating what alternatives I would have: fly back
to Newark and take the non-stop? Fly to
the west coast? Go a day later? And even I can make the connection, I would
be boarding late and have trouble finding overhead luggage space (I have usual
carryon pieces).
I am now in UA803 heading towards Tokyo, about 3 hours
into the flight. Turns out all the
concerns have so far been for naught. I
got upgraded on UA4885 EWR-IAD, which while not a big deal for a short flight
was nonetheless nice. The flight turned
out to take only about 50 minutes, and I collected my luggage at the gate at 11:30
am, as advertised in the schedule.
Terminal A, where 4885 landed, is a short distance away from Terminal C,
where 803 was to depart. If one could
walk it would take maybe two minutes.
Instead we had to walk past half of Terminal A, go down a couple of levels
to catch a train (shuttle), and then walk another half a terminal to get to
Gate C7, taking about 20 minutes. And I
am sure I did more walking than the straight shot. All this to plan for future expansion of
Dulles. It may make sense, but certainly
didn’t help my trying to get to my next flight.
Also, the whole experience reminds me of going through O’Hare and the
tunnel connecting the two major UA concourses.
Many UA gates are now so organized that you don’t have to
elbow your way to board when your priority is called. So I ended up walking straight onto the
plane, and most people had not boarded yet.
I had enough luggage space to use.
Even though the plane was a bit crowded, the middle seat is empty, which
is a great bonus. There are still 10
hours to go, though.
Due to favorable winds, our flight from Tokyo (UA79)
arrived an hour early. Tim was going to
pick me up at the Hong Kong terminal, but it ended up being more
straightforward for me to take a taxi to his house. Which I did, after getting something to eat,
and buying credit for a phone card.
I will be staying at his place except for Wednesday night
where I will be at the Harbour Grand in Hung Hom.
Monday July 8.
Went to CGST and met their Director of Strategic Development
Doreen. She has an interesting
story. After a career as a successful
banker and a consultant in the finance industry, she now works mainly as a
fundraiser for an institute whose board she used to chair.
Tuesday and Wednesday, July 9 and 10. Our first meeting was at 8:30 am at The Vine
in Wanchai. The church is located at a
historical theater that used to be “the” theater perhaps 100 years ago, but
then had fallen on hard times. Someone
bought the place and leased it to the church at a low rate for 15 years. The senior pastor we met was an insurance
executive who came from the UK and has been in Hong Kong for 26 years. We had meetings scheduled every two hours or
so, and ended the day with a debrief in the Café of the Sheraton Hotel. I left the house at 7:45 am, and didn’t get
back until 11 pm. Wednesday was slightly
better in that I left at 8:15 am and got done at about 10 pm. During these two days we met two pastors, two
law firms (one of which I didn’t go), several potential donors, a possible
candidate for a job in Hong Kong, and various other people. Josh and Chris were the Hope International
representative at all these meetings. We
also got to The Peak for an hour or so.
Hotel: Harbour Grand Hung Hom. I cashed in one of the Hotels.com free nights
as we had planned on a final internal meeting Thursday morning. Checking in a bit late in the evening, all
they could give me was a huge room with a harbor view, which I of course gladly
accepted.
Josh and Chris came up and we spent some time completing
our debrief of the meetings, and to get a sense of how things went. In my case the two days exceeded my
expectations. I was also impressed that
Hope managed to line up the level of support we got. We all agreed two days at this pace was about
all that we could take.
Thursday July 11.
Josh came by the hotel at 10:30 am or so and we had coffee (and
cheesecake for me). We said goodbye
after we got to the train station, with him heading to the airport and I
heading to lunch with Tim. I spent the
afternoon doing some light shopping: a camera and a couple of polo shirts from
Uni-Qlo. We had a simple dinner at
Tim’s, and a more substantial late night snack at Ho Hung Kee after he finished
his radio show.
