The trip to the new Hong Kong Airport (new since I was here, anyway) was pretty straightforward. The Airport Express terminal in Central lets you check your bags & pick up your tickets, then hop a 23-minute train to the airport, where you simply clear security & immigration and leave. At least in principle. The remote computer terminal went down while we were checking our bags: all but Chris’ got tagged. We had to tote his to the airport, but it only took a couple minutes to get the last bag checked there. The boys & Judy stopped for a snack at Burger King, then we hopped on the plane.
It was almost 4 hours from Hong Kong to Narita/Tokyo, and we discovered that our last meal at Whampoa was the first & only one over our 3 ½ weeks in China to make all (except Chris) sick. So the trip home was a bathroom relay. By the time we got back to Virginia, I figure we must’ve hit the loo in 8-10 time zones over 24 hours. Not the most fun way to travel, but thank God it was on a plane instead of one of our 6-hour bus rides!
At Narita, I first encountered an invention that returns bathroom supremacy to the Japanese, a position they ceded with the invention of the western “throne” while retaining their curious attachment (like the Chinese) to “squatters.” The Japanese have leap-frogged us technologically with the invention of a toilet, which – how do I put this delicately? – cleans you up when you’re done with a blast of water. They had one in the bathroom at Narita, and while I’d heard about these, I’d never seen one. An arm rest had a touchpad with buttons to control water temperature & velocity, as well as a special button promising extra powerful odor control. I was intrigued, but in the end chickened out. What if I set the pressure too high and it blew me off the seat? I could just imagine a geyser erupting over the stall wall, with me emerging, drenched, moments later. Or what if the water temperature was set too high? With 24 hours of flying ahead, one doesn’t want a scalded derriere. You can’t be too careful about these things. Anyway, I can’t report on the efficacy of this device, but it sure LOOKED impressive.
The leg from Narita to LA was long, cold, and not helped by being a little green in the gills. But we got to the U.S. OK, had no trouble getting through Customs (though later found that a lot of our fragile stuff was destroyed), and not only made all our connections but arrived in Detroit and Richmond early. Does that ever happen anymore? We were picked up by Jeanine Hinz & were home in our own soft beds not long after midnight. Home sweet home!
It was almost 4 hours from Hong Kong to Narita/Tokyo, and we discovered that our last meal at Whampoa was the first & only one over our 3 ½ weeks in China to make all (except Chris) sick. So the trip home was a bathroom relay. By the time we got back to Virginia, I figure we must’ve hit the loo in 8-10 time zones over 24 hours. Not the most fun way to travel, but thank God it was on a plane instead of one of our 6-hour bus rides!
At Narita, I first encountered an invention that returns bathroom supremacy to the Japanese, a position they ceded with the invention of the western “throne” while retaining their curious attachment (like the Chinese) to “squatters.” The Japanese have leap-frogged us technologically with the invention of a toilet, which – how do I put this delicately? – cleans you up when you’re done with a blast of water. They had one in the bathroom at Narita, and while I’d heard about these, I’d never seen one. An arm rest had a touchpad with buttons to control water temperature & velocity, as well as a special button promising extra powerful odor control. I was intrigued, but in the end chickened out. What if I set the pressure too high and it blew me off the seat? I could just imagine a geyser erupting over the stall wall, with me emerging, drenched, moments later. Or what if the water temperature was set too high? With 24 hours of flying ahead, one doesn’t want a scalded derriere. You can’t be too careful about these things. Anyway, I can’t report on the efficacy of this device, but it sure LOOKED impressive.
The leg from Narita to LA was long, cold, and not helped by being a little green in the gills. But we got to the U.S. OK, had no trouble getting through Customs (though later found that a lot of our fragile stuff was destroyed), and not only made all our connections but arrived in Detroit and Richmond early. Does that ever happen anymore? We were picked up by Jeanine Hinz & were home in our own soft beds not long after midnight. Home sweet home!
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