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February 24, 2006
Going home
My last evening in Hong Kong, and South East Asia for that matter, was spent checking out of the hotel and enjoying a long dinner with my friend Alice on the Kowloon waterfront. (I had a vegetable curry with, strangely, fruits in it like grapes and pineapple. Alice had a veggie pizza.)
After dinner it was time for me to head for the airport and I caught the A21 bus for HKD36. It was a double-decker and I scored the top front right bench. It was only then that the “I am leaving” feeling set it. It was mildly surreal. 
Once arriving at the airport with plenty of time to spare for my Swiss International Airlines 00:05AM flight LX139, I headed for the business class check-in desk. On presenting my upgraded economy ticket, the check-in clerk informs me that my ticket is for yesterday’s flight. Because I had changed the flight after buying the tickets, they put a little sticker on the ticket and did not issue a new ticket. So the ticket was a little bit ambiguous and I misread it. Stunned, I asked her what was going to happen next. First she said I had to pay a rebooking fee and then “Well, the flight is pretty full so we probably you probably will have an economy seat.” I took my glasses off, stared at my passport and sunk into a deep depression. This is costing me money, I’ve lost the business class upgrade, and might not even be able to reclaim the miles spent on it. I put my Travel Club Gold card down on the check in desk and asked her to do her best. She went over to the manager and told me that I was on the flight and on priority standby for a business class seat. I thanked her and headed for immigration and the terminal.
I was pretty much convinced cattle-class was my fate for the 13-hour flight. Twice I asked at the check in desk how things looked and they informed me that they were reorganizing the now full flight and that we would know once the passengers actually boarded the aircraft. 
Thirty minutes later when boarding began, the attendant put my boarding pass into one of those little ticket machines, but it spit my ticket back out and she gave me a new boarding pass—seat 4k. Business class, baby! I nearly did an American football touchdown dance on the spot.
The flight was pretty comfortable and I slept a good eight hours, read some, and watched a movie about an intern doctor in a San Francisco hospital (Reece Witherspoon) who was in a coma because of a car accident. Total “chick flick” but I was really into it and actually teared up and sniffed a bunch. Nobody seemed to notice in the noisy, dark aircraft thankfully.
The newish Airbus 340-300 landed about 6AM, I breezed through immigration and customs and was met by my friend Nina who’s been watering my plants. Very nice of her. Once home I jumped straight into my initial day back in town. First things first: grocery shopping. Second, register with the Swiss unemployment bureau (RAV). Third, start the process of going through five months of paperwork. Ouch. Fourth, make some calls and write some emails to meet up with my Zürich friends.
I am home now, although it doesn’t feel like home as it did before leaving. There are lots of little story snippets that will make the blog in the coming weeks, post mortem analysis of my trip, etc. So keep on visiting for a while.
Posted by stu at February 24, 2006 12:20 PM