In which I set foot on continent #4, at least technically.

My flight arrived an hour early, so my shuttle service has not yet opened.

My body clock thinks it's early afternoon on Thursday, rather than the wee hours of the AM on Friday, so I'm feeling pretty good.

Thanks to the seatfinder website that gives per-airline breakdown of good, bad, and indifferent airline seats, I had a window seat toward the back of the plane that had about a foot and a half of room between me and the wall. After takeoff, I could move my baggage into that space, pull up the armrest, and curl up like I was in a proper armchair. I slept a good 9-10 hours of the 13+ hour flight, partially thanks to the wonders of modern psychopharmacology.

I imagine that I would have slept longer had it not been for the extreme.... bounciness of the ride. I'm not going to call it turbulence, exactly, but those big planes really do feel BIG... like your side might not necessarily have the relationship to the other side that it really ought. The wing spans are also seriously awe-inducing, even in comparison to regular big cross-continental planes.

Flying into HK airport in the pre-sunrise mist, I had a definite sense of being Somewhere Else. While distinctly lovely, with tall gleaming towers rising among mist-shrouded hills and lagoons, it was more unlike any other landscape I've flown over/into, from an urban standpoint. Wild spaces look alien more easily, so it was fascinating to feel like my initial response to Africa ("eh, Harare just looks like Hollywood... same weather, even,") was not likely to be reproduced. That, of course, was pre-monkey herds. And, also, a few years pre-Mugabean meltdown. At least in the murky wee hours, Hong Kong resembled one of the fantastic cityscapes that are George Lucas's real imaginative talent of late.

So, to procure free use of this internet terminal, I've bought my first experimental drink... guava lemon juice. Nice packaging. We'll see if it's as yummy as it seems it should be. Plus, I have to take advantage of these things before I hit the mainland.