Phone rang at 7:40 - even though I had it on silent, the buzzing woke me up, but not in time to get to it. Then I went to breakfast, and left it in my room, and it was rung then, and then it went when I was in the shower. Annoying.
Talked to Ross and Lachy – both were of the opinion I had done a great job up here, so that’s really good, as they both really know.
Packed and got down to the lobby in plenty of time – discovered I had to pay for the internet access – I’ll claim it back, but I thought it’d get charged to the room. Not so.
Got on the tour bus to go to the airport. Just like being Bon Jovi, really.
Plenty of places to live, mate!
Lovely aesthetics on the freeways
Giant metal butterflies
Got out to the airport and was assured that there was no way I was going to get on the same flight as the boys, as the plane had been downgraded and was smaller.
The boys went through to the departure lounge and I got left out in the main area with their Taiwanese groupies. I had about 7 of them following me around for about an hour, like I was the Pied Piper or something. The obligatory photos were taken, and posters signed. I don’t have a number, so I sign them “The Juice (then under that) #MM” for media manager. Learned that from the physio, who uses “PT”. Gotta laugh.
So I hung around the check-in counter for Dragon Air in the hope that I’d get on the same flight as the boys. Not much hope, but I passed the time talking to the most intelligent of the groupies who clearly wanted to practice her English, which was fine by me – learning a language as stupid as English is hard work, and the best way to practice is with a native speaker.
Anyway, 2:00 comes and goes, 2:10 comes and goes: 2:20 comes and goes: I’m sure I’m not going to make it.
Then it happens – they point to my luggage, I grab it, they take it, I get a boarding pass. Second-last person on the plane. Oh yeah.
Nowhere near the guys, but who cares?
We get to Hong Kong and spend forever at the ticket counter for Qantas, trying to get the talls into exit rows or bulkheads. No promises, but they’ll try.
Fish, Connor, Tinkerbell and I head off into Hong Kong. (The rest of the boys just stayed at the airport for the seven hours.)
Tinker and Fish on the super-duper train into HK.
Fish checking his phone. On the entire trip, I reckon he did this, on average, about every 14.7 seconds.
Don’t the apartments in HK look much nicer than in Taiwan?
The magic sign that tells you how far along yer journey you are. Fortunately I took 4 shots of it, as the other 3 were when the LEDs had blinked off. (To the naked eye they appear to be always on.)
We actually end up in some huge shopping mall thing, that I don’t discover has more than one story until kinda near when we’re due to meet back at the lifts. But I did get Cha a birthday present. Not what I was planning to get, but hey, you can’t have everything.
A mosaic…
Made of beads
I did find what I’d initially been looking for, in a shop on the top floor of this shopping complex, But it was all of about AU$15 less than at home, so what’s the point? It’d cost me that much to get an Australian adapter for it. I’ll get it for her another time.
What I did get was a watch. I know I said I got a watch in Taipei, but this one wasn’t AU$4 I was in this watch shop, having been lured there by Fish, who is a great watch connoisseur, and Connor, who wants to be one, I think. They had some there that were 60% off, and I’ve bought her one which is actually a pretty small watch, but it’s on a wide leather band that’s bright pink. Will be interesting to see if she wears it or not. But she’s always breaking the bands on watches, and I reckon this one won’t suffer that fate. But it’ll be interesting to see if she wears it given that it’s such a girly colour.
The train to the destination and back to the airport was pretty cool. Not a bullet train, but still pretty fast. You go onto the platform, which is just a glass wall and when the train turns up, doors open in the glass allow you to get on. Nice.
I wish I’d found the KFC there earlier at the shopping mall, but I didn’t, oh well. So I had some Popeye’s chicken at the airport, with Cajun fries and a medium Coke. It was the worst “Chicken Sandwich” I’ve ever eaten, and I’d forgotten how much I hate post-mix Coke. Awful.
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August 20 (Sunday)
Phone rang at 7:40 - even though I had it on silent, the buzzing woke me up, but not in time to get to it. Then I went to breakfast, and left it in my room, and it was rung then, and then it went when I was in the shower. Annoying.
Talked to Ross and Lachy – both were of the opinion I had done a great job up here, so that’s really good, as they both really know.
Packed and got down to the lobby in plenty of time – discovered I had to pay for the internet access – I’ll claim it back, but I thought it’d get charged to the room. Not so.
Got on the tour bus to go to the airport. Just like being Bon Jovi, really.
Plenty of places to live, mate!
Lovely aesthetics on the freeways
Giant metal butterflies
Got out to the airport and was assured that there was no way I was going to get on the same flight as the boys, as the plane had been downgraded and was smaller.
The boys went through to the departure lounge and I got left out in the main area with their Taiwanese groupies. I had about 7 of them following me around for about an hour, like I was the Pied Piper or something. The obligatory photos were taken, and posters signed. I don’t have a number, so I sign them “The Juice (then under that) #MM” for media manager. Learned that from the physio, who uses “PT”. Gotta laugh.
So I hung around the check-in counter for Dragon Air in the hope that I’d get on the same flight as the boys. Not much hope, but I passed the time talking to the most intelligent of the groupies who clearly wanted to practice her English, which was fine by me – learning a language as stupid as English is hard work, and the best way to practice is with a native speaker.
Anyway, 2:00 comes and goes, 2:10 comes and goes: 2:20 comes and goes: I’m sure I’m not going to make it.
Then it happens – they point to my luggage, I grab it, they take it, I get a boarding pass. Second-last person on the plane. Oh yeah.
Nowhere near the guys, but who cares?
We get to Hong Kong and spend forever at the ticket counter for Qantas, trying to get the talls into exit rows or bulkheads. No promises, but they’ll try.
Fish, Connor, Tinkerbell and I head off into Hong Kong. (The rest of the boys just stayed at the airport for the seven hours.)
Tinker and Fish on the super-duper train into HK.
Fish checking his phone. On the entire trip, I reckon he did this, on average, about every 14.7 seconds.
Don’t the apartments in HK look much nicer than in Taiwan?
The magic sign that tells you how far along yer journey you are. Fortunately I took 4 shots of it, as the other 3 were when the LEDs had blinked off. (To the naked eye they appear to be always on.)
We actually end up in some huge shopping mall thing, that I don’t discover has more than one story until kinda near when we’re due to meet back at the lifts. But I did get Cha a birthday present. Not what I was planning to get, but hey, you can’t have everything.
A mosaic…
Made of beads
I did find what I’d initially been looking for, in a shop on the top floor of this shopping complex, But it was all of about AU$15 less than at home, so what’s the point? It’d cost me that much to get an Australian adapter for it. I’ll get it for her another time.
What I did get was a watch. I know I said I got a watch in Taipei, but this one wasn’t AU$4
I was in this watch shop, having been lured there by Fish, who is a great watch connoisseur, and Connor, who wants to be one, I think. They had some there that were 60% off, and I’ve bought her one which is actually a pretty small watch, but it’s on a wide leather band that’s bright pink. Will be interesting to see if she wears it or not. But she’s always breaking the bands on watches, and I reckon this one won’t suffer that fate. But it’ll be interesting to see if she wears it given that it’s such a girly colour.
The train to the destination and back to the airport was pretty cool. Not a bullet train, but still pretty fast. You go onto the platform, which is just a glass wall and when the train turns up, doors open in the glass allow you to get on. Nice.
I wish I’d found the KFC there earlier at the shopping mall, but I didn’t, oh well. So I had some Popeye’s chicken at the airport, with Cajun fries and a medium Coke. It was the worst “Chicken Sandwich” I’ve ever eaten, and I’d forgotten how much I hate post-mix Coke. Awful.
Website stories:
NONE
Radio stories:
Fish on Sportsfocus (ABC)