The Longest Flight EVER

I decided to call my blog "My Semester in Saigon" because I thought it sounded better using Saigon rather than Ho Chi Minh City, but the names are interchangeable anyway. One added challenge to posting in this is that my Google blog is now all in Vietnamese and I don't know how to put it in English. Fortunately I can use Google translate to figure out what all of the icons mean but it's definitely a pain in the ass...must figure out how to make it English.

The longest flight I had ever been on prior to this one was going to Italy and the longest leg of that flight was from Toronto to Paris and it was a mere 7 hours or so. Luckily, I think I was pretty prepared for the 15 1/2 hour flight from Chicago to Hong Kong. Unfortunately, it was made even longer because after we boarded we sat at the gate for over an hour because the cock pit break door was stuck shut - a minor malfunction but as the captain announced, the crew needed that room for breaks on the long flight. After that was finally repaired we started our fligha and were told there was a typhoon a couple hundred miles off the coast of Hong Kong. When I looked around no one seemed overly concerned about it so I decided I shouldn't be either. I watched about 5 movies, read a little, and slept a whole bunch. They fed us 3 horrible airplane meals and I had my first plane drink - Chardonnay (it was free!). While I originally thought it might be fun to have a few plane drinks, I decided I didn't want to ring flight attendants every half hour and then have the small Chinese girls next to me be subjected to a drunk girl in the middle seat.

One of the girls next to me was eating some Chinese snack of some sorts. I peaked over and read the English translation: "Sandwiched Codfish Jerky with Black Sesame". I wonder what that tastes like ... or do I?

So, after a super long and boring yet overall bearable flight, we got near Hong Kong and they told us we'd have to circle for another 45 minutes or so because of the storm. It wasn't below us but I think it was effecting traffic coming into the airport. So I got a bonus 2 hours on the plane. Luckyyyy.

The Hong Kong airport is huge. I guess after using the Bangor Airport a few times and then flying out of LaGuardia which was also pretty small, it seemed really big. It was super open and as one might expect, there were weird little Hello Kitty-esque designs all over everything. There was even an airline called "Eva Air" which has the whole Hello Kitty gang painted on the outside of the plane (which is awesome). My favorite part of the airport was these sweet, semi-hidden lounge chairs I discovered behind these plants. Since I had been crammed in a little seat for so long I took advantage of the opportunity to stretch out on the lounger.

I also decided I wanted to purchase some of the candy with the goofy packaging. I thought I was purchasing some Chinese candy but it turns out it was Japanese. Either way the candy is pretty gross.

When I arrived at my gate I met three people traveling together who had recently graduated from law school. They were talking to this Canadian guy who apparently had been to Vietnam a few times before and he was giving them some tips and suggestions. I eavesdropped on their conversation for a while until I decided to join the conversation. He was pretty helpful and also got me excited because he said he loved Ho Chi Minh City. The last flight was half empty, which was nice. No one was sitting in the middle seat next to me. One of the girls from earlier was in the aisle seat so we were able to chat most of the way. She was from New York but went to school in Montreal and then law school in New York again. She had never been to Vietnam but she did tell me how her and her friends were getting to Angkor Wat in a few days so that was pretty useful as I'd love to try and visit there.

Long story short, my last flight to Ho Chi Minh City was also delayed which left me rather paranoid that I was going to miss my ride from the airport. Luckily, the poor guy was still waiting for me. While he spoke zero English, he had a young girl with him who spoke some. It looked as if they had been waiting a while because they were not holding the sign up in the air but rather just sitting with it in their lap. I knew it was a circular sign as I was given very specific details about this sign (30cm in diameter circle with my name and the school's name on it) so I was able to spot it. They took me to my room which was a pretty long drive through Ho Chi Minh City and then woke up the security guard who came out shirtless, at first, because he had obviously just woken up (it was 3am at this point) and he showed me to my room on the top (fourth) floor of the building. So made it!

Here are a few not-so-exciting pictures from the journey: 

 Just saw this guy sleeping here at the Chicago airport and I thought it was funny...

 Sandwiched Codfish Jerky ... looks pretty

 

Glimpse of Hong Kong International Airport

 Sweet lounge chairs

 Weird Japanese candy.

I decided this was my traveling "gnome" ... a scary little ferret figurine. Jeff wanted to give me something random to take across the world and take pictures of - his idea was a figurine from Game of Thrones but he didn't actually get one so this little guy is my travel buddy. He doesn't have a name yet so post name suggestions pleeease ?