Day-02: Where Did The Day Go?

Date: Monday, February 3, 2014

Beginning Location: Over the Arctic Ocean
Interim Location: Hong Kong
Final Location: Off the southern coast of Vietnam

This was one of those "date line" jump days; by simply crossing an imaginary line you're instantaneously 24 hours older.

To catch up, here's a summary of Sunday's events occurring after yesterday's blog post.

Two of Us with Good Seats

Here's to a Long Flight

• Departure from Chicago was on time just after 1300 (CT US)
• At takeoff we had 7,779 miles to go en-route to Hong Kong with an estimated flight time of 15 hours and 10 minutes.
• Today's route was to be a high polar great circle route.
• Soon after takeoff, just south of Oshkosh, Wisconsin as we climbed through the east bound jet stream at about 24,000 feet, the ride was very bumpy, to the point that the flight crew took seats for about ten minutes but at 30,000 feet the ride softened and the seat belt light was out as we soared over Green Bay.
• At 1415 (CT US) we crossed into Canadian airspace ESE of Thunder Bay, Ontario having traveled about 420 miles.
• At 1518 (CT US) we began our crossing of Hudson Bay, which took about an hour.
• For the next nine hours we gradually made the turn from our north heading toward the west following our great circle route to Hong Kong.

As expected the flight services have been great. Food and drinks at every turn it seems. For lunch we had Cheese & Piquillo Pepper Spring Rolls and Coconut Chicken Skewers as appetizers, followed by a soup course consisting of Red Rock Seafood Bisque. Sheila had to bypass the bisque as it was made with lobster and a variety of other shellfish. A fresh and colorful Mixed Green Salad, perhaps the healthiest thing we would eat preceded the lunch entrée servings. Today’s options included Beef Tenderloin, Fillet of Salmon, Fillet of Cod or Stir-fried Noodles (aka no meat). We both had the salmon served on a bed of rice, bell peppers and baby bok choy drizzled with a sweet and sour sauce. Cheese plates and ice cream sundaes finished the lunch but here I actually drew my line in the sand, no cheese and no ice cream, at least for now.

Sheila was in "movie-heaven" having in one-sitting watched:

• Captain Phillips

• Blue Jasmine

• Enough Said

• Gravity

Four movies in that time span would be confusing for me. If I read the summaries correctly, the storyline of the combined movies was about a New York City socialite becoming an Indian Ocean merchant ship pirate being reborn as a masseuse hired by NASA to repair a wayward space shuttle.

As for me, it’s been puzzles, music and writing this blog page all while watching the graphical image of our route track across the northern reaches of the globe.

Must admit, both of us did get a few hours of sleep as the convertible seats were relatively comfortable.

Back to Monday, February 3, 2014

With a time zone correction we have now transitioned from Sunday to Monday; we're cruising at 36,000 feet, climbing as fuel burn-off allows. At 8 hours into the Chicago to Singapore flight, we're still 7 hours from our stop in Hong Kong.

PETA Ad?

Seattle 43 - Denver 8

Though we were somewhat disappointed that TV service would not be available for the Super Bowl, we’ve periodically heard the game scores; it seems to have been a blowout. I’ll assume that the game must have been embarrassing for Denver and Peyton but a dominant showing for the Seahawks.

(Note: Apparently not embarrassing for "Joe Willie" aka "Broadway Joe".)

Earlier a call went out from the flight crew asking if “there was a doctor in the house”; that’s not usually a good sign whether on the ground or in the air. From our position, other than landing in Siberia, there aren’t too many options for an in flight medical emergency on this route.

It’s now about 1840 (local) (0440 ET US) and we’ve just landed in Hong Kong after a "fish hook" approach to a landing on 25R; haven’t heard anything more about the medical emergency so we can assume the problem was either solved or the patient died.

Our departure to Singapore is in about 3 hours so we’ve deplaned and worked our way through the arrival concourse, through the transfer security and back out the departure concourse to the same gate and same aircraft we just came from. We’ve returned to the United Lounge and will wait until boarding time. With Internet service we’ll have a chance to catch up on the Super Bowl results, email and messaging.

We had the opportunity to Skype with Grace, Shannon and Barry and later with Carrie for a few minutes; good connections in both cases. The calls confirmed our thoughts about the Super Bowl. Looks like a full week of school for Grace & Noah, no snow days forecasted.

Well it’s 2107 (local) (0707 ET US), we’ve boarded our flight for Singapore, same seats as before, a little cleaner with new blankets, full of fuel and a new dinner selection. Our flight should be just under four hours, scheduled for an arrival about 0130 (local) Tuesday (1130 ET US Monday).





At takeoff our flight took a 190 degree heading toward Singapore with 1,594 miles to go, but enough of that, it was time for another feeding.

Tonight’s dinner consisted of a Garden Salad, Fillet Mignon with French Cut Green Beans and a Potato Pancake followed by dessert. The steak doesn’t compare with Bern’s or Ruth’s Chris but it was tender, lean and cooked to a nice medium-rare degree. I’m pleased with my food intake control as it is too easy to try everything and eat every sweet entrée put in front of us; so far so good. Our water intake has been good, not great; need to do better when traveling so long in the air.

The flight heading from Hong Kong, brought us over land near Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam around 2325 (local).  We skirted the coast  heading back out over the water northeast of Vungtau at 36,000 feet with day #2 ending off the southern coast of Vietnam.

Our Next Stop, Bangkok!