Arrival in Beijing and Hong Kong

Although Hong Kong is considered to be part of China, in a very real way it isn't as I don't need a visa to go there, and as I was in the international section of the Beijing's second airport I didn't need to do security. At least that's what I thought. But then I saw it and feared the worst for my two bottles of duty-free. At least I would have, had I remembered that I'd put them in my larger carry-on luggage that I'd just appropriated from Tan yesterday. And indeed it got put aside but luckily when I explained it was duty-free (mian shui) they had no problem with it - maybe because the bag was sealed. But as it was over a four hour wait it wasn't a problem. Neither was finding the "Pay Lounge", which thankfully was covered by Priority Pass. I'm not sure why, but it was nearly empty, and the booze selection wasn't great, comprising cans of 3.9% beer and a bottle of white and a bottle of rouge. Well, I'd recently had nearly three weeks off the sauce, and it was 4.30pm, and even just one of those excuses justified pouring a decent-sized glass of the rouge...probably the last chance I'll have of the stuff for a month (apart from the next four glasses).

Crappy selection of instant noodles but I spied a decent bottle of red on the right

They actually served hot food after 5pm...not bad

Bored Apes in HK?

Well I took away a can of soda and three beers

I was very relieved to find that Pure VPN was still working after a few attempts. So I was geographically in China, technically in a sort of no-man's land, and culturally somewhere in-between. The three or so hours I was there passed by quicker than that, and I managed a brief chat with Mat before I went to board. I think I may have dropped off a bit in the 2h45 flight, though I do recall having a last red wine on the flight (not always available on "domestic" flights and Tan's China Eastern international flights didn't serve booze at all).

The flight arrived 8 minutes early at 11.12pm and I was fairly optimistic of getting the last metro at 12.48am, even though we still hadn't deplaned at 11.35pm. Although I'd spent quite a few minutes writing my landing card for China, upon arrival in Hong Kong I realised (quite obviously) that I needed a landing card for there rather than China. But this time it took all of a whole minute as I didn't have to write down a full address in Chinese. And then I found my Weixin health declaration had expired a few hours ago so had to redo it but luckily I'd scanned and saved the QR code I needed, and once re-scanned it remembered all the details from my previous declaration except for the flight number. So although I had some unexpected tasks to do in the airport they didn't slow me down half as much as they could have done, and after no more than 10 minutes queueing for immigration I was technically, physically, and culturally in Hong Kong. And it was only just gone half past midnight.

I really wanted to make use of the Octopus cards Leilei and I had bought over four years ago, but the machine was having none of it, not allowing me to top-up or even check how much there was in it. So I used my English bank card to pay the $115 HKD to Hong Kong, and got there 20 minutes later or so. I had planned my 16 minute walk from the station but Hong Kong at night is a maze, not helped by being very muggy and having the effects of recent red wine. And when I checked Google Maps again it said I was 45 minutes away by foot! So sod it I got a bloody taxi, and withdrew $1000 thinking it was about a tenner's worth, and being surprised when the driver handed me back about 900 of them.

Although I had no need or desire for a nightcap, I was quite pleasantly surprised to get two free drinks vouchers, and would probably have used them but the bloke at reception said only soft drinks as the bar was closed. I didn't believe a hotel bar in HK would be closed at 1am so went to check for myself, but the bloke followed me too saying "zhi you soft drinks" (I'm not sure how that would really translate into Mandarin). And looking back, it probably was a good thing...I was tired and needed whatever rest the hotel room could afford me, and I didn't even consider breaking in to any duty-free.