Getting to Hong Kong

The first stop on our spring break trip technically not even in Asia—it was London. We had an 8 hour layover there, and since we had previously lived there for two months, we knew it was easy to get into the city from Heathrow via the tube. After checking our luggage onto the London-Hong Kong flight and paying outrageous excess baggage fees (this would be the theme of my trip), we headed to Oxford Street for a much needed TopShop fix (for those of you that don’t know, TopShop is a store whose only US location in NYC. It is the mecca of somewhat affordable, super trendy clothing). During our layover, I was also able to eat what became my favorite lunch spot in London. It was a great afternoon!

We went back to the airport a few hours before our flight was scheduled to depart and learned that there were actually two Cathay Pacific flights to Hong Kong—ours departing at 8:30pm and another departing at 10:00pm. As I was reading my magazine and trying to ignore the madness that is Heathrow’s international terminal, we heard an announcement and learned that our flight had been cancelled due to “mechanical problems” and that everyone from our flight was being put on the 10:00pm flight. I was already mad at Cathay Pacific about the excess baggage fees, and when I learned I was being re-booked to a MIDDLE seat I almost lost it. A middle seat for a 13-hour flight?!!? And when everyone from one flight fits onto the next one, I think you can translate “mechanical failure” to “we have two half-full flights and we’re losing money so let’s just jam everyone into one flight”. Instead of getting too upset, Molly, Megan and I went to TGIF Friday’s and took advantage of their extra-large beers on tap. We had a fun dinner and I ended up sleeping almost the entire flight, so my middle seat wasn’t all that bad.

One side note: Guess what I left on the plane when we de-boarded in Hong Kong? My iPod Touch. I noticed right away and they let me back on the plane to look for it, but it was gone 