My Swiss internship adventure: Travel to Hong Kong

After three years of absence, I am now back in Asia, in the magnificent but very humid and crowded Hong Kong. I left Winnipeg on a nice, sunny perfect day.

This was the view from my airplane window as it taxis into the runway preparing for take off. It was a perfect day for flying, virtually a cloudless day in the prairies.

This is Winnipeg's airport from the my plane. I am thankful they're building a new terminal for Winnipeg's small, derelict and obsolete terminal. We just need one to be more competitive with other Canadian cities!

And off we go for takeoff!

Seeing the prairies in the air is just like seeing a huge jigsaw puzzle. With never-ending fields of wheat and canola, this is how it looks like in the air.

I was also able to see the province's largest lake and boy was it big!

Reaching crusing altitude at nightfall, this is what I saw:

Three hours later, we were descending into the suburbs of greater Vancouver and finally landed into the city.

We then went to a Indo-Malaysian fusion restaurant were I had a treat of their excellent cooking style. I dined with my friend Maro and my adviser. I really liked it! Thanks Maro for suggesting.

I was supposed to take my flight to Hong Kong at 2:00am. But because of some delays in the incoming aircraft (the plane is coming from New York), departure time was moved an hour later. I was soo pissed as I was already sleepy and my biological clock is already on its way to being really screwed.

The flight departed at 4:00am. It is a B-747 plane with a huge wingspan like this:

After 11 hours of flight, the skyscrapers of Hong Kong began to appear, albeit covered in thick haze.

It turns out that the new Hong Kong airport is way way outside the city centre's outskirt. En route to landing, we passed a lot of islands.

Touching done in Hong Kong airport, I noticed that there's a huge haze problem enveloping the city. It might be because of the pollution problem that Hong Kong has or probably brought about by the rise of many industrial factories in southern China.

Hong Kong's airport which opened during the year it was handed over by Britain to China in 1997, is a huge and modern building that could take hours to navigate. It has a characteristic design on its façade which has been used as an identifying feature of the airport's architectural design.

Thanks to moving walkways, passenger navigation of the airport is made easier. The first thing I noticed and indicated to me that I am in Hong Kong is the presence of Cantonese all around as well as the bilingual signs. If we have bilingual English and French in Canada, it is bilingual Cantonese and Chinese in Hong Kong.

They even give free bus rides to hotels, albeit in their minibuses.

And boy was it soo hot! I was sweating all over, legs, torso, head, face everywhere! It is just like a warm blanket being wrapped around you. Finding a vending machine is a relief indeed. It was also a relief to see that prices are moderate if not lower!