Hong Kong here we come.

We left LAX Friday, April 26th at 1:00 pm and were airborne for 14 hours until the wheels chirped on the Shanghai tarmac at 6:00 pm Saturday, April 27th.  Later tonight we board again and arrive in Hong Kong at 11:30 pm.  Time machine!

We flew China Eastern Airlines and so far so good.  We choose this carrier mainly because it was $800 cheaper than the nearest competition.  The complaints were chiefly around the food and entertainment quality.  We brought plenty to read and a few movies on the electronic devices for good measure.  The food was ok apart from the pink gelatinous cube that we suspect was dessert.  The entertainment met the low expectations.

Before departing Colorado, I saved web pages to my iPad with information about the cities we were going to be visiting.  I figured I could redeem some commute time by getting to know our destinations.  I found these lines in the wikipedia summary entry for Hong Kong to be particularly interesting.

Hong Kong has numerous high international rankings in various aspects. For instance, its economic freedom, financial and economic competitiveness, quality of life, corruption perception, Human Development Index, etc., are all ranked highly.  According to estimates from both UN and WHO, Hong Kong had the longest life expectancy of any region in the world in 2012.  Hong Kong also has the highest average IQ score in 81 countries around the world.

Here are the cities and areas that we will be visiting after Hong Kong -

Yangshuo

Chengdu

Xian

Qingling Mountains

Dengfeng

Beijing

Hangzhou

Moganshan

Shanghai

I am sending this post from the Shanghai airport where Patti scored us 4 free passes to the VIP lounge.  The kids are having a ball with the free food and drink.  They are giving the room attendees a run for their money restocking in the wake of their plague of locust like consumption.