I'm just trying to get to Hong Kong!!

I never thought my ridiculously long flight to Hong Kong would result in a 3-day adventure. The only thing to blame I think is the terrible Minnesota weather of 26 below on the day of the flight. January 16^th, 2009 I was scheduled to fly from Minneapolis Airport to O’Hare at 6:00AM, then from O’Hare to San Francisco, and finally from San Francisco to Hong Kong. Overall it was originally supposed to be a 22 hour flight with only 1 hour layovers at each stop.

Of course I was so anxious and excited and a whole mix of different emotions the night before that I only slept for an hour, from 2:00AM to 3:00AM. My parents and I got up at my apartment at 3:30, leaving by about 4:15. It was super cold outside but we made it to the airport fine. Everything went smoothly all up until the point of actually just about to take off. I got my boarding passes all set, I found my travel buddy, Alex, and we found our gate right away. After sitting on the plane waiting to take off for an extra half-hour (the throttle and other parts of the plane were frozen), they made us all get off the plane and get in line for another one. They dealt with each person case by case, and of all the people flying to O'Hare, our final destination must have been the furthest. So we were obviously going to miss all of our connecting flights, and they decided to switch us to an 8:00AM flight out of Minneapolis and then a direct flight from O’Hare to Hong Kong at 12:17PM, which would have actually made us arrive an hour earlier than the original itinerary. The first flight was easy, and then we had a lot of time to kill in O’Hare before our 12:17 flight to Hong Kong. By this time, the effects of no sleep had starting kicking in and Alex and I could only explore the airport a little before we both just wanted to sit and wait.

Our big international flight turned out to be the most dramatic of all. We luckily got a 3-seat section to ourselves so we had room to keep our carry-on bags by us the whole time. The flight was delayed a little and ended up leaving at 12:30. Whatever, not such a big deal. BUT they explained to us that we would be stopping in Anchorage, Alaska in order to refuel. Apparently the cold weather makes it difficult to fly the entire way from Chicago to Hong Kong, so we were supposed to stop for an hour and a half. Okay, still not that big of a deal, so now we would be arriving in Hong Kong at about the original time we thought. We made it to Anchorage at 6:30PM (Minneapolis time), and I may or may not have taken a solid Dramamine nap for part of that flight. As we sat waiting in Anchorage, suddenly the captain announced that the plane was having maintenance issues (they needed to replace 2 parts of the plane) that could not be resolved that night and that we would have to stay the night in Alaska. I woke up right after that message and was very surprised to hear what I missed in the past hour that I thought had only been 5 minutes….! Alex filled me in. We’re staying in Alaska for the night??

So after 3 more hours of drama with customs and a person who had a heart attack, we finally got off the plane and all 400 of us sat around an enormous polar bear in a glass case waiting for instructions. The deal with customs was since our flight was an international one and not domestic, we obviously weren't supposed to deplane in Anchorage, but since we did, we had to go through customs. Well the customs officers weren't even at the airport, so they had to call them at HOME to come drive to the airport to clear all of us. They only brought in like 5 of them. There was no one else in the airport. This is SarahMae and I standing in the customs line.

After we made it through customs, I actually picked up some wireless in the airport (surprising since O'Hare failed on that one), so I was able to send some email and Facebook updates to Mom and Dad and a few friends. By this point, Alex and I decided to make the best of our fate of being stuck in Alaska forever and took a few pictures around the airport while we waited for TWO airport employees to write us vouchers for hotels, one by one.

Finally they bussed us all over to different hotels, and we got to stay in the Hilton for free with a free dinner and breakfast. I met a really cool girl from Singapore that I actually ended up rooming with because they accidentally put us in the same room. Totally fine with me though! So Alex, SarahMae, and I went down to enjoy our free halibut, salmon, and cheesecake buffet and we had a great time! We thought about going out to explore Alaska, but we all suddenly got super tired and decided maybe it would be best to get a good sleep in nice beds instead of depending on airplane sleep, which is actually pretty nice, don't get me wrong, complete with the cozy gauze-covered pillows and wailing babies.

We made a lot of friends and we stuck together(5 of us), so that is nice! Two people from Singapore going home, one guy going on vacation to Vietnam, and Alex and I on our way to HK. So all of them had even farther destinations.

The whole experiece was just waiting and waiting for hours. And then something new would happen and we would wait some more. I think I've seen all of Alaska that I need. No moose though. It was MUCH warmer in AK than in MN, 40 degrees. Really Minnesota? Quit failing.

Here is one section of the airport of people sitting and waiting. There wasn't enough seating in the airport... so everyone sat on the floor.

The airport shuttles picked us up at 9:45AM Alaska time (we were told 9:00AM, of course, so more waiting), and took us back to catch the new flight at noon (AK time) but there's no way we were going to get all 400 of us through security in time, so I knew that this flight would be majorly delayed as well.. Fail. They then announced that hopefully the extra parts for the plane would make it there by 12:30.. sooooo maybe at 1:00 we will leave? I thought.

More sitting around and waiting. A picture of our Team United, as David (the guy in the green shirt) dubbed us.

They said it was getting near the lunch hour so they were going to feed us right away when we tookoff. The boarding took 9 years of course, and I wasn't entirely sure why until we made it to the front of the line 2 and a half hours later... There were two ladies checking boarding passes and passports (really?? there was no one there that could have ever tried or wanted to sneak on our flight) and going through a paper list of all travelers and highlighting names as they came through. It wasn't in alphabetical order. We took off at 3:00, starving. Goodbye Alaska. I am sorry I didn't find Sarah Palin.