March 17, 2010
Hong Kong - Johannesburg
Cathay Pacific First Class
Boeing 747-400 B-HUD Seat 2K
1145p – 650a Flight time: 12:30
Cathay Pacific operates two Premium Class lounges at Hong Kong International – The Wing and The Pier. Both are excellent facilities offering full service complimentary dining and day use rooms along with all the usual amenities such as showers and work areas. It would be nice if I could have written a paragraph or two about having enjoyed these wonderful lounges but the reality is that when I arrived in Hong Kong, the local time back in California was 3:30am. I had not slept at all on the inbound flight, so I was pretty tired by the time I’d cleared transit security and made my way to The Pier. I spent the majority of my five hour layover sleeping in one of the day use rooms and did not take advantage of any of the other facilities.
Flight 749 to Johannesburg was departing from Gate 66, conveniently located just two gates down from The Pier. As I arrived at the gate lounge, I was shocked at the length of the line for Economy Class passengers. It stretched the full length of the lounge and then back on itself a ways. It would be quite a while before the folks at the end of that line finally made it to their seats.
Once again, I took advantage of both the separate line and jetway for First and Business Class passengers. Mere moments later I was accepting another glass of Krug and settling in for the 6,630 mile flight to Johannesburg. There were only two of us in First Class for this twelve and a half hour flight, resulting in a Flight Attendant to passenger ratio of one to one. The pace of pre-departure service was relaxed but efficient as pajamas, amenity kits and menus were distributed, followed by hot towels and refills on Champagne.
At precisely 11:45pm, I heard the roar of the tractor beneath us as we slowly pushed back from the gate. Following a surprisingly short taxi, we roared into the night sky and soon adopted a southwesterly heading that would take us across Southern Asia and out over the vast expanses of the Indian Ocean. With such an exotic routing, I’ve always wished that this flight were operated just twelve hours later. With an 11:45am departure, we’d be able to enjoy a daylight crossing over Asia and the Indian Ocean, taking in views of Madagascar and Mozambique before arriving in Johannesburg at sunset. That would be just perfect.
Still, there was one benefit to tonight’s late night departure. I’d only managed about three and a half hours of fitful sleep in The Pier’s day use room, so I was definitely in need of a few more hours rest. Given a projected flight time of twelve hours and thirty-six minutes, my plan was to add another four or five hours of sleep at the beginning of this flight, then have dinner. Afterwards, I’d still have another seven or so hours during which I could watch a movie or maybe even work on this trip report.
My personal Flight Attendant was a beautiful Japanese lady named Tomoko. While I changed into my olive green pajamas, she efficiently got my seat transformed into a full length bed complete with mattress, duvet and two large pillows. A bottle of water had been placed at my seat and the duvet was turned back invitingly. All that was missing was the little chocolate mint.
Bedtime in Cathay Pacific’s First Class
Almost exactly five hours later, I awoke from as comfortable a sleep as I think I’ve ever enjoyed onboard an airplane. This was the first time I’d ever had a mattress placed atop the seat and it really made a difference in overall comfort. Often, despite having a flat seat to sleep upon, I would find myself waking now and then to reposition myself more comfortably. This time I slept undisturbed for a full five hours and the obvious result was that I felt much more rested.
I also awoke with an appetite. I hadn’t eaten a thing for almost twelve hours, so I was ready to check out the extensive offerings available for tonight’s flight. Here are the wine list and menu:
Wine List HKG-JNB Exterior
Wine List HKG-JNB Interior
WINE LIST
Champagne
Krug Grande Cuvée Champagne
White Wines
Helen’s Hill Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2006
Henri de Villamont Meursault 2005
Red Wines
Chateau Lynch Bages 2003
Bouchard Pere & Fils Morgon 2009
Cloof Shiraz 2006
Port
Ramos Pinto Quinta da Ervamoira 10 Year Old Tawny Port
Menu HKG-JNB Exterior
Menu HKG-JNB Interior
DINNER
Hong Kong to Johannesburg
Caviar and Balik Salmon Delight
Oscietra Caviar and Balik Salmon “Tsar Nicolaj”
Served with Warm New Potatoes and Crème Fraiche
Soup
Lobster Bisque
Salad
Mesclun salad with asparagus and sun-dried tomato
Served with Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinaigrette
Bread Basket
Assorted Bread and Rolls
** ***** **
INTERNATIONAL FAVOURITES
Grilled Beef Tenderloin
Presented with gratin potato, asparagus and carrots
Pesto Tortellini
Accented with tomato sauce and pine nuts
CHINESE FAVOURITES
Starters
Pork Soup with winter melon and dried duck gizzard
Cold Plate – Deep fried sea bass with sweet vinegar dressing
Prawn Butterfly wrapped with Bean Curd Skin
Served with steamed jasmine rice and stir-fried asparagus, peppers and shimeji mushrooms
** ***** **
CHEESE AND DESSERT
Forme d’Ambert, Manchego, Arenberger and French Brie
Seasonal Fresh Berries in ginger syrup
Cherry Clafoutis Cake with vanilla ice cream and raspberry coulis
Black Sesame Soup
TEA and COFFEE
Pralines
The menu cover for tonight’s flight touted Cathay Pacific as offering the “Best Chinese Food In The Air”. That being the case, I gave no consideration to the International Favorites and moved right to the Chinese favorites. Although I must admit to some trepidation over the prospect of eating duck gizzard, I swallowed hard and put in my order for the full Chinese dinner, including of course another serving of salmon and caviar.
Caviar and Salmon course HKG-JNB
With only two of us in First Class, there was plenty of caviar and salmon to go around. As a result, I was handed a plate bearing twice as much caviar as I received on the flight over to Hong Kong. Well alrighty, then!
Lobster Bisque HKG-JNB
Salad HKG-JNB
Now bring on the Duck Gizzard Soup!!
Duck Gizzard Soup & Fried Sea Bass HKG-JNB
Prawn Butterfly wrapped with Bean Curd Skin HKG-JNB
Truth be told, I liked the Duck Gizzard Soup more than I did the sea bass which was served fried but cold. As for the prawns – they were delicious! Though the bean curd skin didn’t do much for the aesthetics of the dish, it contributed nicely to the overall taste. The stir-fried vegetables were also worthy of mention in as much as they were crisp and flavorful, not oily. Well done, Cathay!
I’d never heard of a Clafoutis Cake before. It was very much like the Golden Treacle Pudding I once had on British Airways – definitely a cake but with a texture not unlike cornbread. It was good tasting though, especially accented with a zesty lemony raspberry coulis.
Cherry Clafoutis Cake HKG-JNB
By the time the last of my plates had been cleared, the Sky Map indicated that we still had another six hours to go until Johannesburg. While some of the people sat just 80 feet behind me might have viewed an update like this with dread (Sheesh! S i x m o r e h o u r s…) I viewed it with a completely different kind of dread (Oh no! I’ve only six more hours left to enjoy this wonderful existence…)
Now I suppose I could have watched another movie, but being the caring and responsible guy that I am, I knew that what I really needed to do was get some work put in on this trip report. At this particular time I had only written as far as my flight over to London, so I still had the Scottish trains, the flights on flyBE and Aer Lingus and the return flights to Alaska to write about in addition to my current travels to Hong Kong and on to Johannesburg with Cathay Pacific. As any of you who’ve ever written a long trip report know, it’s very easy to get caught up in the enjoyment of your travels to the point where your writing can fall hopelessly behind. It’s important to go out and enjoy your travels above all else, but if you’re truly going to commit to writing a journal or a trip report like this, there are times where you simply have to exercise a bit of discipline. And, for what it’s worth, I can’t think of many finer places or times to work on a trip report than when sat in the nose of a 747 while speeding across a vast ocean in the middle of the night. So - I requested a cup of coffee and got to work.
It’s worth noting here that as I write these words, it’s 10:57pm on March 24th. I’m in Upington, South Africa. It’s raining lightly outside with a bit of wind. I’ve got a fridge next to me stocked with nine more bottles of Windhoek Lager and some chicken lasagna. Life is good. With any luck, I’ll get this trip report caught up by the time I arrive in Cape Town on Saturday morning. That’ll make writing about flying aboard my 139th airline all that much more enjoyable.
On the topic of interesting personal statistics, the aircraft delivering me from Hong Kong to Johannesburg this evening is 747-467 B-HUD. Now I don’t know how many 747s Cathay Pacific currently flies, but I do find it a bit surprising that I’ve drawn this particular aircraft on each of my trips with Cathay in 2004, 2005 and now 2010. The result is four flights totaling 22,690 miles on B-HUD, a total mileage per individual aircraft exceeded only by G-BYGF, a 747-400 in the service of British Airways upon which I’ve logged 26,460 miles.
By the way, the menu indicates that snacks are available on this flight. Although I’ve no desire to partake, I will say that for my tastes, one of the best foods available on any Cathay Pacific flight are its soups. They are small meals in and of themselves and before this report is over, I will avail myself of one and let you know just how good it was. Here’s the snack menu:
SNACK
Beef Skewer
Served with salad and capsicum relish
Assorted Sandwiches
Szechuanese dan dan with noodle in soup
Shrimp wontons with noodle in soup
Ice Cream
Time flies when you’re having fun. This is especially true when you’re having fun aboard a jetliner speeding along at 600 mph. Tomoko stopped by to refill my coffee and we got to talking a bit about the pictures that I’d been taking. I had already loaded tonight’s shots into my laptop and took a couple moments to show her the results. I then showed her some photos from other airlines’ First Class services, namely British Airways. Needless to say, she was fascinated and before long we were joined by the other First Class Flight Attendant whose name I don’t recall. In any event, you’ve got to consider the perspective from which these ladies viewed my pictures. They weren’t just any old Flight Attendants. They were Flight Attendants deemed skilled enough to work the First Class cabin for one of the world’s finest airlines. Of course they were interested (and impressed) by BA’s offerings, though it was noted that BA’s plates and cups seemed awfully plain. We moved on to pictures of Alaska as well as many other spots around the world that I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to. In short, we were having a great time until the lady in 1A woke up. By then there was only an hour and a half left in the flight and if either myself or the lady in 1A were going to enjoy a fine Cathay Pacific breakfast, then it was time for the girls to return to work.
I shut down my laptop and relocated to an empty suite on the left side of the airplane. This was where the sun was rising and it was a very pretty sunrise indeed. My table was set and coffee and a guava smoothie were delivered to me while I perused the breakfast offerings:
BREAKFAST
Orange, Apple or Grapefruit Juice
Pink Guava Smoothie
Fresh Seasonal Fruit
Natural or Low Fat Fruit Yogurt
Assorted Cereals
** ***** **
MAIN COURSES
Eggs ~
Freshly Scrambled, Fried or Boiled
Served with your choice of back bacon, pork sausage, Lyonnaise potatoes with parsley,
sautéed mushrooms or Roma tomato
Dim Sum served with Chilli Sauce
Asparagus dumpling, seafood and preserved “kung choi” vegetables dumpling, beef ball and mini-vegetable glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf
Poached Smoked Haddock
Bread Basket
Assorted Breakfast Bread and Fresh Toast
Served with Preserves, Honey and Butter
Tea and Coffee
I’ve tried Chinese breakfasts before and always found that the foods offered seemed better suited for lunch or dinner. As such, I requested two eggs fried medium with all the accompaniments. Meanwhile the beautiful vista out my window kept me busy taking lots of pictures.
Sunrise from 747-400 HKG-JNB
And of course, as each course was presented I fired off a good number of photos as well. In this regard I’d like to make a couple of suggestions to those who publish trip reports with blurry photos.
From my perspective, writing a trip report for FlyerTalk is no different than if I were writing an article for some travel publication. Even though I’m not getting paid for it and most people here tend to grade reports on a pretty generous curve, I still want to do the best possible job that I can. Given the poor lighting and occasional turbulence experienced inflight, it can be very difficult to get quality photos of food. Even so, it is still possible to get fairly decent photos if one’s willing to take the time to do it as well as they can. From my experience, doing so entails taking five or six photos of each subject to better insure that I get the best picture possible to use in my reports. As a matter of personal pride, I would rather
not publish a picture at all than use a really blurry photo. I’m not talking about trying to submit professional quality photo work here, just clearer photos.
There’s no excuse for submitting really blurry pictures. Just take a few pictures and use the best one.
On the topic of photographs, I decided to try a new angle with these breakfast photos. I held my little Canon SD-850 out to the side and snapped off a few shots with the aircraft windows and the morning sky in the background. I like the results.
Fruit Plate Appetizer HKG-JNB
A proper breakfast HKG-JNB
Breakfast was every bit as good as I hope it looked in the photos. By the time plates were cleared and the final round of hot towels distributed, we were descending quickly in preparation for the final approach into O.R. Tambo International Airport. We landed smoothly at 6:35am and, after pausing to allow an arriving British Airways 747 to cross in front of us (good airline manners), we taxied briskly across to our gate at the new and improved International Terminal. After having traveled thirty-two hours over 13,500 miles, my First Class experience aboard Cathay Pacific had finally come to an end. For my part, I could easily take a brief break here at Johannesburg and then climb right back aboard that 747 for another 32 hours of First Class ecstasy. Still, I’ve got some great travels ahead of me here in South Africa as well as dinner later this evening with three fellow drivers from Denali. So I’ve got a lot to look forward to, including my next flight on Cathay just ten days from now.