Here's my trip report. It's a little long, so I have included an Executive Summary for those of you on the go. For those with more time, enjoy the report at your leisure.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I enjoyed a very long and very tiring, yet fun, mileage run from ORD to HKG to SIN to NRT to LAX and back to ORD over the weekend (I made it a long weekend). I was upgraded to business class in all segments except the HKG segment. Service was terrific. Seatmates ranged from very nice to very quiet -- just the way I like it. I met up with two other mileage runners for 16 hours in HKG. I stayed at the oh so sweet Ritz Carlton in Hong Kong. I got some duck satay in Singapore. I saw some cool polar sites and Chinese terraced farms from 35,000 feet. I got stuck in LAX for four hours due to weather at ORD. And I got home and my wife hasn't told me that she's going to divorce me for doing this. So all things considered, it was a great trip.

NOW THE DETAILS

My upgrades to business for the return flight had cleared two weeks before the flight, but I was still wait-listed for the outbound portion as of the day of the flight. So I got to the airport about 3 1/2 hours early (I took the "El" to save $30 in cab fare). I checked in and was told I was still on the wait list but that there were still 8 unsold seats in business and I was 4th on the list. I went to the 1K lounge where they told me my chances looked good but that I wouldn't know until 30 minutes or so before departure.

While in the 1K lounge, I finally got my laminated 1K tags. Personally, I think they are a little too big/obvious. They kind of jump out at you and seem to be sort of ostentatious. Maybe they could have toned them down some. Anyway.

I went back out to the gate and told them I was waiting to see if my upgrade would clear. I was seriously thinking about cancelling the run if it didn't clear because I don't know about you but the prospect of sitting in coach for 7787 miles is just a horrifying idea. After waiting a little while, my upgrade cleared (this happened about 40 minutes before departure). I was given seat 22H (or whatever is the window seat on the right side of the plane in row 22). It was a bulkhead row. The big upside was that I could get out at any time without bothering my seatmate. The downside was that the leg rest didn't seem to raise up as high as they normally do. This might have be due to the fact that I was in close proximity to the exit door. But even if the leg rest would have raised up to the normal height, it wouldn't have touched the exit door. Anyway. My seatmate was nice. She was on her first trip to HKG. It was for business. Her ad agency was producing a television commercial there. Her contract at work provides that she is to fly first class domestically and business class internationally, no exceptions. Get me that job!! During the flight, a lot of people congregated in the open area near the bulkhead and near the exit door. For much of the flight, I was one of the few people to have my window shades open and people seemed very curious about looking out the windows. People truly marveled about the fact that we were near the North Pole. It was great to see grown people still fascinated with flight. Although whenever he had the chance, on of the flight attendants (who was sitting down in the jump seat and reading magazines) would close the exit door shade so that people would not encroach on his space and stare out the window. But he was actually a very friendly and helpful FA.

Being in this seat allowed me to talk to a lot of people who were coming up to check out the view. One in particular was a guy who worked for a company that has plants in China. He flies to Hong Kong once or twice a month. He joined Mileage Plus in its first month. He has nearly 3,000,000 miles. He is always 1K but sometimes he doesn't get upgraded. He must not know the tricks! He was telling me about his many plane adventures. Of particular interest to me were his many trips on the 747SP. The only problem was that while he was a very nice guy, he had very few teeth. I tried to keep looking him in the eye but my eyes always wandered back to his teeth (or lack thereof). I felt kind of bad. He must have known I was checking out his teeth (or lack thereof).

The food on this flight was pretty good. I'm not going to get into an extended discussion of the food because that's not all that interesting a part of the flying experience. I did keep all the menus so if people really want to know, I can post a follow up message with more food info. But for now, only highlights and lowlights. The highlights on this flight were the lunch appetizer which included a shrimp and scallop salad. It was very good. Other than that, the food was fine, although a pasta dish toward the end of the flight, with some kind of meat and a cream sauce, was also pretty good. No Godiva. Plenty of ham and cheese sandwiches in plastic bags for quick heating whenever people wanted. They smelled very good and tasted just okay. But very cheesy.

As for views on this flight, we flew northwest over Wisconsin and a little bit of western Michigan and on up into Canada. I didn't really start paying attention to the view until we got up into Canada a little further. Man, are there a ton of little lakes. Then, we had 10 hours of snow. Snow, snow, snow. That's all we could see. But it was very cool. And it wasn't just snow. It was ice too. And big cracks in the ice over the Arctic Ocean. I was surprised it was cracking so early in the year. I mean, it's only April. We flew over the Arctic Ocean, well north of Alaska. We made landfall over Siberia. Four hours or so of nothing but snow and mountains. It was very pretty but there were no signs of life below. Then came Mongolia. Talk about desolate looking. It looked brown, cold and empty, sort of like my heart after a girlfriend once broke up with me. Then we did this little jog move -- the same move we made the other time we took this flight. Itstead of continuing our great circle route, we jogged west a little so it seemed like we could fly over Mongolia a little more before starting our overflight of China. I don't know if this is because Mongolia charges less for flying over than China charges but we've done this twice now for no apparently good reason.

Then came China. First it looked the same as Mongolia. Then we hit some mountains. Then we hit some more populated areas. By the way, it was light the entire 15 hour flight. Then we hit more agricultural and urbun areas. The coolest thing was being able to see terraced fields climbing up the sides of mountains. Then we began our descent and approach into HKG. We landed at HKG around 4:15 in the afternoon. A few minutes early. I hadn't checked any bags so I made my way quickly to customs. No questions asked. It took maybe 1 minute. I was then outside the controlled area of the airport. I bought my ticket on the train to downtown and quickly changed some money. I got right on the train. Talk about a great transportation system. This train takes 23 minutes from airport to downtown. The seats are very comfortable and listen to this. Each seat has a personal television screen with 8 or 9 channels to choose from. I chose the BridgeNews channel. I got the latest headlines for a day of news I had just missed. I got out of the station and took a bus to my hotel. Walking would have taken 1/5th the time because we were the last stop on a circuitous 25 minute bus ride even though the hotel is a 5 minute walk from the station. When I got to my hotel, the Ritz Carlton, there is no better word to describe how the staff approached me than this word: bum-rush. Literally five employees pounced on me. One grabbed my luggage. One asked for my name. The other three escorted me up the elevator to the check-in desk. While I had requested a room on a high floor with a good view, I was given a room on the fifth floor. But in fairness, it had an awesome view. The service at the hotel was impeccable. The room was amazing. The view, as I said, was awesome. I couldn't help but take a souvenir with me. No, I didn't take a towel or a bathrobe, only a fabric laundry bag embroidered with the words "Ritz Carlton Hong Kong -- Laundry" on it. If they charge me for it, fine.

Once I got settled and took a shower, I went for a walk. The other mileage runners weren't arriving until around 8 p.m. from the SFO flight. I checked out the area near the hotel. I will say that of all the skyscrapers I've ever seen, the Bank of China building has to be the coolest one on earth. Well done Mr. Pei.

I got back to the hotel and watched a little CNN International in my room as I waited for the other "runners" to arrive. I almost fell asleep so eventually I went downstairs and waited in the lobby. I waited about 45 minutes before they arrived. Once they got there, we met each other and went up to their room while they got themselves cleaned up for a night on the town. We headed out for some authentic Chinese food. We went to a place recommended by the Ritz's concierge. It was a pretty authentic place -- many Asians, few Caucasians -- exactly what we were looking for. We went for pretty tame items -- some short ribs, some chicken, some shrimp. We decided to pass on the pigeon (No, I'm not kidding, they really had pigeon dishes). The biggest difference between Chinese food and Chinese food in the U.S. is that, in China, the food isn't slathered in sauces. But quite frankly, I prefer the U.S. versions better. I guess that's what I'm used to.

After dinner, we wandered around to an area with a bunch of bars. We bar hopped for a while and checked out the scene. A lot of the people in these bars were ex-pats from one place or another. It was so cool to think that I was hanging out in Hong Kong on a Saturday night -- just hangin' in Hong Kong. I felt like I was cheating life. By the way, the two other "runners" were very cool. They work for one of the big consulting firms and we hit it off immediately. One of the best things about these mileage runs and this board are that I've now made three new friends. (Okay, don't start crying on me now).

So we bar hopped for a while. Finally, I had to get some sleep. It was 2 a.m. Hong Kong time Saturday night and I hadn't slept at all since getting about 5 hours of sleep on Thursday night. So I got about 4 hours of sleep while they stayed out and partied. They met up with some folks from Scandinavia.

In the morning, we headed over to Kowloon for some breakfast and to wander around. Kowloon was okay but nothing so spectacular. I liked HK better. We took the Star Ferry both ways. It was a lot of fun and great views -- all for about 25 cents.

Once we got back to Hong Kong, the other guys had to pack to make their noon flight. I, however, didn't leave until 8 to fly to SIN. So I wandered the city. I walked all over the place. I bought some tea for my wife. I went to Victoria Peak -- great views even though the weather wasn't perfect. I walked through markets with some foul smelling food. But I soaked up the culture. I also figured out that the easiest way to spot Americans, as opposed to other non-Hong Kong'ers, is to look at the shoes. Every one else wears really goofy shoes -- especially Europeans. Americans have much better taste in shoes. Just my opinion and observation. Please take no offense. There are more important things in the world beside shoes.

So after wandering all over the city, I headed for the train station. I got back to the airport. Man, is this place phenomenal. It really does give Singapore's Changi a run for its money. I got my boarding pass for the HKG-SIN flight and for all of the rest of the flights from SIN to NRT to LAX to ORD. They couldn't upgrade me for the HKG-SIN flight because, while I used a Systemwide upgrade from ORD to HKG, because I stopped for more than 24 hours (26 to be precise), the SWU would not cover me for this flight. So I bit the bullet and flew in coach -- Row 35C -- for the 3 hour flight. For a coach seat, this is the one to have. While I couldn't see much out the window from this aisle seat, it has tons and tons of legroom.

When I checked in, as I mentioned, I got all of the rest of my boarding passes. I told the woman to take 25,000 miles out of my account for the upgrade. She couldn't because the computer was down. She said they'd do it in SIN. (By the way, they never did in SIN. I don't feel too bad because the SIN workers are really not nice. So it looks like I got that upgrade for free. But hey, I'm worth it!!).

I checked out some stores, bought a couple of model planes -- bringing my collection to 40 planes -- then I headed to the United Red Carpet Club.

The RCC is very, very nice and has great views of the airport. And even though it's not that big, it's very confusing because it's basically triangle shaped. I kept getting lost. I quickly checked out Thai's lounge. It definitely had better food offerings and looked a little nicer in general but it was small. Oh, the RCC had a computer terminal with internet access but the connection was very, very slow.

The flight to SIN was uneventful. I got some sleep. I got into SIN, called my wife, checked my bag in the downstairs, outside overnight baggage check area -- for about $6 U.S. I took a cab into town to the big food emporium. I got some duck satay (at least they told me it was duck). Maybe I finally had that pigeon after all. I hung out in downtown for about an hour then took a cab back. When I got back, the customs folks were reluctant to let me back in because they claimed I needed to wait until the United ticket counter opened up at 4:45 a.m. to get a boarding pass. I explained that I already had a boarding pass. While they weren't happy about it, they let me into the secured part of the airport.

Then I went to the internet cafe. I checked out the news of the day (The Pacers won!! Can you believe it). I then logged on to Flyertalk, but because of technical problems, I couldn't really see peoples' responses to my Live from Singapore posts. Then I headed to Terminal 1 to check out the Silver Kris Lounge. As I posted earlier on the United Board, the folks at Silver Kris did everything they could to keep me out, telling me that I had to be a 1K -- at which point I showed them my 1K card, telling me that I had to be flying in business or first class -- at which point I pulled out my ticket and a United seating chart showing that I was in business. Finally they relented, and I got in. It was awesome. Great food. Good internet access. First class all the way.

I got onto the plane about 30 minutes before departure time. I was in 24A. I was sitting next to a very nice guy from Denver who works for a missionary group based in Singapore. After having some pretty good food, I got a few hours of much needed rest. We landed at NRT. I hustled my rear end off to get to the RCC to take a shower. I only had about an hour. The shower was great. I headed back to the top floor of the RCC for some of their fishless sushi rolls. Made a few calls then back on the plane -- actually it was a change of plane. I don't understand that because it's the same flight number from SIN to NRT to LAX -- flight 890. And it's the same type of plane -- 747-400. So why do they change aircraft. Seems like a lot of extra work, i.e. moving all the bags, etc.

Anyway, the flight was fine. I slept a lot. I got into LAX. What a hellhole compared to Hong Kong and Singapore. I had a four hour delay due to severe storms passing through Chicago. Finally we took off. Uneventful flight. Got into Chicago on Monday night a 9:00 p.m. All in all, a great trip. Tons of miles. I will be at 50,000 by the end of May. Renewed 1K here I come.

One other point: Last Thursday, I bought the Bose noise reducing headphones. No, they weren't cheap. About $300. But these things are incredible. They drown out almost all of the noise from the plane and you can hear your music so well. I swear, there were little things in songs that I'd never heard before on any other speakers, whether they were other headphones or on a stereo. These things are awesome.

Anyway, that was my trip. Let me know if you have any questions.