UA 895 HKG SIN 2000 2345 744 15B Empower Y, Ch9 ?

An oddity. There is a hand search as you go into the gate
area, which is not particularly odd given these modern-day
security concerns; but after the 1L/2L split there is a
second hand search - for economy passengers only.

bseller was in 15A, and we had a very entertaining pretty
much flight-long conversation; if you're a Flyertalker and
didn't get mentioned at least in passing, I guess you're
nobody. I never even bothered to find out whether there
was Channel 9.

to begin
Fresh seasonal greens, sliced almonds, French dressing

These were okay greens, okay but soggy almonds presented on
cucumber slices, and vinaigrette.

main course
Grilled cod fish with clam tomato sauce; herbed basmati
rice, broccoli florets and red pepper batonnets

Sauteed Asian-style chicken with garlic; egg noodles with
vegetables, Chinese seasonal greens and Chinese chicken
sauce

Please advise the flight attendant if you prefer to have
sauce served on the side

The chicken was not unpalatable, but whoever cooked it has a
profound misunderstanding of how to use cornstarch and broth
- the dish looked rather like chicken pudding. Noodles were
okay, The greens were one slice, perhaps a third, of a baby
bok choy.

dessert
Panna cotta with passion fruit coulis - quite palatable, the
pudding very vanillary, the coulis very passion fruity.

bseller kept sluicing down the Pol Roger Brut, that being
his substitute for dinner - saving himself for Lau Pa Sat,
he said - and it was probably better than my meal, with
which I had the Laboure-Roi Cotes du Rhone 2004: "Without
the heat of 2003, the 2004 Cotes du Rhone, such as Laboure-
Roi's version, are far more drinkable and friendly to food"
- this of course means that it's lowish in alcohol, quite
unnotable in taste, and softish. It was pleasant enough,
with whiffs of plums and pepper but so muted as to be nearly
unnoticeable. A couple glasses later, the flavor was not
improved. And then with dessert, Courvoisier, of course.

We landed about 15 early. I went to try to find info about
the 803 flight so as maybe to hook up with Sweet Willie,
Lori_Q, and gvdIAD, but by the time I found out what their
gate was (nobody manning info booths, nobody answering the
info phone line, so I logged into united.com, which took
a huge long time to come up), they were gone. I waited at
the gate until the captain came out. I asked if he was the
last out, and he said, there were a couple others. What
about passengers? All left, he said. So I went on.

Immigration as always was a breeze, but as usual I saw a
couple sheepish people being led away (passport or visa
violations?). The interesting thing about this is that
contrary to the usual case, both people - two separate
incidents - were white folks, one a respectable-looking
woman, the other a hippyish-looking guy.

On to Lau Pa Sat - the cab bill was $20.80, and the guy
gave me $30 change of a 50, which meant that I gave him
a negative tip, and he smiled and bowed me out of the
taxi anyway.

There were about a dozen hearties for the midnight meal.
Forgive me if I was too woozy and boozy to remember
exactly who was there.

By the time I arrived the first round of food and beer
had been consumed, except for some cockles, which nobody
could open (I using my superior finger strength ate some
of these, and you know what, I think they were unhappy
cockles), and some dim sum of which Lori_Q and I split a
dump (spelled dump, pronounced doong), a sticky rice
ball with pork, mushrooms, and dried shrimp, wrapped up
into a tetrahedron in lotus or palm leaf and tasting
primarily of leaf.

(I was the first of the UA crowd to show - afterward
came seanthepilot, Lori_Q, and bseller.)

I got a pitcher of beer, some fried chicken wings, and
dried fried squid in sweet-hot sauce, all good.

Eventually bseller showed up, having checked in at the
Sheraton. He ordered char kway teow and popiah and some
fried variation of popiah and more beer, and in fact we
had tons of food.

Turns out there'd been issues with some of our colleagues'
flights. Sweet Willie missed his connection (and in fact
he never showed up); and WWBGD had a passport issue that
couldn't be resolved instantaneously, so he was scheduled
on UA 895 the next day.

Off to the Keong Saik Hotel, where I had a rather small
but pleasant and clean room - and as Lori_Q points out
(this being a reason she chose the place) the windows
open, so you don't get this feeling of being stuck in a
sterile rabbit warren. The amenities are spartan (no
Kleenex!), but you get what you pay for. The a/c works
fine if you need it. Lori paid $10 more a night for her
superior room; I took a look - it was a little bigger
and a little nicer, but not by much.

P.S. I spoke too soon! I tried to reposition the shower
head, and the whole apparatus fell to the floor - it had
been hanging by a thread. Okay, I went down to the front
desk and reported that issue and then returned to get some
shuteye ... to find that the bedside lights did not turn
off at all. The solution offered by the charming girl at
the front desk: unscrew the bulbs. What can I say, it
ain't the Mandarin.