Day 32 and a bit: The trip home

Not much happened. Which isn't a bad thing on a travel day.

One final scalding-freezing shower, one final mopping up of the leaking-shower lake, one final breakfast with dodgy milk, and we were pretty well ready to roll. 

Whining and moaning aside, we've enjoyed our time at the Jia, and would happily stay here again. Overall it's a great hotel, handy, and the staff have been wonderful.

Keith and Leona's apartment is on Lantau Island, only a short distance from the airport, so we dropped in for lunch before flying home.

Our two and a half days of touring with them had given us a much better feel for and shown us more of Hong Kong than we could ever have hoped for. We are extremely appreciative about how much time and effort they spent over the past few days. Great friends, and it's going to be hard to repay the favour.

We did give them a bottle of Veuve as a down payment.

Their two cats, Gum Gum and Douglas Cat, gave Emma another cat-fix. Douglas Cat is a bit stranger-shy, but Gum Gum is an attention-seeking showoff, wrestling with his mortal enemy, the cotton bud, doing death-defying leaps trying to catch a feather on a string, charging up the wall to leap to the top of the bookcase. Hilarious.

The view from their balcony towards the airport gave us an indication of how bad the pollution was. The control tower is precisely three kilometers away, and we could barely make it out. We love the city, but the gunk in the air we could do without. HK isn't the only Chinese city we could say that about, of course, and the combination of HK, Beijing, and Shanghai has left Emma with a nasty choking cough.

Anyhow...

Our check-in was drama-free, and our flight to Sydney via Manila was uneventful, although the international airport at Manila International is like travelling back in time to the 70s. The 1870s.

If I was being kind I'd describe it as "basic". If being honest, "rundown". The staff were pleasant enough, and I caught a couple of them singing. It seems most Filipinos sing, which I find annoying. Not because they sing, but because they're all so much better than I am.

The transfer lounge was like a holding cell in a Turkish prison, but not as well appointed. But it had free Wi-Fi, which actually puts it ahead of Australian airports. I can live with the tradeoff.

The final leg was an all-nighter arriving in Sydney around 7.30am, and we all know how much fun they are. Emma managed about three hours sleep, I  may have done two. On the positive side the food was exceptional, which I don't expect from an airline, and we watched Madagascar 3, which is hysterically funny.

And that was pretty much it. No missing luggage, no cavity searches in customs, no smouldering hole in the ground where our house used to be.

It's now 9pm, and we're going to bed before the sleep-deprivation driven hallucinations become too intense. Tomorrow I'm back to work, hoping my body copes with the three-hour timezone change.

So before we suffer total neurological collapse: the trip was phenomenal, and while we could easily have stayed on holiday for another two or three - years - it's also good to be home. With our own mattress and pillows. 

In a few days I'll start adding pictures to the posts, fixing typos, and write up a summary. Right now it's time to sleep.