Technically the airport isn’t in Kowloon but give me some poetic license!
I arrived at Birmingham Airport about 3 hours early, sped through the security for the first time ever, even when my bag got pulled to be searched the nice bloke just handed to me and waved me off, the portents were good. The airport wait was remarkably uneventful, a nice breakfast in the lounge with vodka chasers and it was time to board.
I’ve never flown on Emirates before so wasn’t sure what to expect, nor had I had the pleasure of the new super jumbos which are literally enormous! After the obligatory queue to join a queue to join yet another queue which is a game the airline loves to play I found myself in seat 53A, first impressions were good even cattle class seemed roomy, however this is where things turned slightly surreal.
In the course of my life I have met many, many people but one of them lives a somewhat different lifestyle to the rest of us, to protect his anonymity we shall call him A1. A1 has done very well for himself and now enjoys the fruits of his labours, he makes me look homebound when it comes to travelling so I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when I received a message from him informing me he was on board having booked a flight first thing that morning and that he had been upgraded as he always is. As we approached take-off he had spent his time pleading with the staff to allow me to join him in the bar upstairs to no avail, thank you A1 but rules are rules so after a brief flurry of messages he informed me he couldn’t swing it but would pop and see me later.
The take-off was duly taken and I settled in to watch a film or two, the selection wasn’t great so I decided on The Godfather on the understanding that I’d seen it about 100 times and I might drift off to sleep. Main course of Beef, some weird salad with rocket leaves… why always bloody rocket can’t stand the stuff… and a nice desert accompanied with 2 or 3 bottles of wine and things were going swimmingly.
At this point A1 appeared and dragged me from my seat, if I couldn’t go to the bar it appears that the bar would come to us! For the next hour or so we drank lots of lager and had a good catch up, we also took the opportunity to get to know Emmy, Emily and Siri (if you have the good fortune to meet Siri please don’t do he obvious jokes like asking what the weather is going to be like, apparently it is not funny and quite a common name in Norway) not only were these ladies very accommodating ensuring our glasses never emptied but they were very good company, they were also very, very attractive. If I wore a hat I would at this point like to doff it in the general direction of the recruitment team at Emirates and ask if I can join their interview panel!
The problem with alcohol, well one of the many, is that it does tend to increase the volume of the people that consume it, three hours in and we got our first complaint… ”this is not a party bus” said one particularly rude individual. I pointed out that when Shrugs is in town it’s always a party but to no avail the gig was up we had to move down to the next cabin area where Lauren and Monique were superb replacements and helped us continue with our party. Hands down these are the best cabin crew I have ever encountered, nothing was too much trouble and so A1 and I felt it was only right that we help reduce the workload by taking over some their duties for a short while, handing out drinks and snacks and mopping up spills etc, with an hour to go A1 decided to get some shut eye and left me too it, I was about to ask if I could land the plane and realised I couldn’t see very well and not because I had forgotten my damn glasses!
I returned to my seat the plane landed and hugs were exchanged, OK I may have held on longer than was comfortable but they were such lovely people, if you are reading it I can’t thank you enough for making my trip to Dubai so good.
In the words of Del Boy we were off to a blinder.
The fun didn’t stop there, once we were both off the plane, A1 considerably faster than me, he invited me to enjoy the First Class Lounge which I duly agreed and off we went to find it, sadly he went to find the one in terminal B and I in terminal A. Twenty minutes later we both got to A only to be told he couldn’t sign me in unless our final destinations were the same, they were not as he was off to Malaysia
So having been rejected entry to the first class lounge we did what every loud and slightly drunken English men do in that situation… We ask to speak to the manager.
Instead we spoke to the supervisor.
There are many ways to describe Halouwa the supervisor, none of them pleasant. This was a lady that had a set of rules and she was going to apply them vigorously, no amount of charm got us anywhere, not that we tried any.
We were faced with a decision pay £200 for access for half an hour or give up and part ways. A1 offered to pay but he is a generous guy, I opted for further escalation and demanded to see her boss… We were taken to the floor above and met Karen the grande fromage!
Karen couldn’t have been any different, she quickly agreed it was ridiculous and offered me free entry.
Shrugs 1 rules 0!
Now the first class lounge is something to behold, larger than Birmingham Airport it had its own shopping area, showers, spa, massage tables and of course a silver service restaurant and having only 30 minutes or so we made straight for it with a quick pitstop at the toilet to steal travel packs of razors, toothbrushes etc you never know when these things are going to be useful.
Passing on the champagne I chose a delicious and extremely expensive red to accompany my steak, this is the way to travel. The steak was good I’d say very good but the chef clearly only understood the medium part of medium rare and didn’t have the time to wait for a new one. Having washed it down with the rest of the bottle, hugged A1 and thanked him for the hospitality and agreed to meet him in Singapore on Saturday night… Yep I land in HK on Saturday and already I am agreeing to fly to another country just for the night.
Goodbyes said, I ran (shuffled as quickly as my fat ass can) to get my flight, I’d left myself 20 minutes to get across 2 terminals and find my gate… Great work Shrugs!
Again the gods were on my side as I arrived ten minutes later expecting to be begging to get on board, alas the flight had been delayed in disembarking and so I had a wait to board phew!
The next seven and a half hours were a story of unremarkableness, save that I sat next to an African that wore his huge overcoat for the entire journey. I managed a couple of naps and watched some awful films whilst declining offers of food or drink as I’d frankly had enough.
We landed in foggy Hong Kong about an hour late at 3pm leaving me 4 hours to get a power nap before meeting another friend of mine who lives here, no problem I’d been here once before on a very drunken weekend so I can navigate the quickest route myself, who needs taxis?
Standing in the immigration queue I heard the first of what will be a never ending stream of “you so taww (tall)” and “how taww you?”… I hadn’t even left the airport!
Shrugs out