Hanoi Rocks

So my work trip to Asia is all booked now. It's going to be a hell of a journey - 27-30 hours each way. It will totally be worth it, though, so I've just got to suck it up.

On the way to Hanoi, the usual routing via Toronto and Hong Kong was sold out, so I'm going via Toronto, Vancouver, and Seoul. I don't mind that, though - it'll be good to have the journey broken up and a chance to stretch my legs before starting the trans-Pacific flight (Vancouver to Seoul is 11 hours, but Toronto to Hong Kong takes 19!). I'll arrive in Hanoi around 11 pm on a Saturday night, so I can go straight to bed - and I have all the next day to recover from the jet lag, as our meetings won't start till Monday.

I'll be leaving Hanoi on Friday evening, and flying to Hong Kong. I've booked myself at the Salisbury Hotel, run by the YMCA in HK. Our project people use this hotel a lot and it's quite the little gem - in the centre of the action in Kowloon, right next door to the famed Peninsula Hotel, and doesn't cost a fortune (a rarity for Hong Kong). Anyway, I'll have two nights there (the second under my own steam) - so I'll have all day Saturday and Sunday morning to check out the city. I catch my flight for Toronto in the late afternoon on Sunday. I get back to Halifax around midnight that night, local time...and I'll probably have to go to work the next day. Argh. But that's not going to put me off taking an extra day for myself in HK. I'd have liked to spend more time there (who knows when I'll get back to Asia again?) but don't have enough holiday entitlement to do so, unfortunately.

I've borrowed a bunch of guidebooks from the public library, and am already planning my shopping excursions. I'm thinking it will probably be safe to leave the buying of Christmas presents until very late this year...