In less than a week our company’s  B744 service  between Hong Kong and Vancouver will be replaced by the B777ER. Remember I witness the very first B744 joining the company some 19 years ago, by then it was the most advanced aircraft which helped the company to fly  from HK to Europe(e.g. London Gatwick) non-stop with a full flight. And also opening the non-stop flight across the Pacific to Los Angeles. After I have moved to Vancouver I only fly with the B744 back to HK untill about 4 1/2 years ago the company also introduced the A340 aricraft on the route. Frankly either operate as a crew or travel as a passenger, I still prefer the B744, the more powerful engines fly faster, the design of the aircraft helps to make the turbulance less noticable, the larger fuselage makes it more reliable and comfortable specially the First class cabin at the nose area……a more private and distintive cabin…..

some B744 I have flown with…

During the days at the HongKong KaiTak Airport

However life has to move on, so as the technology, today the newer engines from the B777 can save more fuel and be more enviromental friendly, specially for the routes across the Pacific Ocean,. While being excited to the new aircraft, I still miss the B744  and the privilege to have worked on  it  - once the ‘Queen of the Sky’

Had 2 Birthday dinner, a Shanghainese on Mon while a Cantonese  on Tue and eventually  the first one turned out to be a Peking Duck dinner….

Frist night Shanghai River Restaurant Richmond BC

started with Xiao Lun Bao Dumplings, 小籠包

  then the Peking Duck skin wrap 片皮鴨

then another  stir-fried duck meat wrap with cabbages 鴨鬆

soup stir-fried shrimp清炒蝦

and a Very deep fried fish in sweet and sour sauce with pine nut 松子魚

2nd Night – Golden House Seafood Restaurant Vancouver BC

Stuffed Crab-Shell with Portugal sauce葡汁蟹蓋

Shred Chix with Jelly Fish 海折手絲雞

stuffed crab pincer炸蟹鉗

braised ox tail  with radish蘿蔔牛尾

it goes with rice perfectly

veggie and sweet soup   

Last but not least……..Birthday cake….HK style Fruit cake

This year  I’ve been very intersted in meeting with  old friends,  Ex co-workers,  old buddies…seeing how we have grown since the first day we met. Some of them having their own family, working hard professionally, spending all their time with their family members and raising up their young children; compare to the life-style I’ve choosen it’s a big difference……anyway

On Sun afternoon I went to have Tea with a group of ex co-workers from Vancovuer at the LGB Salon de thé IFC mall, though Macarons their famous snack, I can’t really appreciate it even I am a sweets lover….since they are really really SWEET. Anyway the place serves really nice coffee and Tea .

one of my friend having the Cafe Latte

While the Fleurs Tea (Mirabelle flavour, orange blossom, jasmine flowers & red rose petals) was my choice

a High Tea set for two @ HKD360

the famous Macarons which I don’t really appreciate wtih some nice cakes

All day breakfast #1 egg-white omelette

#2

Last week while I was surfing the Group of the  FaceBook I eventually found my old schoolmate from HighSchool(I guess we used to called Secondary School or Middle School  in HKG) who I havn’t seen for ages… Sometimes with this new internet social networking you can really meet up with old friends other than just new ones. Since I have also joined the group of my Elementary School(Primary School) just wonder if I could also meet up with the old schoolmate from there, though I think the chances are slim as …. we do look very different as an adult to a small kids so many years ago…..

My Primary School

My Secondary School(used to be a all Boy school, eventually changed to a co-education years later after I left)

And today it’s the Mid-Autumn Festival one of the biggest Chinese traditional festival  other than Chinese New Year. In HKG I bet it’s the hottest one they have had so far as the temperature was 33C during the day while Taiwan has their Wet one as a Typhoon passing over . Here in Vanocuver..the weather is warm and fine not a typical day during the  Fall (Autumn) period. Anyway it’s a festival that family reuion, something like a Thanksgiving?? Of course there is no Turkey but MoonCake……

I love changing my mobile phone  every 1 1/2 to 2 years, but this year I got 2 new phones within 2 weeks time…..

the first one is the Nokia N82 which I got it 2 weeks ago though it’s not the latest model – actually it’s been out to the market for over 7 months, I just like its 500mp DC fuction…and some positioning fuction as well…but the most important is the price has dropped a lot since it first launches….

and last thurs  while I was hanging around at the company building, at the crew lounge there’s a promtion boot set up by a HKG mobile service provider  promoting thir special deal for the iPhone, I didn’t pay much attention of it, though i did get a borchure and study it at my hotel room since they was too many people there. The next day I went down to the boot and found that the boot was  not busy, therefore after a long enquiry witht he sales people there, I decided to get an iPhone with 0 payment for the phone and just need to have a new 2 years service contract with them , plus enjoying the special offer of no prepayment which they are offering.

Therefore I eventually got 2 new phones in 2 weeks……….hm……..one to be used exclusively at home and the other in HKG……….?

wow it’s been a few weeks since my last entry and even the Olympic 2008 is closed for over a week……what have I done lately??????

Actually I had attended an aircraft conversion training over the past week since the company will use the B773ER aircraft to operate the YVR route therefore we have to attend the classroom training for the safety and serivce procedures and of course the hightlight of this kind of training is to opeate the flight as a training purpose cos this is the only chance for us outport base crew to fly around in the Asia, while some of my  co- workers do have a chance to operate some over night flight within the region, I had a MNL(Manila) turnaround flight, actually since my induction training, to my Airbus conversion, to my promotion, and my progression training, I had this MNL turn…..over the past 9 years….Frankly I really don’t mind to just operate flights to MNL, however to tell you the truth, my feet have never touched the land  of the Philipines but the airport building so it would be nice to have a night stay in some different cities. Anyway this time I even didn’t step on the airport cos I was quite busy to change the meal into the oven and preparing other stuff while the aircraft was on ground in MNL.

And the flight turned out to be a very nice one, since my friend was able to swap into the flight to fly with me though we’re not working in the same cabin, and the crew who worked with me  were very nice ,  the flying time MNL to HKG was slightly over an hour and we served  over 320 pax with hot food and drinks, on this sector we also received a couple of compliments by pax in writing which was very encouraging……